"I don't understand why we're doing this. Why do I need new clothes again?"

"Because you're way too noticeable in that vault-suit, you knucklehead. We're supposed to be undercover – we don't need you sticking out like a big blue thumb."

"Okay, but I get to pick them. My mom used to buy me the most embarrassing clothes in the universe."

"Uh huh. Good thing we're not looking for fashion now, then, isn't it?"

That had been the exchange which had preceded Nate and Piper's shopping spree for their little covert operation. Daisy's store hadn't had the greatest selection of clothes in the world when they had gone to browse for some disguises, but that had been a blessing in its own way. Piper had described the look they needed to be going for as "wastelander chic", and so the patched, tatty suits and dresses Daisy had warming her shelves had turned out to be exactly what they needed. As they left her store, their new clothes bundled into their respective packs, Piper snapped her fingers, a look of frustration passing across her face briefly.

"Dammit," she said. "We're gonna need somewhere to change, and it's way too late to go all the way back to Diamond City now."

"So why don't we just try staying the night at Hotel Rexford?" Nate asked with a shrug. "I know they're busy, but they might have two rooms free, right?"

"I'd rather not go there," Piper replied, a disdainful edge to her voice. "The Rexford's only good for two things: getting blackout drunk or stoned out of your gourd for a few hours. Staying the night there is like hanging a sign around your neck that says 'please bite me' to all the fleas in the entire world."

"Well, it's either that or we sleep on a mattress in an alleyway," Nate began, "and I'd rather not get caught in a rad-storm if it's all the same to you."

Piper sighed. "Fine," she said pointedly. "You're paying, though."

"Fair enough," Nate laughed. "Clair's a buddy of mine, I'm sure she'll give us a discount."

Nate had been relieved to discover that Clair had actually had more than one room available for rent. The Rexford was infamous for filling entire suites with either rubble from the seemingly never-ending restoration work or sizeable stacks of Marowski's lousy home-brewed chems, before Marowski moved them out of town to his dealers elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Nate knew that Mayor Hancock deliberately turned a blind eye to Marowski's activities as long as it helped to keep the peace in his little town, but he had no doubt that that peace would be won in blood if Marowski stepped even a couple of paces out of line. As much as Marowski liked to pretend he was still a big deal, he was really just a minnow in comparison to Hancock. One slip and he'd end up with his guts lying in a steaming heap on the ground thanks to the mayor's favourite knife.

Nate was always very glad he didn't have to live in this neighbourhood.

Once he had found his door and stepped inside it, he set his pack down on the single tatty chair in the corner, laying the new clothes he had been coerced into buying out on top of it in preparation for the morning and then laid down on the bed after draping his military-issue bedroll over the bare, stained mattress. There was no way he was going to allow direct skin-to-mattress contact, after all – Piper hadn't been wrong when she had pointed out the Rexford's little bug problem. He swore that some of them were large enough to use tools.

Eight hours later, he awoke from a surprisingly restful slumber and gave himself a quick rinse with a damp cloth soaked in some cold purified water – in the absence of an en suite bathroom he reasoned it was the only way he was going to get anywhere close to clean. The old, puckered scar on his right shoulder where he'd been hit by a Chinese bullet during the Battle of Anchorage protested a little at the chill, as it always did, but he ignored it. It was background noise to him now, as far as pain went.

Especially since he'd lost Nora and Shaun. He knew that in reality it had been two hundred years since they had been taken from him, but to him it still felt like yesterday. The wound was still fresh, not even vaguely scabbed over yet, and he didn't know if it ever would. All he could really do was keep himself busy. Maybe this little adventure would do the trick, at least for a while.

He towelled himself off and pulled on his new clothes. They were nothing spectacular, and certainly didn't offer him as much protection as his Vault-suit and armour, but then again he supposed that going in guns a-blazing wasn't what Piper had planned. The shirt, pants and boots were fine, but the hole-riddled denim jacket strained a little against his muscles. Since he would only be wearing it for a few hours at most, though, he supposed it was tolerable enough.

While he was tying the laces of his new boots he heard a knock at the door. "Nate?" came Piper's voice tentatively. "You decent in there?"

Nate stifled a laugh. "As I'll ever be," he said. Crossing the room he unlocked the door and opened it to find Piper standing there dressed in the same kind of worn, decrepit clothes she'd picked out for him, having dispensed with her usual outerwear and tied her hair back underneath what looked like an old-school stetson. He felt a surge of embarrassment when he found his gaze lingering a moment too long on the curve of her hips, which was much more obvious now that she was wearing just a waistcoat and tight, figure-hugging leather pants.

Goddammit, Nate, get it together, he thought sourly. You're not fifteen anymore.

"Morning, slick," Piper said with a smile, apparently having not noticed his unwittingly-wandering gaze. "Ready to go fact-hunting?" She held out a small container with what looked like greasepaint in it, which had a strong, unpleasant odour. "Here, I brought some camouflage for you. My own personal recipe – it really helps to sell your cover story if you smell like a wastelander as well as dressing like one. See?" She dipped her finger into the container and smeared a few smudges of it onto her own face, massaging the gunk into her skin until it looked like the kind of ingrained dirt most raiders seemed to sport like a badge of honour. "When I'm in this get-up you have to call me 'Six-Gun Sally, scourge of the wasteland'." She patted her hip and Nate saw that she had replaced her ten-millimetre pistol with an old-fashioned revolver and a bandolier of .38-calibre bullets which hung loosely around her waist. Touching her hand to the brim of her hat she drawled "Pleased to meet you, cowboy."

"Pleasure's all mine, Sally," Nate replied with a smile. He scooped a dollop of Piper's noxious homemade goo from the container she had given him and dabbed it on his cheeks, following her lead until he could almost feel its stink soaking into his skin. "You can call me…" His voice trailed off. "You know what, just call me Nate. Nobody knows me anyway, so it won't make a difference."

"Come on, Nate, you have to play the game if you want to win it," Piper chided him. "Let me think… how about… Cut-Throat Charlie?"

"Hmm," Nate said thoughtfully. "I don't have enough knives on me for that kind of name. Dead-Eye Dan, maybe?" He hefted his customised rifle and patted the barrel in mock-affection. "Say hello to Sarah-Jane, my one and only."

Piper chuckled. "Okay, big guy, don't get too carried away. Now let's get going – we got a lot of ground to cover."

"Sounds good to me," Nate replied, slinging his gun's strap over his shoulder. "Where are we headed?"

"Bunker Hill," Piper said, before she noticed Nate's perturbed expression and shrugged. "It'll make sense when we get there, I promise. Sometimes you gotta go up to get down, you know?"

Piper always enjoyed the hike to Bunker Hill, especially in the summertime when there was a faint hint of birdsong in the air. Admittedly it was mostly crows fighting over carcasses, but there were some songbirds still around, and it made a big difference to hear just a little bit of life in the decaying sprawl of what had once been Boston. Sometimes it even made her think that the world might one day recover from what humanity had done to it – or at least would allow humans to remain around while it fixed itself.

She looked over at Nate, who was busy struggling with the straps of his pack and his rifle while he fiddled with his jacket, which was clearly bothering him in some fashion. "You okay there, cowboy?" she asked as he tugged at its edges with his free hand.

"No," he replied flatly. "This thing is a little too small. I thought I could deal with it just for a day or so but I guess I was wrong." He grimaced. "At least a few more holes won't make it worth any less, I guess."

Piper pursed her lips. "You could have told me before we left Goodneighbor, you know. I'd have helped you pick out a new one lickety-split."

"'Like I said, I thought I could hack it," Nate said, as he rolled one of his shoulders with a sour expression on his face. A loud ripping sound filled the air as he did so, and he scowled. "Fuck!" he snapped, before dropping both his pack and his gun and then pulling the jacket off completely, revealing a large gap in one of its shoulder seams. He dropped it to the ground where it lay forlornly for a moment before he picked it up and stuffed in into his pack. "Maybe I can fix it up and sell it back to Daisy later," he said as he straightened his back out. Under the jacket he was clad in just a short-sleeved Nuka-Girl t-shirt, and Piper's attention was caught by something etched into his muscular left forearm in fading black ink.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing at it before she could help herself.

Nate looked down at the symbol on his arm, turning it towards himself briefly. "This? It's my old unit badge. My buddies and I all got them after we came back from Alaska, just to celebrate still being alive." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I lost touch with most of them when I was discharged. I hope they made it somewhere safe."

For a moment Piper considered pressing him for more detail, but she decided against it after only a fraction of a second. Instead, she simply nodded and said "Me too," to which Nate responded with a small smile. It was the first time she had seen him do anything like that, and she had to admit it was not entirely unwelcome.

"Thanks, Piper," he said, sounding genuinely sincere. "That's nice of you to say; I appreciate it."

"Well, you're very welcome," Piper told him, putting a hand on his arm and giving it a gentle squeeze of reassurance. "You know you can talk to me if you need to offload anything, right?"

Nate raised an eyebrow, looking understandably sceptical. She had brought that on herself, she supposed. "Do you promise not to put any of it in your paper?"

"Cross my heart," Piper said, tracing an X across her chest. "It'll be totally off the record."

"That's good to know," Nate replied, before he glanced up the road they were travelling. "Say, do you know if there are any new raider outposts around here? I've been through here a few times before doing clean-up jobs for Charlie or Hancock, but things seemed to have gone pretty quiet, last I heard. Any idea why?"

"Sorry, Nate, I couldn't tell you," Piper said after a moment's thought. "My sources usually stay away from raiders unless they want to become the news themselves."

The sudden crunch of concrete under a heavy weight made Nate freeze in place. He put a finger to his lips and ushered Piper into the nearest cover. When they were safely concealed from view, Piper watched the street with her breath hitched in her throat. As she did so the reasons as to why this neighbourhood had gone quiet became abundantly clear.

An adult male deathclaw stalked into the middle of the road, casting rusted cars aside with its massive talons as it swung its head from side to side, presumably trying to catch the scent of something tasty. Then it fixed its burning yellow-eyed gaze in their direction, letting out a deafening roar. As it did so, Piper said one single word.

"Run!"