Nate took a moment to straighten out his shirt before he knocked on the door of Publick Occurrences. Following his departure from Piper's side the previous evening and before paying for his room at the Dugout, he had bought himself a new shirt and jacket, as well as a pair of slightly tatty jeans from Percy at Diamond City Surplus, feeling that he needed something slightly less conspicuous than a vault-suit for a casual breakfast.

Because – as he had assured himself several times already – that's all this was. He was certain he was just overthinking things again, but it was sometimes difficult to shake off nagging doubts. He had never been very good at reading signals which were anything less than blindingly obvious, after all.

After he coughed a little to clear his throat, he saw the door creak open just a touch, a pair of beady little eyes glaring balefully out at him. "Go away, mister," Nat snarled bluntly. "Piper's not going anywhere with you."

"I'll be the judge of that, kiddo," Piper said as she gently moved her little sister aside, tousling her hair despite her vocal protests. She opened the door a little wider and Nate could see that she was dressed in a simple crumpled t-shirt and pyjama bottoms, her feet bare against the shack's floorboards. Her hair was messy and uncombed and her expression was a little haggard, indicating that she had just got out of bed when she perhaps should not have done so. "Come on in, Nate. Let me put some decent clothes on and we can go grab a bite to eat from the Dugout."

Nate smiled, holding up a small bag of various fresh meats and vegetables he had either bought from Polly at Choice Chops or picked from the public plots near the city's outer wall. "No need," he said. "I brought breakfast to you – I hope you like fried mole rat bacon, tatos and mirelurk eggs?"

"I wouldn't say no, if that's what you mean," Piper said, a warm twinkle flickering in her eye.

"Great," Nate said. "You go get dressed and I'll have this all ready to serve before you can say 'room service'."

Piper pursed her lips, looking distinctly sceptical. "Somehow I doubt that," she said, even as the ghost of a smile began to tug at the corner of her mouth, "but I'm hoping you can surprise me."

"So do I," Nate replied. "Wouldn't want to be labelled a liar as well as an asshole, would I?"

Piper laughed. "I guess not." Gesturing to her slightly cramped kitchen area she pointed out her small stove and a couple of pots and pans sitting on a table next to it. "Everything you need is right over there – I like my eggs with a little pepper, by the way."

"Duly noted," Nate said, touching the two fingers of his right hand to his brow in a little salute as Piper began climbing her stairs to get back to her bedroom area. "Get ready to be surprised."

Looking at the mass of food piled on her plate, Piper almost had no clue where to start. It all smelled ridiculously delicious, with even the usually mundane odour of fried tatos somehow rendered more pleasant, but after a moment's thought she picked up her knife and fork and cut herself a small slice of bacon, placing it delicately between her lips. As soon as she did, the flavour and texture of the meat almost overcame her. She had not tasted anything quite like it before, and she felt her eyes involuntarily flaring wide in surprise and shock. Across from her she saw Nate eagerly awaiting her verdict on it, and when she had finished chewing, she said "Oh my God, Nate. Where did you learn to cook like this?"

Nate looked a little concerned for a moment. "Do you mean that in a good way, or –"

"A good way," Piper said, hastily. "Definitely a good way. This is the best bacon I've ever tasted."

Visible relief crossed Nate's face then, and he said "My mom taught me when I was a teenager. She said I needed to be able to start the day right when she wasn't around anymore – came in handy when I was on the front line. My unit always got a good meal before we moved out at first light, even if we were down to our last rations." He laughed. "You wouldn't believe what you can make with a couple cans of bully beef, mashed potato and tomato soup." After taking a bite of his own breakfast and then sipping from a glass of freshly-squeezed tato juice, he continued "My buddies used to call me their magic chef."

"I can see why," Piper said, another explosion of exquisite flavour hitting her tongue as she sampled some of the fried mirelurk egg, the pepper she had requested delicately mixing with some other unidentifiable spices to set her tastebuds alight. "Oh my God," she said again. "I think I've died and gone to food heaven. Promise me you'll do this again tomorrow?"

"I promise," Nate replied, with a smile. "Scout's honour."

"Kinda makes me wonder what other food secrets you've been hiding," Piper said, still feeling a little incredulous. "Do you think you could teach Vadim how to do this? I bet his customers would love it."

"Not sure about that," Nate said. "Vadim doesn't seem like the kinda man who'd take instructions well, you know? I knew a lot of guys like that back in the day."

Piper had to agree with that. Vadim had never really been one for following other people's advice… or maybe he just didn't want to follow her advice in particular, she wasn't sure. She put that aside and said "Well, maybe you could teach me? I'm always ready to try something new."

Nate grinned broadly, as if he had been waiting for her to ask him that since the moment he had walked in. "Sounds like a plan to me," he said, "but only when you're all healed up, okay? Not a moment sooner, or Doctor Sun will have my head."

"Look at you, all law-abiding all of a sudden," Piper said. She put down her fork and reached out to lay her hand across Nate's then, giving him a small smile. "I appreciate that. It's not often people go out of their way to look out for the nosy reporter."

"Just trying to balance things out," Nate replied, patting her fingers with his free hand. "I still need to prove I'm not an asshole."

"Don't be like that," Piper retorted, a little incredulously. "You did that yesterday, at least twice. I owe you my life, you big dummy. Pretty sure we're all square after that."

"Promise?" Nate asked. "You won't ask me for a favour when I least expect it?"

"I promise," Piper told him. "In fact, I solemnly swear that I will not ask you for any favours for at least five years."

Nate laughed. "That's quite a promise. Okay, Piper – now that we're even, what do you want to do next?"

"Right now, I want to finish my eggs and bacon," Piper said, picking up her fork again. "Dad always said I talked too much at the table." She scooped a generous chunk of egg into her mouth and felt a renewed flavour explosion filling her mouth like mana from heaven.

She decided that she really had to get Nate to teach her how he did this, sooner rather than later. If nothing else, it might get Nat to start eating more than just noodles, Sugar Bombs and Cram, and Piper had long given up hope of that ever happening.

Miracles could still happen, it seemed.

Breakfast ended as swiftly as it had begun, with both plates emptied and both sets of cutlery set into the sink for later. When it was all done with, Piper said "Come with me – I want to show you something," and grabbed Nate by the hand before leading him up the stairs onto the roof of the house.

"I like to come up here sometimes when it's quiet," she explained to a slightly confused Nate, setting down the bottles of Nuka-Cola she had brought up with her on the table's pitted surface. "There's something really relaxing about just watching the world go by, you know? I don't get much time to myself because of Nat and the paper, so I savour it whenever I can."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Nate agreed. "I always used to appreciate the quiet moments when I was deployed in Alaska – we were never off the front lines for very long, so you had to take the time when you could get it."

"I can't even imagine what that must have been like," Piper said, popping her bottle's cap off and taking a small sip from it. "How did you cope?"

"Taught myself to play the harmonica," Nate said, swallowing down a big mouthful from his own bottle. "I got pretty good at it, too – or at least I didn't drive my squad up the wall with how bad I was." He shrugged. "You take your wins where you can get them, though, right?"

"A cook and a musician, huh?" Piper said. "Next you'll tell me you can juggle."

"Well, I tried it at a party once," Nate said, "but I ended up dropping all the balls into the punchbowl and falling flat on my face instead." Piper burst out laughing at that, narrowly avoiding snorting a torrent of cola across the table, but Nate did his best to continue despite her involuntary interruption. "In my defence," he said, trying to stifle her laughter, "I was very drunk."

Piper pursed her lips and folded her arms. "Not much of a defence, chief," she said, hooking one leg over the other as she did so. "I've been blackout drunk plenty of times, and I've never ended up face-down in a punchbowl. There has to be more to that story than just 'I was very drunk'."

Nate sighed. "I was fifteen and trying to impress a girl," he said sheepishly.

"Did it work?" Piper asked.

"No," Nate said flatly. "She just laughed and then ignored me for the rest of the night. That's the whole reason my mom told me why I should never lie to impress a girl in the first place."

"She sounds like a pretty wise woman," Piper chuckled. "Shame none of it rubbed off on you, huh?"

"Oh, now that's unfair – I have my moments," Nate retorted. "What about you? You must have done something stupid after drinking too much."

Piper raised her eyebrows for a moment, pondering the question, and then said "Not really," she said. "I try not to get too drunk at parties – I might miss a good story, you know?"

"Don't lie, Piper. I've seen you at parties."

Piper turned in her seat to see Nat standing at the open front door, her bag slung over one shoulder and her arms folded across her chest. "Nat?" she said, a little confused. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be at school?"

Nat shrugged. "Mr Zwicky sent us home because Miss Edna started wigging out. She kept spinning around and repeating the alphabet over and over." She rummaged around in her bag for a moment before bringing out a slightly crumpled envelope. "Here, Mr Zwicky gave one of these to us all so you'd believe us."

Tearing open the envelope, Piper unfolded the small sheaf of paper inside it, skimming the words on the first page with a glance:

Dear parent/guardian,

I have sent your child home today because Miss Edna suffered an episode today. I have called Diamond City engineers out to help her and I hope to have the school open again tomorrow morning. I have included a test paper for your child to complete which I intended to give them this afternoon, and which you may feel free to give to them at your discretion. I would ask, however, that you do not assist them. This is for their benefit, after all.

Yours sincerely,

Edward Zwicky.

Piper smiled. If this really was a scheme on Nat's part, she had to admire her commitment to the bit. "Okay, I believe you," she said, giving the handful of paper back to Nat. "You'd better get to it – I don't want Mr Zwicky on my case because I didn't make you do your homework."

Nat looked a little puzzled before she looked through the papers in her hand, her expression turning to one of sour realisation as she found the test. "Aw, crap," she said, downcast and defeated.

Piper put her hand on her sister's shoulder. "Look on the bright side, kiddo – if you do the test right now, you can have the rest of the day to goof off and read comics with me. Deal?"

"Well, okay," Nat grumbled. "I get first choice of what to read, though."

"Sounds fair to me," Piper replied. "Sooner you start, sooner you can finish, sis."

When Nat had ensconced herself upstairs where she could use Piper's desk to rest her paper and pens on, Nate said "What did she mean about how you shouldn't lie?"

"Oh boy," Piper said, scratching at her brow. "Okay, here's what happened: I'd just turned twenty-one and the paper was starting to take off, so I had two things to celebrate." She sighed regretfully. "I'm in the Dugout and I've got about three vodka-and-Nuka-Colas inside me already, so I'm not exactly at my best, and then some caravan guy comes up to me and he says he'll buy me another drink if I promise to do a dance on a table."

Nate raised an eyebrow. "You danced on a table? That's it? Doesn't sound so wild to me."

"Let me finish," Piper said. "I got up on the table and I started to do a dance, but what dance do I decide to do? I do the Charleston, and because I'm so drunk I fall off the table and end up breaking my nose."

"Really?" Nate said in clear disbelief. "I couldn't tell."

"Doctor Sun is a good doctor and Doctor Crocker is a good surgeon," Piper explained. "Between the two of them they were able to fix me up so well that you wouldn't even know anything had happened – not unless you got real close up, anyway. Look." She leaned forward, brushing her fingers over the small bump left on the bridge of her nose so as to draw Nate's attention to the tiny imperfection. "Nat and I had to live off packets of Fancy Lads until I could pay the debt off down to the last cap."

"Nobody helped you out?"

Piper laughed. "That was after everyone had helped me out. Goodwill only goes so far in this town, you know?"

"Ouch," Nate said. "I can see why you'd lie about that."

"I didn't lie!" Piper retorted. "I just… edited the truth a little. And I didn't end up in a punchbowl, so I still did better than you."

"Don't split hairs," Nate said, with a soft chuckle. "Tell you what, why don't we make a pact: neither of us gets drunk and does something dumb for at least the next five years?" He held out his right hand, curled into a fist with just his little finger extended. "Pinky swear?"

Piper stared at his hand. "'Pinky swear'? What's that?"

"Oh, man," Nate exclaimed in exasperation. "You don't know what a pinky swear is? This century gets worse every day." He paused. "A pinky swear is real simple: you do this with your pinky fingers," and he took Piper's hand, gently extended her little finger and curled his around it, "and you make a promise, like this: I promise I will not get stupid-drunk for the next five years."

"I promise I will not get stupid-drunk for the next five years," Piper repeated, somewhat sceptically.

"See? That wasn't so difficult, was it?" Nate asked. "We're not going to break it, right?"

"Of course not," Piper agreed. "What kind of friend would do that?"

"Friend?"

"Well, sure," Piper said. "Don't you think doing a pinky swear makes us friends?"

"Good point," Nate replied, before he held his bottle of Nuka-Cola up in a toast. "To friendship."

"To friendship," Piper echoed, "and to not breaking promises." She clinked her bottle against his. "So where are you going today?"

"I honestly have no idea," Nate said. "Maybe I could just stay and read comics with you and Nat? I could use the downtime after the past couple days."

"Sure," Piper said, feeling a little surprised but not unpleasantly so, "that sounds nice. Let's get to my stash before Nat takes all the Silver Shroud books…"