I hope I didn't get carried away here. Not too far, at least. I am not too sure about this one, and not too satisfied with how this is coming along. Feedback, anyone?

Make your choices, bear your burdens. Only time will tell if you were right or wrong.

She had wanted to leave all that behind. All those memories, with all the sorrows they brought. But in the end, she had chosen not to. To hold on to the memories, and accept the sorrows as the burdens life had loaded upon her without asking her was she strong enough to bear them.

Cassandra had switched the Radio on her Pip boy to Agatha's frequency and they had made camp listening to soft violin music. Feeling in the right mood tonight, she had undone her armor for the night, and as she emerged from behind the rock, she saw Fawkes look up and smile at her as he got up to meet her. They had not been together that much; their mating was a wild and sensuous, but painful experience for both of them. But they had kissed and… there were other means. Cassandra smiled at the memory of some of them, but tonight she wanted more.

He saw it in her eyes as he took her in his arms, and their lips met in a fierce mélange of denied passion, fear and hunger. True, the beast did not come every time, not after the first three times they had made love, if you could call it that. Sometimes, it would remain hidden, leaving them to enjoy each other in a gentler, more tender way. They never knew, but she welcomed it every time, enabling him to be, for a little while, free of his haunt, and for this, he loved her all the more when the beast did not come.
Tonight? She smiled at him as their lips parted. Would it come? Sometimes, she wished she could not only hold, but enjoy the beast as she did enjoy the man, but her physiology simply didn't allow it. It was the price she paid for loving this particular, extraordinary man.

Yet as they kissed again, the music suddenly was overlaid by a scratching, hissing sound, and they parted, looking at the Pip boy in annoyance. Just as Cassandra was about to switch it off, however, they heard the voice of Elder Lyons.

"Mayday. This is a priority one distress call on all frequencies. This is Elder Lyons from the Brotherhood of Steel. All members of the brotherhood and all friendly allies, we need immediate help at the Citadel. We are being attacked by an army of super mutants and are trapped in what we only can call a siege. I repeat: The Brotherhood of Steel requests help from anyone hearing this message. The Citadel is under attack. Mayday! This is an automated transmission and will repeat itself."
All feelings of lovemaking forgotten, the two stared at each other and with a curse, Cassandra ran to retrieve her armor.
"Can we be there in time?", she asked as she donned her armor and stooped to pick up her helmet.
"Maybe. No single squad of Brotherhood soldiers will be able to break the siege", Fawkes replied as he kicked out the fire. "They have to wait until a large force is gathered to be able to do anything but die honorably."
She nodded and, shouldering their weapons, they set off as fast as they could towards the Citadel.

Cassandra grimaced in pain and, not for the first time, wished that she had died in the fight. But then, again and again, she was reminded of the reason for her decision to live, regret it now as she might, there was no way back. The pain in her body had begun to subside. The pain in her mind would not. She had a festering wound in her soul and knew that one day it would claim her.
Agatha cautiously opened the door. "How are you doing, dear?"
"Not too bad, I guess", she replied. "Not too good, either. But the bleeding seems to have stopped."
"Well, we shall see it as a good sign it didn't get worse, shall we?", the old lady replied and sat down at the side of her bed. "I brought you something to eat."
"Thanks." She was ravenous, as she had been constantly these last few weeks. Constantly hungry, and constantly thirsty.

Agatha watched as she gorged herself and carried the dish away again when Cassandra fell back into the pillows.
How long could they go on like that? She was eating the old woman poor and poorer, she knew that much, but Agatha would hear nothing of her eating less to spare their provisions.
"The next caravan comes", she would say, and would not talk about it anymore.
But they were, in fact, waiting more desperately for the next caravan than they would admit to each other. Being faced with her weakness and illness, Cassandra had finally given in to Agatha's pleading and allowed her to send a message to the Citadel along with the last caravan, to ask for help from the Brotherhood for a lost Knight of their ranks.
Cassandra was sure they would come. But would they come in time?

It had taken them a couple of days to reach the Citadel, in the end they came almost immediately before the relieving attack was about to begin. It was led by Star Paladin Cross, and she hastily amended orders, rearranged the lines and brought them, because of Fawkes' awe-inspiring ability with his Gatling, into the first ranks. They advanced from two sides, to catch the mutants between the claws of their flanks, and Cassandra and Fawkes found themselves at the outer end of the right one, closest to the gate of the Citadel, where the fighting doubtlessly would be thickest.
Moving forward in a crouch, to keep hidden as long as possible, to get as close as they could and attack with the momentum of surprise, they crept forward, and when they stopped, waiting for the command to attack, Cassandra glanced sideways at Fawkes who was staring at nothing, holding his weapon at the ready.

She looked at him, suddenly hungry for him, for his touch, and realized that the last time she had touched him was the broken kiss back there in the wastelands, when the distress call had interrupted every thought of romance. The sudden thought that this might have been the last time she had touched him was unbearable to her, and she cautiously moved a little closer. He turned his head and looked at her, holding out his hand, and she reached out and took it. He squeezed her hand fiercely for a second before letting go again, as if he had been thinking along the same lines as her. They exchanged a long glance that spoke of a promise. If there would be an afterwards.
Cassandra checked her weapon again, there was nothing more to do than wait. But they didn't have to wait for long, for the call came only moments later.

As they attacked, Cassandra followed Fawkes' bloodcurdling battle screams as she jumped across the piles of rubble that had served them as covers, and charged into the mutant army. She soon knew nothing more than aiming, shooting, reloading and looking for the next opponent. But as they advanced, they passed the first bodies of mutants, and, even from the corners of her eyes, something struck her as very odd. She took the time to go down onto her knee beside one of the bodies and take a closer look.
"Fawkes?"
He turned to look at her.
"See that?" And she held up the device that had puzzled her, a small metal frame that had been sitting around the mutants head. It resembled all too much the frames that the Enclave used to control their Deathclaws with. Fawkes saw it too, he came closer and knelt down beside her.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"That, firstly, this is the Enclave's doing", Cassandra replied. "Which is a pretty good explanation as to why the mutants are suddenly able to form an army and launch a coherent attack like that. And that, secondly, if only I had more time and resources, my control scrambler would come very much in handy today."
"We have neither", he replied. "There is nothing else but fight."
She nodded. "Right." And reloading her weapon, she got up again. "Let's go."

Would that she could fall asleep. Cassandra stared at the ceiling again and tried to ban the memories that haunted her, with no success. How many times more would she have to relive these moments of hell?
Why had she not died as well?
She could still feel the ground shake under her, as she had felt it back then.

They exchanged a horrified glance.
"What is that?"
Fawkes shook his head. "I have no idea."
The ground was shaking in a rhythmic pattern, the tremor increasing with every jolt. As if something very, very big was on the move on heavy feet, and coming closer. Even the mutant army fell silent, and in that eerie stillness the booming footsteps, for it could be nothing else, seemed like thunder strokes in an empty cathedral. And then they could see it rounding a corner: Attended by a handful of Enclave soldiers was the biggest behemoth Cassandra had ever seen. Two had she met so far, the one on the GNR Plaza and one in the Capitol, but this one was larger by far. It was a monster so huge it could have stepped across the Hudson in two or three strides.

"We're all dead", a soldier beside her said. "We're dead men walking."

From the corner of her eye, Cassandra saw Fawkes reload his weapon. She did the same with hers, and went into a crouch to have a more steady aim. At that same moment the Enclave soldiers released the monster and it charged into the relieving army, crushing everything that didn't clear its path fast enough, soldier and mutant alike, under its feet.

Cassandra aimed for the monster's head, trying to hit the eyes to incapacitate it, but if it was due to nervousness or bad luck, her aim wasn't true enough, and all she did was to enrage the beast even more as it came charging towards their position.

They took it under massive fire. All forces concentrated their fire on the beast, and it was already bleeding heavily, slowing down, but still carried forward by its hunger for blood, or maybe only by the mind control device meddling with his will it charged onward. Moving aside, dodging and running, and firing again, the Brotherhood tried to encircle the monster without getting crushed, and the frenzied beast screamed and roared as it picked up the body of a dead knight and used it as a club to slay four more of their ranks. Sweating and reloading furiously while taking cover behind the remnant of a broken wall, Cassandra suddenly realized that she had lost sight of Fawkes in the commotion. She got up, rifle in aiming position, and saw him, standing in the beast's path, roaring like a fiend from hell as he fired relentlessly at the beast's head.

"Get away Fawkes!", she screamed, but he was too far away to hear her, and too far away that she could have reached him in time. But even if she had, what could she have done? Frozen to the ground she watched as the behemoth stumbled, still being hit hard by the multiple lasers coming from Fawkes' weapon as the mutant slowly took a few step back. It slowed, stumbled again and slowly, toppled to its knees and over, falling straight forward onto his face. The ground shook, the air rang with the monster's death scream, and as the dust clouds settled, the soldiers of the Brotherhood screamed in victory and the mutants in fury.

But Cassandra just stood there, staring and searching as she slowly sank down onto her knees, until at least, she had to get to grips with the fact the Fawkes was nowhere to be seen. And that this meant the he had not gotten away in time.

He had killed the beast, but it had taken him in return.

The loss of their greatest ally sowed a momentary confusion among the mutants and the few Enclave soldiers accompanying them, and the Brotherhood, revived by this victory, took their chance and attacked. At this moment the forces in the Citadel risked a sally, and caught between two advancing forces, the army was crushed and annihilated within half an hour, even though the Brotherhood suffered heavy losses as well.
And still Cassandra was kneeling there, staring empty-eyed at the behemoth that had taken Fawkes with him to hell, and wondered why she was so cold and could not shed a single tear.

"Cassandra!"
She didn't look up.
"Cassandra! Is that you?" Sarah Lyons reached her side and knelt down beside her. "Are you wounded?"
She mutely shook her head.
"Cass. Have you never seen such a beast?" There was genuine worry in Sarah's voice.
"I have." Was that her voice? She could hardly recognize it. "Two times."
"But what…"
"He's gone."
Sarah leaned closer. "Lost someone?" Her voice was almost gentle now.
Cassandra could only nod.
Sarah was silent for a while. "Are you sure? Maybe we can find him again…"
She shook her head again. "He was buried."
"Cass?"
But she only extended her hand to point at the behemoth.
Sarah followed her pointing finger and took a deep breath. "I see. Was it… was it your mutant friend?"
"Yes." She could only whisper. Why could she only whisper?
"Cass, I'm sorry. I really am." Sarah put a hand on her shoulder. "I know that it is no comfort to you right now, but he has died honorably, and for the Brotherhood. He will be remembered by us, for all times to come, and have a place in our annals. He shall not be forgotten."

Cassandra nodded helplessly, and Sarah left her alone to her grief. As an experienced soldier she knew that there was little anyone could do at this point, but she made a mental note to send a medic over here as soon as she had one to spare, to treat her shock, maybe sedate her a little, bring her back into the Citadel, and take her to a bed where she could rest, have a cry, and come to terms with her loss.

The medic had never found her, nor had anyone else. Cassandra had simply left the battlefield, leaving her weapon and her helmet lying in the dust where she had knelt and watched him die, and with heavy limbs and an even more heavy heart, had just trotted off, neither knowing nor caring where she was going.

Strangely enough, no mutant and no raider, no Rad scorpion nor any other creature had harassed her on her pilgrimage into loneliness. She had dragged herself through the wastes for weeks, until the pain in her body had become unbearable. She didn't know where her armor was, nor would she ever be likely to find it out, as she just had undone it and dropped it, leaving it behind as she had walked onward, diagnosing herself as she did so. Even in her state of mind, her medical training had not been resting, and despite the numbness and emptiness she felt, it had been so deeply rooted inside her that she could not deny, not ignore, what had been happening to her: She was pregnant.

She was pregnant by a dead man.