A/N: Very minor spoiler concerning Trashcan Carla. Really, it's so small you may never even find it in game.
Technically, Carla should have reported Raina Queen to the Institute weeks before, yet she hadn't. Not yet. Raina had saved her from raiders, which was how they had first met. One moment this huge man was about to break the junk dealer's arm, the next, he was getting his head beaten in with a heavy shovel. The raiders probably wouldn't have killed her—emphasis on the probably—for the same reason that shepherds collected fleeces by shearing their flocks rather than skinning them. Wool grew back; skin didn't. But at her age, broken bones were no joke and might even be worse than killing her outright. So Raina's timely arrival had saved her a world of pain. That counted for something.
So Carla hadn't reported that a new Vault dweller had surfaced, not even though Raina had brought a lot of things with her that the Institute would be very, very interested in. Like roses, rabbits, chickens, and…cannabis sativa. The trader took another toke off the joint and looked at it appraisingly. It was good stuff, very mellow, especially in comparison to the chems they got today. People thought that stuff like chems, meds, and ammo were all old stock, pre-war, without wondering exactly how there was so much left after two hundred years, or why it was still good. The answer was, most of it came from the Clinic. Carla pinched out the joint and tucked the rest of it away for later, then leaned against a rusting car, awaiting Raina's return.
When the younger woman reappeared, she was wearing road leathers and piecemeal armor, with a satchel and canteens slung crossbody over her chest. She had a syringer with her, which Carla frowned at. Syringers lacked heavy stopping power, but who was she to tell Raina how to defend herself? After all, she did have her shovel and the trader could attest to how well she wielded it.
Then Raina's smell reached her. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just so strong. "What is that smell?" Carla asked, backing up.
"Insect repellent," Raina replied. "I make it out of plant oils. It keeps bloatflies, stingwings and bloodbugs at a distance. No good against radroaches, though, or anything else, and you can't let it touch painted surfaces or the finish comes right off."
"I believe that! I don't suppose you have any of that for sale? Hell, if it works you'd have more caps than you could count."
Raina grimaced. "I don't have enough to spare at the moment. Two, three years from now, maybe. Would you like to try it out? I wouldn't want you eaten alive on the road." She held out a little jar with some greenish yellow salve in it.
Carla looked at the stuff. "No. Thank you, though." As bad as it was at ten feet, she did not want to get any closer to it. The smell reminded her of lemon scented Abraxo.
"Well, if you change your mind, I still have it," Raina tucked the jar away, and they hit the road.
"So what's your story, anyhow?" Carla looked over at her companion. "You told me you were fresh out of your Vault when we met, and it was an Envirovault, meant to be self-sufficient, but not much besides that. What about your people? What made you leave?"
"I lost my sister Vicky several months ago. She was up on some rickety scaffolding and one of the bolts sheared through. She fell and hit her head. There were so many places and so many ways she could have landed and been all right, except maybe for some bruising or a broken ankle, but that wasn't what happened. She landed on her head, and I was left alone. We were the last two people in our Vault."
"What, the very last?" Carla asked.
"Yes. There never were very many of us, and the last generation was all girls."
"What about your father?" People resorted to strange measures when the population was dwindling, but Raina didn't show any obvious signs of chronic inbreeding, like six-fingered dwarfism or a lower jaw like a Brahmin's hoof.
"He died before I was born. I can't say I remember my mother, either. There was only me and my two older sisters, and both of them are gone. I'm the sole survivor." She smiled wryly. "My sisters and I looked very much alike. Practically triplets, only born several years apart. It was a shock to find that other people looked so different from us. Of course I knew it intellectually, but emotionally I wasn't quite prepared. I'm still adjusting."
"I'd have thought you all would have left long before that." Carla kicked a hubcap out of the way and watched it disintegrate into a puff of rusty flakes.
"My sister Jo did, when I was five. She never came back, and Vicky was too afraid to try going up to the surface. She had panic attacks just thinking about it. Umm…do you mind if I ask you a question or two? I've only come across a few people since coming upside, other than the ones who are trying to kill me, and you're the only one I can say I actually know."
"Huh. Well, go ahead. Ask away. What do you want to know?"
"I want to have a family," Raina stated. "Understand, I'm not asking how babies are made or what goes where during sex. I know that already, through keeping chickens and rabbits. But until five months ago, I'd never left the Vault. I'd never seen or spoken to a man in my life, and I'm twenty-five."
Twenty-five? She looked a lot younger, on account of not being exposed to radiation. "Then what did you want to know?"
"How you find someone you want to have a family with. Like I said, other than raiders out to kill me, the only people I've encountered are caravaneers like you, their guards, and a couple of settlers. I spoke to them, although I was probably very clumsy about it."
"You didn't…outright ask any of them if they would start a family with you, did you?" Carla asked, slightly horrified.
"No, I'm not that ignorant. Not quite, at least. I know attraction isn't necessary for conception, but it would be nice if I was attracted to someone. I wasn't attracted to any of them, male or female. I mean, maybe I would be happier if I conceived a child with a man but settled down with a woman. I have no reference point either way. I am, however, very sure I'm not asexual."
"Sometimes you sound like a scientist." Carla stated.
"I was trained to be a biologist, even if it was at home."
That explained a lot about Raina. She cast a glance over the younger woman, who was neither a great beauty nor especially plain. If put to it, the trader would have described her as attractive enough. She had an odd, almost greenish cast to her skin tone but her complexion was otherwise nice and clear. Her mouth was too wide and full, her nose and chin too long, but her eyes were beautiful. If she got her hair done in Diamond City and found a pretty outfit somewhere, Raina would turn quite a few heads.
Not that she would need to look good to get offers. She was obviously young and healthy. As soon as people learned she had lived the last twenty-five years in a Vault, she'd be fending off suitors. Carla told her so.
"Why?" Raina asked.
"A lot of babies die on account of birth defects from exposure to radiation. Sometimes they're damaged in the womb, sometimes from their parents being exposed to it before they ever met. I'd say half die before they reach their first birthday. You're pretty much guaranteed to have good genes, so you can pick and choose. Don't throw yourself away. A few caravaneers and their guards, that's not exactly a lot of possible spouses to choose from. Knowing them like I do, since we're in the same business, I'm not surprised you weren't attracted. Get out and meet more people, maybe go to Diamond City, do more talking, get to know them—and don't worry too much about it. When you meet the right one, you'll know." She resorted to the tiredest cliché she knew at the end.
Actually, she was thinking hard about how to get Raina to the Institute. Intelligent, trained as a biologist, gifted in botany—the girl was practically made for the place. The problem was in making sure the Institute treated her right. Now that the old man they called 'Father' was known to be terminally ill, things were going crazy in there. Who knew what they would do? Make a synth of her and get rid of the original? The junk dealer wouldn't put it past them.
"Thank you, Carla," Raina said.
However, it couldn't hurt to lay the groundwork for the Institute here and now. Casting a sideways glance at the younger woman, Carla said, "Of course, it isn't just the babies that die. Sometimes the mother does, too. You'd want to have some kind of medic around, Where do you plan on settling down? Out here?"
"Yes," Raina replied. Her dog came running up with an ancient baseball in his mouth, wanting to play fetch, and she obliged.
"Could be a problem," Carla remarked. "There are places where the living is almost as good as it was before the bombs. Food you don't have to grow yourself, indoor plumbing, central heating, the works."
"I didn't know that," Raina pretended to throw the ball, and her dog ran wild, looking for it everywhere. "Where, exactly? Diamond City?"
"No, but near enough. I don't want to go saying until you're serious about it. Think it over."
"I will. In the meantime," Raina stopped and gestured at the road. They had reached the point where the road to Concord forked off to the left. A dead Brahmin sweltered in the sun there, its bloated stomach heaving despite the chunks missing from its side—.
It burst, and three huge bloatflies erupted from the body cavity. Raina swung into action, grabbing her shovel and swinging it in a deadly arc which splattered one fly across the crumbling roadway. The others dove toward her, but rather than swooping in to bite or shoot maggots at her, they swerved away, giving her a wide berth, heading for Carla. Of course—the insect repellent!
The dog leapt up, snagged on the fly like he had the baseball, and tore it to bits while Raina took down the third and last with her shovel.
Carla watched, then nodded. "You do all right, kid. That insect repellent stuff—mind if I try it now?"
"Not at all," Raina produced the jar from her satchel. "See you in a week?"
"Uh-huh," Carla said, tugging on her Brahmin' harness to turn her down the right road. "Rain or shine."