There is nothing more important than being beautiful.
Ivy O'Hearn was beautiful, once. Long, jet black hair, striking hazel eyes, and legs for miles – she was the sparkling diamond of the Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth. Though she and her sister grew up in the slums of Diamond City, Ivy never had trouble using her looks to get what she needed; men fell over her, and she profited off of it. In secret, of course, so as not to damage Diamond City's precious reputation – but Ivy made a fair amount of caps selling her body in her youth. When she met David, a wealthy settler from the upper stands, and he offered her a lifetime of financial security in return for monogamy, Ivy leapt at the opportunity. After all, how ever could she say no?
Then Maggie came along, and just like Ivy, she was so, so beautiful. Ivy worked double time to make sure that everyone knew it; Maggie included. She'd spend hours and hours making sure Maggie looked her absolute best, and always, always instilled in the child that her appearance was her most important asset. After all: what are you worth as a girl if you are not beautiful?
And so Maggie takes great pride in her appearance. When her aunt Rosa comes to visit, she puts on fashion shows and teaches her how to paint her nails and clean the dirt out from beneath them. She watches other girls at the schoolhouse with harsh eyes of judgment – oh, she thinks, I would never let my hair get so tangled. I couldn't possibly imagineslouching like that. That shirt with that skirt? Your cute little hair bows can't save you now, Shauna. Her perceived superiority has alienated her from her classmates; but then, she doesn't mind. She's always felt more comfortable by herself, anyway. Nobody else could possibly get Maggie like Maggie does. Nobody but Tim.
It is Constance who knocks Maggie from her pedestal.
Constance is the most beautiful woman Maggie has ever seen. She has the shiniest, straightest black hair that dances about so effortlessly in the breeze and caresses her shoulders just right. Her cheekbones are high, which gives her a more regal appearance – yet her straight-across bangs which fall just above her intensely-dark gaze give her an almost rebellious allure. She's fit, lean yet well-endowed, and even her gait oozes elegance. Maggie hates her. And yet, she is absolutely obsessed with the woman.
She follows her around in secret, eyes wide as she creeps about through the shadows of Diamond City. She draws her when she can – sketching stylistic drawings of Constance as she shops in the marketplace, or works in the gardens, or, most infuriatingly, meets with Tim and laughs so sweetly in the street before he takes her arm and guides her into the Dugout Inn. What they do in there is beyond Maggie – she has tried before to follow them inside but has been swiftly ejected at each attempt. Sometimes, Cass and Lana join them. Many times, they don't.
Maggie stands in front of the mirror in her bathroom, nostrils flaring as she stares at her reflection and tries desperately not to cry. She touches lightly her soft cheek then runs a hand through her silky, red locks. And as she does, her frown deepens and she can feel tears pricking at her eyes. She isn't pretty enough. She isn't pretty enough for Tim – because she isn't Constance. As her tears spill onto her cheeks, she feels a hot ball of rage and frustration and jealousy and sadness rip through her like a missile. Why? Why couldn't she look more like Constance? And if she did... Would Tim take her by the arm and guide her into the Dugout and bring her around his friends and laugh at her jokes?
As she continues to examine herself in the mirror, a realization spreads slowly through her. She doesn't know the girl who stares back at her. When she looks at herself, she doesn't see Maggie – she sees a puppet, built from her mother's ideals and wearing the handprints of strangers old enough to know better. And she doesn't want it. She doesn't want to be beautiful for her mother or her parents' clients anymore – she wants to be beautiful for Maggie. She yearns to feel some semblance of control in her life – she's thirteen now, God damn it. When does she get to start making decisions for herself?!
Tonight, she decides as she digs into her pocket and retrieves a switch blade. She'd found it months ago, on the street by the Inn – and she's carried it with her ever since. It helped her feel less helpless; like she could possibly defend herself. Now all she lacked was the courage to use it.
Well, not anymore. No; tonight, that would change. With hardened eyes, she gives herself one final once-over in the mirror, and as her eyes drift slowly down her locks, her heart-rate quickens. Her hand trembles as she opens the blade, and she does something outrageous:
She cuts a chunk of her hair off.
As it detaches from her head just below her ear and she clutches it in her hand, Maggie's eyes widen. She drops it to the floor, and the sight is exhilarating. Manically, she takes off another chunk on the other side of her head, this one a bit bigger, and then another and another and another. She giggles the whole time from the excitement of it all as she continues to saw at her hair until she is left with a choppy, short, uneven cut.
But as she drops the last handful of hair to the floor, the reality of what she's done hits her like a train. Her smile quickly fades as panic sets in, and, without warning, she turns and vomits into the toilet beside the sink. What has she done?! She looks hideous. She lifts her gaze once more, then wretches again in pure anxiety as she genuinely fears for her life. Her mother is going to kill her. She's as good as dead, after all:
She's worth nothing to her parents if she isn't beautiful.
Maggie misses school for an entire month afterwards. "My poor girl, she just hasn't been feeling so well." Ivy tells her sister, Rosa, when she asks why she hasn't seen her around the city. "She's got an awful fever, and this cough that just won't go away. Wouldn't want to get the others sick."
Truthfully, Maggie had been beaten so badly that for the first week or so after her impromptu haircut, she couldn't do much of anything besides lay in her bed in the dark and listen to the radio when her parents would allow her to. It had taken another week and a half after that for her face to heal to an acceptable level, and then after a couple more weeks, her hair had grown out enough that Ivy felt she could do something to salvage it. Only when it was deemed that Maggie looked adequately presentable again did her parents allow her to resume classes.
It hurts her when Tim doesn't even write. He doesn't come to her window like he used to, doesn't sneak her flowers. When she finally sees him after an entire month, he tells her he had been so worried about her, but then he laughs and tells her he's happy to see she was "only hiding away because of a bad haircut."
Bad haircut. Maggie tears up at the words, but Tim is quick to backpedal. "I'm not saying it's a bad haircut," he says flippantly and shakes his head, offering her a sweet smile as she stands from his bed and angrily pulls her shirt back over her head, "I'm saying you thought it was a bad haircut, and that's why I haven't seen you. You're over-reacting."
Maggie narrows her eyes and purses her lips, and her arms cross in front of her as she stares down at the shirtless man who props himself up on his elbow and lets his sheets roll languidly down his body.
"Come on." he murmurs and shakes his head, "Maggie, you know I think you're still beautiful, right?" Still, Maggie doesn't respond, so Tim chuckles softly and then sighs. "You don't believe me, do you?"
"No." Maggie answers quickly, and then sniffles and wipes away her tears as quickly as they fall from her eyes lest he make fun of her for crying again. "You don't think I'm beautiful. 'Cause I'm not. I look like an idiot now, and... And I'll never be as pretty as..." she swallows thickly, "Constance."
Tim's first impulse is to groan and fall back onto the bed, but he fights the urge. He instead softens his face and blinks a few times, then says softly, "Constance? You think she's prettier than you?"
Maggie nods solemnly. She's surprised to hear Tim laugh at that, and her face twists in confusion. "What?" she mumbles, almost afraid to hear the answer.
"I... Maggie, listen to me." Tim says and reaches for the girl. Like a moth to a flame, Maggie approaches the bed and dips her knee onto the mattress, and Tim then grabs her arm gently and pulls her back toward him so she is sitting on her knees atop the bed with his arm wrapped around her waist. "Constance is a nice looking woman, sure. So is Lana, you know? They're both pretty but... Well, I mean it when I say there's not a single girl in the whole, entire Commonwealth who could ever hold a candle to you."
Tim holds Maggie's gaze, and he can see her disposition shifting from anger and hurt to a quiet, affectionate contentment so he adds, "Maggie, I love you. You know that, right?"
I love you. The words catch Maggie by surprise, and she gasps. I love you. No one has ever told her that before and really meant it. But it feels like Tim does. I love you. Butterflies erupt in her stomach, and she smiles in disbelief as the words rattle around in her skull. I love you, I love you, I love you.
"Do you really mean it?" she whispers, and Tim smiles and nods.
"Of course I do." he says, then quirks an eyebrow. "So, will you stay?"
Maggie finally laughs. "Yeah." she says. She's crying again, but now for a different reason. She's happy. "Yeah, I'll stay. I love you, too."
I love you.
For months, the words cling to Maggie like a warm hug, and she hears them everywhere she goes. They're the first words she thinks of when she wakes up, and the last words she thinks of before she falls asleep. They carry her through her fourteenth birthday and keep her cozy during the holidays; and then, one winter evening, they plunge into her chest like a sword when she pulls open Tim's bedroom window and finds him on top of Constance as she cries out his name like a cat in heat.
She dips back out promptly, but not before locking devastated eyes with Tim. She doesn't stick around – instead, she hastily puts as much distance between herself and Tim's home as she can muster before she collapses into the snow covered streets and tries to pick up the pieces of herself that have shattered. The drug withdrawals, the beatings, the rape – nothing has ever hurt quite like this. Tim was the one person Maggie had in her life who truly cared for her. And now, she doesn't even have him. Now, she has no one – and what is the point anymore, if she has no one?
She spends a long time tucked against the cold steel of the side of a random building, and she sobs until she simply cannot anymore. Her anger and sadness evaporate into an uncomfortable apathy as her tears and snot freeze against her face. She stares blankly down at her switchblade as she flips it over in her hand and considers plunging it into her own neck. There just isn't any reason for her to go on anymore – not without Tim. Why should she? So she can try and fail again and again to live up to her mother's standards for her? So she can go home and lie defencelessly in bed while another strange man has his way with her? She doesn't want to do it anymore. She doesn't want to live this way anymore.
And yet... She doesn't want to die, either. She's scared. She's scared, and alone, and so incredibly lost.
Suddenly, she is staring down at herself, seeming almost to hover above her own body as she sits in the alleyway. She watches herself in stunned silence as she flips the blade out of the switchblade and presses the dull side to her own throat, and she holds her breath and waits for the worse but is relieved when she then lowers the blade. She spends another moment observing herself, before she moves weightlessly down the darkened alley and peers around the corner. The night is so quiet, the streets dark. And here, in this ethereal plane of existence, the solitude does not feel oppressive; it feels peaceful. It feels serene, and so she turns back and watches once more the downtrodden girl who has now gone back to merely examining the knife she holds. She doesn't want to be that girl anymore. She doesn't want to be her parents' pawn, and she doesn't want to rely on Tim or anyone else for her happiness. Instead, in that moment, she yearns to peel off the skin marred by years and years of abuse and live freely as someone who is so much more than her looks.
Just as suddenly as she'd left her body, she finds herself back in it, and she gasps. When she blinks, she can feel her icy eyelashes sticking to her cheeks and so she quickly wipes her eyes with one hand while the other tightens around her blade. And cold as she may be, she feels the welcome burn of determination course through her as finally she rises to her feet and steps back toward her home.
March 6th, 2280. Maggie sits quietly, obediently as Ivy carefully massages lotion into her cheeks and across her forehead. She smacks her lips when her mother spreads a minty balm over them, and doesn't whine at all when she works out a knot in her now-shoulder-length red hair. "You're awfully quiet tonight." Ivy comments softly, and it almost sounds as though she is genuinely concerned for the girl who sits in front of her on the bed as she weaves her hair into a braid. "Everything okay?"
"I'm okay." Maggie replies flatly, but quickly realizes this will not placate her mother and so she adds, "I have a biology quiz tomorrow. I want to do really good."
"Well." Ivy corrects her. "You want to do well."
"Right."
Ivy smiles to herself with pride as she completes the braid on one side Maggie's head. "And? What's the quiz about?"
Maggie draws in a deep breath and narrows her eyes as she tries to improvise an answer. Her lips purse, and she's happy her mother cannot see her face as she thinks. Finally, she straightens with confidence and grins slightly. "Trees. You know, like, um... weeping willows and... stuff."
"Trees?" Ivy scoffs, then mutters, "What useless bullshit."
Maggie says nothing. Her mother finishes braiding her hair in silence.
When she's finished, she tucks Maggie into bed and leans down to kiss her forehead, just as she does every night. "Well, just remember," she says sweetly, "A girl as beautiful as you barely has to worry about grades."
"I want to do well." Maggie protests, and then immediately knows that was the wrong response as she watches her mother's face curl in disgust and ire.
"Don't back talk me."
Maggie heeds her warning and keeps her mouth shut as her eyes drift to the ceiling above her. She avoids eye contact with her mother, who then sighs as she once again subdues.
"Goodnight, Maggie." she says coolly, then turns to exit the room.
Only once the door has clicked shut does Maggie reply. "Goodnight, mom."
After some time, she slips out of bed and creeps over to her desk. She uses the fleeting moonlight to pour all of the emotions she'd been repressing during the last couple weeks onto a single sheet of lined paper, which she then seals in an envelope addressed to Tim and tucks away into her bag. She checks the time – 12:30. She has to go now, or she'll be late.
One in the morning, and Maggie stands before Tim, both shielded by the shadows of the alleyway. Maggie trembles – she'd tried so hard to stay aloof but her emotions betray her as she fights back the urge to cry. Again.
"I just – I just don't get it." she chokes, her jaw clenched tightly. "Why?!"
Tim is cowardly. He can't even meet the child's eyes. "Look, you don't understand. You're..."
"I'm what?!" Maggie snaps. "I'm what, Tim?! Tell me! Tell me what's fucking wrong with me! What makes her so much better than me, huh?! Tell me what the fuck is wrong with me—"
"You're fucking crazy!" Tim shouts over her, and his tone coupled with his sudden wide-eyed glower quiets Maggie, who then backs down and stares up at him in disbelief.
"Crazy?" she whispers. Her tears still. "I'm... crazy?"
Tim scoffs. "Yeah. Yeah, you really are." He looks so foreign to her in this moment – how he stands so defensively with a face reddened by not only the cold but also by the heat of his own building frustration and clenches his fists so tightly that Maggie can see the bulging tendons of his wrists. "Listen, Maggie, I just can't handle you anymore. You've got a lot of shit going on. Shit that... That I can't fucking deal with. I don't fucking want to play therapist anymore. I want a real woman who has her shit together and you're not that—"
"All I ever wanted was to be that for you!" Maggie interjects without even thinking, as if in a desperate bid to save this relationship. She thought she was over him, but now that she sees him again she realizes just how much she misses him and how badly she wants to cling to him and never let him go.
"Well, you weren't." Tim's words are frigid. "And you never can be. Hell, probably not for anybody." he laughs derisively and rolls his eyes. "You're damaged goods, man."
Damaged goods. The words internalize, and Maggie has never felt more ugly in her entire life than she does in that moment. Yet she takes a moment to sit with that feeling and let it resonate through her, before she takes a deep breath and steps sideways to force Tim to meet her gaze.
"That's how it is?" she asks, and Tim laughs in her face though it is a nervous sound.
"Sorry for wasting your time." he says, but he's not really sorry. To Maggie, it couldn't be any more obvious.
As Maggie takes another step backwards, Tim finds that he doesn't really recognize her at all. Her eyes look far away, unfocused despite her pointed stare. She wears the faintest hint of a smile, which looks out of place against her otherwise solemn features. She takes yet another step back, and the gravity of what he's just said to this emotionally vulnerable, traumatizedchildhits him full force. Immediately, he feels a pang of guilt stab through him, and his knees weaken but before he can apologize and take it back, Maggie turns and disappears into the darkness of the night. "Wait-" he calls out, reaching his hand out toward the shadows, but it is far too late. Maggie doesn't stop, doesn't come back; she leaves Tim alone in the alleyway to wallow in his own guilt-laden regrets.
Instead, she heads back to her home and climbs inside through her bedroom window; and rather than slipping off her boots and hiding them beneath her bed as she usually does when she sneaks out, she moves quietly through her room and carelessly tracks dirt through her rug. She stops at her bedroom door, where she pulls her switchblade from her pocket and pops the blade out with a satisfying schwing.
She pushes her door open a crack and slowly pokes her head out. From where she stands, she can see her father, sitting still in his favourite chair with his back to her bedroom door. The sound of the radio playing a quiet tune drifts softly through the livingroom, and judging by the empty beer bottles which litter the floor at his feet, Maggie quickly deduces that he'd passed out drinking again. She cranes her neck to peer around the door and notes the kitchen light is still on. Mom is awake.
As stealthily as she can, she glides across the room and lands just behind her father's chair. Her heart is racing in her chest and she feels as though she will be sick, but then a welcome feeling of serenity passes through her as suddenly, she stands on the other side of the room and once more becomes an observer to her own self. In one swift movement, she puts a hand over her father's mouth and uses the other to drag her blade mercilessly across his neck. Blood immediately pours from his open throat like a waterfall; and as his eyes shoot open and he sputters against the hand that is pressed into his mouth, Maggie leans forward and plunges her knife into his eye socket. He whimpers in pain as she twists the blade and rips it back out, only to do it all again to the other eye.
As she witnesses herself committing this heinous act, Maggie can't help but to smile. She can't remember the last time she felt so at peace. She doesn't linger too long, though, and quickly, she creeps toward the kitchen and presses herself to the wall beside the doorway where she then calls out, "Mom?"
There is the soft sound of exasperated muttering, followed by shuffling feet before Ivy emerges from the kitchen. "What?!" she snaps – and then, suddenly, Maggie pounces on her and knocks her to the ground. She doesn't give her any time to react before she thrusts her knife down into her chest. And then, she rips it back out, and does it again. And again. And again, and again and again and again and again and again and again and–
Eventually, Ivy stops fighting back. She can't scream, can't cry out as Maggie returns to her own body and straddles her and stabs her once for every time she's ever hurt her.
Maggie is sure to stop while she can still hear her mother's laboured breaths, and she grabs her face roughly and pulls her cheeks down so she is forced to look at her. "Well?!" she laughs, "Am I beautiful enough yet?!"
Ivy regards the girl atop her with pure animosity. All she can wonder to herself is what she did to deserve such a terrible, ugly, evil daughter like Maggie, whose shoulders rise and fall with every heavy breath like a rabid animal. Yet, she grins, and Maggie's own twisted smile falters at the sight of the thick, red blood which pools from her own mother's mouth.
It is then that she thinks of every gentle touch, every night spent together laughing softly at the world as her mother would braid her hair so gingerly, and every song sung out obnoxiously in the kitchen together. No one else but her mother knows that her favourite book is still Alice's Adventures in Wonderland even though she is 14 now, or that she likes her sandwiches cut into four, even little triangles and still sleeps with a stuffed toy dinosaur when the radstorms get bad. As Ivy reaches a trembling, cold hand up to caress Maggie's cheek, the child melts into her touch. Regret grips her tightly – had she made a mistake?
But then, Ivy draws in a choked breath and says, "You never have been."
Maggie frowns, and a seering ball of misery rips through her and manifests as a blood curdling scream as she then drops the knife down through both of Ivy's eyes. She goes limp beneath her, and Maggie stands quickly. She hears a commotion from the home next door, so she bolts to her parents' room and shuts the door just as she hears the front door fly open, followed by the sound of poor Mr. Bennet cursing in surprise and horror at the crime scene.
She wastes no time unlocking her parents' safe using her birthday as the code, and she scoops out all of the caps inside into her bag. Then she escapes through the window and leaps over the railing, climbing nimbly down to the rooftop below as she hears more panicked shouting from a place she could undoubtedly never call home again.
As she approaches the Mega Surgery Centre, she is relieved to see Cass leaning against the wall outside, enjoying a solitary cigarette. He is kind – he always has been and Maggie feels safe in his presence. "Cass!" she whisper-yells, and Cass startles and turns toward the darkness she stands in.
"Who's there?!" he snaps, his free hand hovering over the pistol at his hip when he doesn't instantly recognize the voice. But when he sees it is only Maggie, he relaxes again – until, of course, he notices all the blood which soaks her clothes and drips from her skin. "Maggie?" He takes a step toward her, concerned brown eyes scanning her body for injuries. "What the hell happened to you?!"
Maggie draws in a stuttered breath and casts a concerned look over her shoulder back the way she came, then takes a measured, cautious step toward Cass. "I-I... I did something bad, Cass, I..." she stammers. "M-Mom, and dad, I..."
"You what?" Cass asks, and bends slightly to be more level with the girl. "Are your parents hurt? Do they need help?" He tries to remain quiet and level in an effort to calm the distressed teenager before him – and he is, of course, trained in first aid and can thus help if she needs him to. Maggie shakes her head quickly, though.
"No, I... I killed them." she blurts. "They were so awful and I – I just couldn't take it anymore, and I..."
Maggie's mouth moves far more quickly than her brain, and she slowly realizes that she doesn't actually know Cass. For all she knows, he could take her and march her down to Security right then and there, and just like that, it would be over. But that realization is little more than a tickle in the back of her mind as the weight of what she has done finally hits her at full force, and before she can even stop herself, she falls forward and wraps her arms around Cass and sobs against his chest.
Cass lifts his arms awkwardly and frowns as he peers down at Maggie. But then, a troubled look crosses his face and he stiffly returns the hug. "Hey, alright." he says softly as he pats her back and then looks about the darkness. He can hear quite the commotion from the upper stands, now, and he figures Maggie must be telling the truth so he pulls her up and into the darkened clinic and lets her go only to kneel in front of her. He grabs her arms and holds her firmly in his grasp – a silent show of support as he forces her to meet his eyes. "You will be okay. Alright?" he states, and Maggie nods because she believes him when he says it. After seeing her wordless affirmation, he asks, "But what are we going to do to make sure of it?"
Maggie sniffles and breaks eye contact to pull her shoulder bag open. She tilts it forward, and Cass' eyes widen at the pile of caps which rattle quite pleasantly as they fall over each other. "I... I want you to change my face."
The man blinks, then narrows his eyes. "You want what?"
"You know..." Maggie whines, "Plastic... S-Surgery."
"Maggie, I do not do plastic surgery."
"Yeah, but... Your dad does." Maggie pushes. She needs this. Yet Cass seems apprehensive.
"Not... really. I mean, he can, but..." But he doubts that his old man would be willing to operate on someone so young such as Maggie – and there is also no telling if he would feel comfortable lying to Security about the situation. "I mean... It is a big decision, Maggie." he tries – he doesn't want her doing something she regrets, after all, but Maggie grabs the front of his jacket and curls her fingers tightly into the fabric and Cass can see the desperation in her eyes.
"Please, Cass." she splutters, "I don't know what else to do."
Cass takes a deep breath, then sighs surprisingly patiently. "Well..." he shakes his head in disbelief that he is actually suggesting this, but, "I suppose there is always Doc Crocker."
Thirty minutes later, and Maggie sits atop a suspiciously bloodied chair inside the Mega Surgery Centre. She tries to remain brave, but as Crocker flits about and complains loudly of being tired, her heart races and her leg bounces. Cass helps Crocker by sterilizing his tools for him, and occasionally, his eyes flick to the teenager in the chair. He believes her – about her parents being terrible to her. He knows David – has seen him around and at the bar and knows him to be a scummy person; and he could always tell there was something off about Ivy. He doesn't know exactly what Maggie had been through, but it had to have been hell if she'd taken to killing them just to escape their clutches. And if that's the case, then he's willing to help Maggie make a new future for herself any way that he can. Besides, he's always been good at keeping secrets.
Doc Crocker had been unsurprisingly reluctant to operate on someone as young and sightly as Maggie at first; but when he'd seen the bag of caps awaiting him he promptly agreed to the procedure, and even swore to secrecy for an extra bribe. So now, he slides his gloves on and looks down at the girl with the beautiful green eyes and the healthy red hair, and he smiles cordially. "Well?" he asks, "What did you want done? Come on, kid. Anything you'd like."
Maggie swallows and pulls her journal from her bag. Her hand shakes as she leafs through it several times, her nerves causing her to miss her desired page on the first few passes. But finally, she finds what she is looking for and opens her journal to a portrait she'd drawn of Constance. Cass peers over Crocker's shoulder as she turns the book toward him, and his brow creases at the drawing.
"I want to look like her." Maggie whispers. Crocker takes the journal carefully and examines the artwork, then smirks with confidence and closes the book. He hands it back to Maggie, and Cass says nothing as he moves to stand uneasily against the wall at the back of the room.
"Simple enough." Crocker scoffs arrogantly, and while he moves to grab his scalpel, Maggie's fearful eyes shift to Cass.
When he responds by smiling warmly and saying, "Don't worry. I am here. You will be alright." Maggie's leg stops bouncing. He's wrong – and she knows it. Maggie will not be alright. Maggie will die here tonight on this chair; it will be Willow who emerges from the clinic – and yet, she has never felt more at peace in her short life than she does in this moment. She smiles tearfully and nods.
"Okay." she replies, then closes her eyes and braces herself.