Piper rushed towards Nate as he lay silently on the bed, quickly loosening the cuffs securing him after throwing a sheet over him to cover his nakedness. He was unresponsive the whole time she was undoing his restraints, his eyes glassy and unfocused. She turned back to Cait, pointing angrily behind her. "What did you do to him, Cait?"

Cait chuckled. "Calm your tits, love, it's just a little Med-X. Makes you mellow. You should try it some time – seems to agree with your boyfriend there."

"He's not my boyfriend!" Piper snapped. "You sober him up right now so we can leave!"

"Can't do that," Cait said with a shrug. "He'll have to come down by himself. You can stay and wait if you like. Maybe you and I could do something to pass the time together?"

"Never in a million years," Piper said flatly, extending her middle finger at Cait as she returned her attention to Nate. "How long ago did you dose him?"

"Don't see the point in telling you that –" Cait began, before Piper cut her off.

"How long?" she snarled. "Tell me!"

Cait's eyes flickered with gleeful intent. "I love it when you show me your teeth, princess," she said. "He's been out a couple of hours." She chuckled again. "What a fuckin' lightweight. Wouldn't know it to look at him, would you?"

"I wouldn't know," Piper said. "I don't do chems."

"Pity," Cait said, a wistful edge to her voice. "I'd love to see you high."

"I'm happy to disappoint you," Piper said with a scowl. "Help me dress him and I'll get him out of here."

"Oh, you're no fun," Cait huffed, sticking her tongue out for a moment before she crossed the room and picked Nate's underwear and crumpled vault-suit off the floor, then dumping them on the bed beside him. "Here. You can take him if you like."

"Aren't you going to help me?" Piper asked.

"And miss out on watching you try not to look at him? It's like you don't even know me," Cait said, sighing theatrically. "Come on, princess, he's not going anywhere unless you take him."

Piper scowled. "Fine," she said. "We'll be gone in five minutes."

"Is that so? I think I should time you," Cait said as she leaned against the wall and folded her arms. "Give you something to aim for, maybe?"

"Fuck you, Cait," Piper said, grasping the edge of the sheet covering Nate and heaving it off, her eyes screwed shut. She knew he was face up, and she really didn't want to see anything more than she needed to see. Reaching for the shoulder furthest away from her she pulled and heaved until his muscular frame started to shift. She pulled harder and breathed a sigh of relief when he flopped onto his stomach, a small grunt escaping from his slack lips. Okay, she thought, opening her eyes before grabbing his briefs and fitting first one leg then the other into them, and shifting them slowly up to his thighs until they were as high as she could get them, front and back. She checked they were secure before she repeated the process with the vault-suit. Before she zipped up the front of the suit, however, she caught sight of what looked like a faded bullet wound on his shoulder, a relic of a war long over. Her fingers hovered over it for a second before she snatched them back, shocked at herself for merely entertaining the idea, even if only for a moment. She definitely would not have tolerated him doing that to her when she was in no position to object, so she had to extend Nate the same courtesy. She resolved to ask him about it later, when he was in better shape.

Nate stirred then, his eyes flickering open. There was not much behind them except bleary disorientation, but she supposed that was to be expected. She had never overdosed on anything in her life, besides the occasional hangover, but she had seen what Jet overdoses looked like when Charlie had over-indulged, and they had not been pretty. She put a hand on Nate's chest to keep him from moving, but he managed to reach up to her face, looking confused. "Nora?" he said, echoing what he had said to her when they had first met. As she had done then, she pushed his hand away gently.

"Easy there, big guy," she said, her voice low and soft. "Let's not do that again, okay?"

"Your boyfriends always call you the wrong name after a bad night?" Cait said, snickering.

Piper scowled. "For the last time, he's not my boyfriend!"

"If you say so, princess," Cait laughed. "You keep thinking that if it makes you feel better."

Piper didn't respond to that in any way except to give Cait the finger before she gently helped Nate to his feet and draped his arm over her shoulder. She felt almost crushed under his weight and for a moment found herself wondering why she was bothering to help this man, yet again. What was it about him that made her feel so duty-bound to keep him out of trouble when he seemed so determined to get himself into it?

She decided she was just a glutton for punishment and left it at that. There would be plenty of time for self-reflection when she had got him out of Cait's lascivious clutches and taken him somewhere safe – although where she was going to find somewhere safe at this hour was a problem all on its own. The old abandoned Boylston Club was comparatively close by, so if she could get him there in one piece, they could at least lay low until he was fully aware of his surroundings again. There was also plenty of room for them both to get some sleep in relative privacy, so they wouldn't have to worry about being ambushed in the night by crafty raiders or opportunistic feral ghouls.

"Come on, Nate," she said through gritted teeth, "let's get you somewhere safe…"

Nate blinked. He sat up with a start, only to immediately wish he hadn't as his brain immediately protested violently at being moved so quickly. Spikes of pain flared white-hot at his temples and he felt vomit rising in the back of his throat, which he could not contain, splattering it all over the worn and dusty floorboards of… wherever he was. He couldn't make out very much in the low light filtering through the boards covering the windows, but it definitely wasn't where he had been the night before. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying desperately to remember what had happened the night before, only a few scant details hovering tantalisingly at the edges of his mind.

"Morning, sleepyhead," said a voice he hadn't ever expected to hear again from behind him. He turned in its direction, suddenly acutely aware of both the puddle of vomit on the floor and of the small splatter of it that was on his chin. He wiped it away with the back of one hand, a tinge of embarrassment running up and down his spine for a moment. "Have a good night?"

"My head is killing me," Nate said, holding his palm to the right side of his face. "Also I puked. Sorry about that."

"I have a sense of smell, you know," Piper said as she crossed the room, stood in front of him and offered him a glass of water and a couple of nondescript circular tablets. "Don't worry. These'll fix you up lickety-split and then we can leave that mess for the rad-rats to clean up."

"What're these?"

"Just aspirin," Piper told him with a wry smile. "I know it's not much, but it's the best I had on me. Drink up, cowboy." She sat down on a plain wooden chair off to his right, crossed her legs and folded her hands over her uppermost knee. "So, do anyone you regret last night?"

Nate was puzzled by that phrasing. "Don't you mean 'do anything'?"

"No, I meant exactly what I said," Piper replied. "Do you know where I found you?"

"Last place I remember being was the Combat Zone," Nate said. "So where did you find me?"

"The Combat Zone," Piper told him,"handcuffed to Cait's bed. You never told me you liked redheads."

"I don't," Nate paused, dragging his hands down his face in embarrassment. "God, I must have been so wasted."

"I wouldn't blame yourself too much," Piper said. "Cait dosed you with Med-X on top of the booze. You were so far gone you thought I was your wife again."

"I did?"

"Yeah. Good thing you were high, or I might have been upset – I guess I was more worried about what Cait had done. I thought maybe she'd hurt you or something. I saw a couple of bruises on your chest but I figured they were from… well, you know." She laughed. "Nice hickey, by the way. Cait obviously likes you."

"What?" Nate asked, his hand involuntarily going to his neck.

"Other side, honey," Piper corrected him with a lopsided smile. "I hear rubbing toothpaste on those things makes the marks go away faster, by the way."

"I always used to use a coin," Nate replied. "No chance of that now, I guess. Haven't seen a single coin since I thawed out."

Piper reached into one of her coat pockets and brought out a handful of caps. "Caps are about the same size as coins, right?" she asked. "Why not use one of these?" She held one out, which Nate took between his forefinger and thumb.

"Sounds like a plan," Nate said, pressing the cap to his neck and trying to stretch the skin around the bruise with the fingers of his free hand, but – frustratingly – he couldn't quite get the correct angle to really get the whole of the hickey.

"I could help you with that –" Piper suggested before she abruptly stopped herself mid-sentence. "If you're really in need, that is. Not that you don't look capable, but –"

"It's okay, Piper, I'd appreciate the help. Tell you what, you stretch the skin, I'll move the cap."

"Sounds like a plan," Piper echoed, before she stepped forward and put her fingers on Nate's neck, gently pulling the edges of the hickey out as much as she could. Her fingertips were colder than he was expecting, and he instinctively before he could catch himself. Piper pulled her hand back, an apologetic look on her face. "I'm sorry," she said, apologetically. "Did I hurt you?"

"No, your hands are just a little cold, that's all. I wasn't expecting that."

"Oh," Piper said, looking relieved. "Well, you know what they say – cold hands, warm heart."

"I guess so," Nate said with a smile. "Shall we try it again?"

"Sure," Piper replied, rubbing her hands on her coat a few times, presumably to try to warm them up a little. "Let's do it." She put her fingers on his skin again, as delicately as before, while Nate rubbed the reddened patch with the cap. He didn't know how much it would help, but it was better than nothing. After all, he had had too much trouble with hickeys in high school to want to deal with them as an adult. Nora had been very fond of giving them to him, much to his chagrin.

After a few minutes of continuous motion, he asked "How's it looking?"

"Like a hickey after a couple of idiots rubbed a cap on it," Piper said flatly. "I think you might be stuck with this for the next few days."

"Damn," Nate said. "At least I don't have any classmates around to make jokes about it, I guess."

"High school was rough for you, huh?"

"It's rough for everyone," Nate said ruefully, scratching at the back of his head. "Did you have school where you grew up?"

"Not in the way you did, I bet," Piper replied. "Dad taught me how to read and write, and how to do basic math. He died before he could teach me anything about history or art, so I had to fill in the blanks later – most of the books he left me were trashy romance novels." She laughed when she saw what Nate realised must have been his obvious surprise. "What can I say, Dad was a complicated man." She fell silent for a moment, apprehension creasing her brow. "What about your dad? What was he like?"

"My dad? He was a banker and he worked very long hours in the city. He was almost always gone before I woke up in the mornings and home after I'd gone to bed. We could only really hang out at the weekends, so he'd always try making it up to me by taking me to a baseball game or the park to play catch, or even sometimes playing holotape games with me – Red Menace was his favourite. He even painted Captain Cosmos on my bedroom wall because he knew I loved the show."

"Seriously?" Piper asked, visibly impressed. "Was it good?"

"Yeah – I was shocked when I saw it," Nate said. "I couldn't believe my boring old banker dad had such a talent for art. He must have been desperate to paint something for me, and when he finally got his chance he put his heart and soul into it." He smiled at the memory for a moment. "I hope the people who moved in after we left didn't wallpaper over it straight away."

"I hope so too," Piper said, laying a hand on his arm in sympathy. "It sounds like it was really special to you."

"It was. It made up for all the times he couldn't be around – no matter how late he got in or how early he left, I always had something there to remind me of how much he cared. It was still on my wall the first time I brought Nora home to meet my folks."

"That must have been a fun experience," Piper said. "What did she think about it?"
"Believe it or not, she loved it," Nate said. "She was as big a dork as me, at least in private."

"Only in private?"

"She'd built herself a reputation as being a hardass," Nate explained. "She told me she'd been bullied a lot by the popular kids at her elementary school so she decided to hide anything that would have made her a victim in public. In private she was such a geek. She had a full set of Captain Cosmos baseball cards, all the collectors' edition holotapes of the show and shelves full of action figures."

"Action figures? You played with them together, didn't you?"

"No, but we did spend hours listening to her holotapes. I'd bring along my Silver Shroud tapes and we'd just lie on her bed losing ourselves in the stories."

Piper raised an eyebrow. "Really. I get the feeling that's not all you did."

"As it happens, it wasn't," Nate said. "Sometimes we'd even play Blast Radius together."

"Sounds wild. You two were real party animals, huh?"

"Hey, whatever works, am I right?" Nate replied. "What about you?"

"What about me?" Piper said, looking slightly taken aback.

"Was there ever a… Mister Piper?"

"No. Never really had time for it, especially once I got the paper up and running. Plus I had Nat to look after – she was barely five when we arrived in Diamond City so she needed a lot of care. Couldn't take her anywhere without her sticking her fingers in something she shouldn't and getting herself into trouble. I'd usually have to buy whatever she picked up because her hands were always dirty."

"That must have been pretty expensive."

"That's an understatement," Piper said. She laughed. "I got really good at making mutfruit jelly sandwiches, though. Probably why Nat has such a sweet tooth now."

"That'll do it," Nate agreed. "Mom didn't let my brother and me eat anything too sugary when we were boys. I really made up for it when I got old enough to buy my own doughnuts, that's for sure."

"You ate too many of them, didn't you?"

"Let's just say I remember going to the doughnut stand and the next thing I remember is waking up at home with a three-day gap in my memory."

Piper burst out laughing. "Oh, you did not," she spluttered through her laughter.

"I really did," Nate insisted. "If I could find my old medical records I'd show you the hospital bill."

"I may take you up on that offer one day," Piper said, before her face lit up. "Say, is that how you got that scar on your lip?" She gestured to the side of her mouth that corresponded to where the mark on Nate's face was. "Did you get into a fight? Or was it something more recent?"

"Not quite," Nate said. "Cut myself shaving. It hurt so bad I grew a beard for about a fortnight before I realised how much I hated facial hair and took some clippers to it."

"Well, that's… surprisingly honest," Piper told him. "I was expecting you to spin some kind of hero's story, like maybe you were fighting off a bunch of Chinese spider-robots or running through a hail of gunfire just to save a puppy."

"Mom always told me I should never lie to impress a girl," Nate said. "She always knew if I wasn't telling the truth anyway, so I took her word for it."

"You don't have to lie to me to impress me, you know," Piper told him. "I think you've proven yourself pretty impressive already." She froze for a moment, flushing bright pink as she clearly realised what she had just said. "That is – I mean –"

"I know what you meant. Don't worry about it," Nate said, reaching out and taking hold of her hand, feeling her pulse slowing slightly. "You impress me too. Starting your paper, looking after your little sister, swearing at the mayor… and how many times have you saved my bacon so far?"

"At least three times," Piper said, sounding relieved. "Not that I'm keeping track or anything."

"Glad to hear it," Nate replied. "I think I'd probably end up owing you a pile of caps."

"You already do," Piper told him. "You never paid me back for that treatment I paid for in Diamond City. Or for the drink I bought you."

"What about that typewriter I got you? That cost more than the drinks and the stimpak put together."

"Yeah, about that," Piper began, looking guilty, "I kinda… well… I kinda sold it right after you left."

"What?"

"I was still really mad at you, and I thought I'd never see you again, so I sold it back to Myrna and gave Nat the extra caps."

"Guess I can't blame you for that," Nate said. "I did deserve the talking-to."

"You did," Piper replied, "but I think that you're not… completely an asshole. Just don't kiss me again without asking first, okay?"

"You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

"Never," Piper said, with a chuckle. "So you want to get out of here?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Nate said. "Just let me get my stuff together and we can be out of here lickety-split."

"Hey!" Piper exclaimed. "That's my line!"

"Is it?" Nate said. "Must be picking stuff up from you, I guess."

"Apart from a sense of self-preservation, of course."

"Give it time," Nate said, before checking the map on his Pip-Boy. "So where should we go next?"

"Honestly, I really want to get back to Diamond City to check on Nat," Piper said with a sigh, "but I don't think you're really ready to be left alone just yet, so I'm going to have to stick with you for now." She craned her neck to get a good look at Nate's map. "Hey," she began, "Hubris Comics is close by. Maybe I can find the last issue of that Silver Shroud book they had going before the war."

"You like comic books?"

"Sure," Piper said, cocking her head to one side. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No – of course not," Nate said hesitantly. "I just haven't had anyone around to talk about them with me since I thawed out. I miss going to the store every week to pick up the latest issue of Grognak The Barbarian or Unstoppables."

"You have back issues of Unstoppables? I love those!" Piper exclaimed, clapping her hands in excitement. "I have a stack of them back at my house – I had to hide them under my bed in case Nat tries to trade them for candy again, though. She did that with issue one of The Invincible Grognak and I haven't been able to convince Myrna to sell it back to me yet."

"Maybe she thought it was a good investment?" Nate suggested. "Was it in good condition?"

"Still had its original wrapper and trading card," Piper said with a rueful smile.

"Ouch," Nate said. "I don't think you're going to see that issue ever again."

"I think you're right." Piper aimed a thumb at the door. "Shall we see if we can find a new one?"

"Only if we get to share it."

"Deal," Piper said, sticking out her hand. "Shake on it?"

"Absolutely," Nate said as they made their mutual promise. "Now let's get out of here…"

The way to Hubris Comics had been relatively uneventful, but now Piper and Nate were inside the store trouble had found them.

Piper put two shots directly in the chest of a feral ghoul as it charged towards her, causing it to crumple into a tangle of emaciated limbs. Beside her, Nate was doing the same, calmly dropping ghouls with precise headshots until the floor of the store was littered with festering bodies.

"Well, that wasn't the kind of welcome I used to get here," Nate said as he shouldered his rifle. "Joe was a much better owner when he was human." He pointed to one ghoul slumped against the wall, its head missing a large chunk of bone. "That's him there." He walked over to the body and raised one of its spindly limbs so she could see a barely-visible tattoo of Captain Cosmos on the corpse's forearm. "Sorry, buddy. See you on the other side."

"Did you know him well?" Piper asked, intrigued.

"We saw each other every week. After a while we developed an understanding," Nate explained. "We weren't best friends, but Nora and I did invite him to our wedding. He couldn't come, but he did say he appreciated the offer."

"That's a shame," Piper said. "He must have been flattered you asked him, though."

"Probably," Nate replied. "We never did get to ask him about it before the war came." His gaze flickered away from her for a moment, focusing on something behind her. "Wait… is that what I think it is?" Before Piper could process what was going on he had almost sprinted past her and behind the counter to a sealed glass case, cracks spider-webbing their way across its panels. It had an elaborate lock on it, but instead of tackling that Nate simply smashed the glass with the butt of his rifle and drew out a huge axe with a gleaming, uniquely-shaped blade at its uppermost point.

"Oh my God," she breathed. "I had no idea that was here."

"Me neither," Nate said. "Looks like Joe was holding out on us both. Still, waste not, want not, right?"

"Absolutely," Piper agreed as Nate tried to find a way of securing the axe across his back so that he had his hands free, before settling on simply jamming it between his leather armour and his Vault-suit, grimacing for a moment as the haft of the weapon settled between his shoulder-blades. "You'll have to let me hold that later."

"Sure, when we're out of here," Nate said, before he gestured at the door to the stairwell at the back of the room. "Let's check upstairs – if I remember correctly, Joe used to keep some of the rarer issues in boxes on the second and third floors. He thought it was a good way to get people to look at more things so they'd spend more money." He smiled. "It worked, too – I always left this place with more stuff than I'd intended to buy. My allowance didn't last me long."

"Guess that's not a problem now," Piper said, returning Nate's smile. "I think you should take this opportunity to fill your pockets with everything you can carry."

"You know what, I might just do that," Nate said, before the two of them climbed the stairs and found a couple more glass cases and ragged ferals. Once they had been dealt with, Nate pocketed some Silver Shroud cards and took another flight of stairs up to the top floor. Unease settled in at the back of Piper's mind as the sharp tang of tainted, blistered air filled her nostrils. "Nate –" she began, before he held up his hand, his fist clenched.

"I know," he whispered, before pointing at the screen towards the back of the room, where a screen with a matte painting of a city skyline was standing precariously behind a camera and what looked to be a Silver Shroud costume on a mannequin. She was surprised at that particular development, but filed it away for later. "Look." Piper followed his finger and could just about make out some wispy tendrils of green vapour rising to the ceiling, and her stomach sank.

It was a glowing one.

Shit.

"Can we leave with it knowing we're here?" she said in the same hushed tone.

"We can try," Nate said, starting to turn when a phlegm-choked bellow rang out from behind the screen, rousing the three shambling ferals who hadn't noticed them up to this point to look around themselves and fixing their milky eyes on the two encroaching humans, gurgling roars tearing themselves free from decaying throats. "Or not." He raised his rifle and aimed at the knee of the closest ghoul as it rushed towards the top of the stairs, shredding the joint and making the ghoul fall across the stairway, still hissing with rage as its fellow ghouls tripped over and sprawled on the floor, powdery bones splintering and poking through their paper-thin skin.

And then Piper saw the glowing one. It was huge and bloated, its torso engulfed by pulsing, lurid tumours, and its eyes shone even more brightly than the rest of its body, with putrid radioactive vapour seeping from their sockets. It stalked towards them, twitching and drooling as it did so, completely unconcerned with the mound of dead and dying ghouls clogging the stairs. "Food," it gurgled.

Piper was stunned. She had never heard a glowing ghoul speak before. She risked a glance at Nate and could tell he was as shocked as she was – usually when they were as severely irradiated as this one, they were usually gibbering wrecks that could barely function. She swiftly put that thought away as it charged, its ragged claws extended and ready to peel her skin off. To her surprise she saw Nate backing up a little and had to scramble to keep up with him as she realised what he was doing. The swollen ghoul was boxed in by the narrow staircase and was incapacitated by the same tactic as the others, both of its legs turned into mist. It lay on the stairs, still growling and frothing at the mouth.

"Food," it hissed again, apparently unaware of its missing limbs.

"Not today, pal," Nate retorted, grabbing the haft of Grognak's axe and dropping the blade onto the ghoul's neck, slicing it off neatly and causing the body to stop twitching. When he was sure it was dead, Nate returned the axe to its makeshift sheath and gestured towards the top floor. "After you," he said, motioning for her to go ahead of him.

"Such a gentleman," she said, humouring him as best she could after the brief skirmish and the shock of hearing a monster speak. She was only in front of him for a moment, however, as he made a beeline for the mannequin and the costume that was draped over it.

"I don't believe it," he breathed, trailing his fingertips reverently across its lapels and neckerchief. "I heard Hubris were filming a Silver Shroud show, but I didn't think the costume would still be here." He grabbed the hat and carefully took the rest of the suit off the mannequin, unwinding the neckerchief and folding the waistcoat and pants across his forearm.

"Wait," Piper said, a little confused. "What are you doing? You're not going to sell that, are you?"

"Are you nuts?" Nate retorted. "I'd never sell this. I'm going to wear it."

"Aren't you a little old for dress-up?" Piper said, folding her arms. "I grew out of that when I was five."

Nate frowned. "This costume isn't just a costume. From what I read before the war, this thing was fully armoured because the production crew didn't want to risk Keith McKinney's health on-set."

"What? Why would filming a TV show be that dangerous?"

"There was an accident on set during the filming of the Captain Cosmos show," Nate explained. "A cast member died because a blank misfired, so I guess the producers of this show wanted to avoid history repeating itself."
"Why go to this much trouble?" Piper asked, feeling more confused with every word she was hearing. "Why not just… not shoot things?"

"You have a lot to learn about TV," Nate laughed. "I'll have to tell you more about it sometime. Now wait here while I change." He headed behind the screen and Piper could hear the sound of his pack, weapons and armour being dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. She waited for a few minutes, hearing Nate swear a couple of times before he stepped out from behind the screen, dressed from head to toe in black and silver, the suit's accompanying fedora angled down to hide his eyes. "Hold, evildoer!" he intoned in an exaggerated growl as he stood with his feet apart and his fists clenched. "Prepare to face the terrible judgement of… the Silver Shroud!"

It was all Piper could do to stop herself from bursting out laughing. Composing herself she said "You look great, but that voice has to go. You sound ridiculous."

Nate looked up from under the brim of the hat. "That's kind of the idea," he said. "I lull you into a false sense of security, and then bang, you're dead."

"I'm not sure that would work in the real world," Piper said, pursing her lips sceptically. "I mean I could just plug you while you're wasting time doing your bit."

"Oh, you're no fun," Nate said, before his face lit up with what Piper thought looked like inspiration. "Hey, why don't you shoot me?"

"Excuse me?" Piper said, incredulous. "Why would I do that?"

"So we can test whether this thing is as protective as I think it is," Nate replied.

"Do you really have to be wearing it for us to do that?" Piper retorted. "Couldn't we just hang it over a door and shoot it from there?"

"Probably," Nate said, "but where's the fun in that?"

"Fine." Piper drew and fired her pistol twice before Nate was able to brace himself. As he stood frozen in place with an absurd look of shock on his face, both bullets clattered to the floor, having been squashed flat against the coat's armoured lining.

"Holy shit," Nate said, kneeling to pick up one of the bullets and examine it, turning it between his fingers for a moment or two before dropping it again. "That's more effective than combat armour."

"Looks like they really wanted their star to live, huh?"

"Guess they did." Nate glanced down at the front of the coat, which had no marks of any kind that might indicate it had just been used for target practice. "Definitely keeping this thing."

"Can I keep this, then?" Piper asked, holding up a bagged copy of The Invincible Grognak she had spotted in a nearby long-box.

Nate raised an eyebrow. "What happened to sharing? I thought we had a deal?"

"You just got yourself a whole new outfit – I think this is a fair trade, don't you?"

"I see your point," Nate admitted. "Can I at least read it some time?"

"Only if you promise not to leave my house with it under that dumb coat," Piper told him.

"I promise," Nate said, holding up one gloved hand. "Scout's honour."

"Well, okay," Piper said, satisfied, before she gestured to the stairs. "After you."

"You're too kind."

As they were walking towards the entrance of the shop, Nate uttering various Silver Shroud catchphrases as he walked, Piper couldn't help but be touched by how animated he was. It was like he'd found a piece of his past and had got back a little bit of his old normality.

She liked that. He had a nice smile.