Chapter 4: And Breathe

The place was run-down and a ghost-town - The whole place seemed to have been deserted and left alone for some time. Maybe it was the fact it was so out of the way, maybe it was because this whole area was Jared's territory. Maybe it was to do with the psychotic Mr Handy who looked like he was going to blowtorch Sturges' face off til Vaultie managed to extract herself from the Power Armour and shout 'Codsworth, they're with me!' At which point the robot had stopped trying to murder them and said with some sort of chipper, high-brow accent that any friend of his mistresses was a friend of his.

He already felt at home.

One of the half-destroyed houses looked as though it had seen some repair. Inside, candles glittered from every surface - giving a soft homey look to the place. Vaultie had obviously been doing some serious inventory though - anything that could be of use was scattered around the sparse living room. Garv had a sneaking suspicion she'd raided the other houses around here for anything that wasn't nailed down.

'I've never heard of this place before.' He murmured as he glanced around the room critically.

Sturges had wandered off, fascinated by it all and determined to take stock, which left Garv and Thea alone. Sturges always was more handyman than raider. Wire usually gave him the jobs that required brains to pull off. He hadn't taken to being a raider as much as some of them had - as much as Garv had.

'I used to live here,' She said simply and turned to face him. 'It was called Sanctuary Hills. The world is….different now. What was that thing I killed?'

'It's called a Deathclaw.' Garv replied. 'People don't usually survive their encounters.'

'Gee, I wonder why.' She gave a mirthless snort and glanced at him in puzzlement, clearly working her way up to a question. 'How did you end up in the museum?'

He groaned and settled back on the musty chair he'd perched on. 'Wire.'

'Wire?' She frowned. 'Who - or what - is Wire?'

'He's an old friend. We joined the Minutemen together.'

'Minutemen?' Thea frowned but there was a tinkle of recognition in there. 'The old militia?'

' "At a minute's notice." ' He quoted.

'So, the minutemen were reformed - what happened?' She sat on the box across from him and he noticed she was trying to give him a penetrating stare, as though saying I know all about you so why don't you tell me what I know in your own words. The long stare with associated paperwork. Which was, when all was said and done, bluffing on a bad hand because Garv knew that she knew nothing about him or the state of the area she had once lived in 200 years ago.

He seemed to freeze up and then said harshly 'None of your business.'

'Garv-'

'We survived an onslaught, Vaultie.' He replied. 'We were lucky. I can't helping you find your kid. I've got shit of my own to do.'

She sat back. 'I used to be a lawyer, you know. Do they still have lawyers in post-apocalyptia?'

'No.' He replied. 'It's close, but it's not quite hell yet. When you got justice on your mind, the only way you're getting it is to mete it out yourself or die trying.'

She grumbled something that sounded like 'Doesn't sound very fair' and Garv once again felt the world was skewed. Of course it wasn't very fair. It was never fair. When you've got starving people and "honest" citizens refusing to pay you for a hard day's work and you have to come home and tell them 'Sorry folks, you won't be eating today.' It wasn't fair.

'You have no clue what it's like out there.' He snapped angrily. 'You think that people give a shit about any starving family but their own?!'

'You sound like you're talking from personal experience.' She commented with infuriating quietness.

He gave her a glare. For being such a nerd, she was quite worryingly observant but he was resolute. His problems were his own and he wanted to keep them as such.

'Anyway,' Thea sighed. 'You're welcome to stay as long as you like. I mean, it's just me here-'

'We won't be staying that long.' Garv grunted. 'We're too close to Concord from here. It's a good place to hide out for a night or two but the longer we wait, the more time that Jared has on knocking at our door with a few choice friends like a Fat Boy. This place looks like it wouldn't even hold up to a sneeze, let alone a raider attack.'

'You're right.' She sighed at last. 'You'd know better than anyone. I need to shore up the defences on this place.'

'Are you seriously thinking about staying here?!' He demanded incredulously. 'Do you know who lives just down the road? The guy who sent all those guys to kill us?!'

'This is my home!' Thea shot back and stood on her feet. 'This is my place. I have Codsworth.'

'What's he going to do? Talk posh at them so they run away scared?' Garv sneered and stood up to loom over her. 'You'll be dead in under a week.'

'You won't help me! And then you belittle me!' She yelled shrilly, under threat from his height. 'This isn't my world!'

'And you are none of my business!' He yelled back, viciously.

There was a pause as the echoes of their voices bounced off the damaged but empty walls around them. Eventually, when their breathing and flushed faces had evened out, she said 'You were chased to Concord, weren't you?'

'Doesn't take a genius to work that out.' He shot back. 'I wouldn't have liked to have gotten stuck there, but it was the only defensible position around.'

'What did you do to this Jared to piss him off that badly?' Thea asked gently.

He made a point to watch her face, studying her reactions as he said 'I was there to kill him, Vaultie.'

A/N: My apologies for being gone for so long, and for such a short chapter. These last few months have been a struggle - not just with creative drain (I've been running three projects at the same time for a little over six month - I was bound to hit the wall) but also due to personal problems/circumstance. Oh and Skyrim. Skyrim's partly to blame too.