Chapter One:
Live For

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of the Fallout franchise. That is all © to Bethesda. I just (barely) own the slightly fleshed out humdrum backstory and writing contents of this story. Any vague mentioning to any shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this story are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them either.

Note: I'm Fallout trash and suffering pretty bad brainrot, y'all. Here, enjoy a story. I have no clue what direction I'm taking, other than a wild ride and stupid blurb adventures and shenanigans.

Alliance: None

Companion: None

Bring me danger
I turn all my fears to friends
I need the anger
'Cause there's venom in my head
I leave the enemy
With more than nothing left

And it gets stranger
This isn't over yet

I don't wanna see that white flag waiving
This is to the bitter end
— "This is What I Live For" by Graffiti Ghosts

"Your leg holding up?"

"It's fine," Quinn replied. She stuffed her hand into the jacket pocket, grasping the handle of a screwdriver. Both jacket and screwdriver had been scavenged from her pack, along with the rest of her clothing she now wore. The blue-and-yellow jumpsuit was tucked away at the bottom of her duffel bag, and she hoped to forget it in time.

Her brother had likewise found some additional clothing and had followed her example of ditching the Vault suit in favour of his own clothing. They had both agreed it was too much of an eyesore, too bright and too much of a target.

The Mr. Handy, as her brother stressed that it was called, had gone off to help scavenge what he thought would be the best survival materials for the two of them. It gave her some alone time to speak with her brother.

"What's the plan?"

He looked at her, confusion painted plainly on his face at first.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how the hell do we get back home? The longer we sit out here, the less likely we're going to make it home. There's got to be, like, a reset button or something like that…right?"

"Queenie," her brother said her nickname like a plea, quietly and begging for her understanding. "There's…no going back. We're really here. We're really stuck. There's…no reset, no going home."

Quinn set her jaw stubbornly. "No. No, I refuse to believe that. We can't just…sit here and pretend that this is it! There has to be a way back home. How in the hell did we even get here…?"

That was the question Quill had been trying to answer himself ever since they had both awoken in the bowels of Vault 111.

His memory was still fuzzy and blurred over. At times, he bore witness to the faintest glimmer of clarity—suited men in dank hallways; hands like steel grabbing him; the pain of something jabbing into the side of his neck; the icy claws of frost creeping through his body—and then it was gone. Poof. Without a hint as to what it meant. When he had spoken to Quinn on their trek back toward Sanctuary yesterday, she had admitted much the same.

Even now, he could see the struggle to understand her own troubles crossing her face. She was trying to force it all to come back to her, but if it had, she wasn't saying anything to him.

"We're stuck in the middle of a radioactive wasteland, with no protection, no plan, and with pretty much nothing but the clothes on our backs." She groused, hazel-amber eyes turning flinty and hard. Anyone could look at her and think she was angry. Quill looked at her and saw that she was both angry and hurting.

"We…don't have nothing. We…we have Codsworth. He's pretty useful."

"Tin-Can Man, great. Are we supposed to have him roast our road food with his ass? Is that all he's good for?"

Quill took offense to that but stifled his rebuttals for the time being.

"We have each other. And we've both worked with less. You, especially."

Quinn's expression softened, ever so briefly. She glanced at him, lips pursing tightly together. It was a strained, thin smile that finally graced her face as she latched on to that piece of silver lining.

"…I guess there's that." Quinn said and held out her hand, pinky finger extended to him. "Promise?"

"Pinkie promise," he replied, linking his own around hers and locking them together with a squeeze.

They took stock of what they had on hand later in the morning.

A handful of clothing between the two of them, and a pair of shoes to change each. At the very least, they were better geared for the colder weather that was nipping away at the Eastern seaboard right about now.

Quinn had a toolkit and a personalized hip flask; extra gear and specialized toolkit for her leg; an iPhone and iPad; a worn out MacBook she had kept telling herself to replace (but now she'll probably never have the chance to do); an external hard drive; a hygiene bag; a hatchet with a fire starter locked in the hilt and a combat knife that had been a parting gift; a first aid and trauma kit; two notebooks and a sketchbook with some charcoal pencils and pens; her truck and house keys and her wallet; a few charging cords for her various devices and a solar-powered charging device that Quill had made for her as a Christmas gift two years ago; and a mini-photo album.

With Quill, he had a video camera with a tripod; a small case that held specialized recording gear; a matching personalized hip flask identical to Quinn's (a birthday gift to and from one another several years back); a more updated version of a MacBook and iPad than Quinn's; his own sketchbook with a few extra things in the pencil box; his house and car keys and keychains galore; an identical solar-powered charger and several charging cords for his own devices; a hygiene bag of his own; and that was about it. Quill felt woefully underprepared, especially considering who had raised him and Quinn.

At least Quinn's got some things that can be of use, like a fire starter and a first aid kid, and what do I have? A fucking camera and a microphone. Both our dads would be ashamed, Quill thought with a grimace as they both assessed everything in full.

"I'm gonna make a bow and some arrows," Quinn announced after she gave everything a once-over, because of course that was going to be her answer.

Better her than me, Quill thought as he began to recover all his things and pack it all back up. "You do that."

She was a much better shot at it than him, anyway. He was decent with a pistol and a rifle, but Quinn…she took to the bare-bones weaponry like it was breathing. She was even deadlier with the more advanced weaponry. She had to be, especially having been deployed overseas so many damn times.

She always had that on him. But give Quill a camera or a computer, on the other hand, and he was all aces and spades. She could barely get her own computer to work for her, never mind all the software he could operate with ease on his.

Quinn was quick to shove everything into her duffel bag, leaving her pack largely empty, save a few things like her two medical kits.

She hoisted it onto her shoulders, strapped the pistol to her leg, and gave him a salute.

"I'll be in the woods, doing my own thing. Shout if you need me. Or whatever."

"Don't get mauled by a bear. Again." Quill called back with a knowing grin.

"Har, har. Funny."

OoOoOoOoOoO

It was late in the afternoon when Quinn came bouncing back to their makeshift shelter. Quill had to quell a frantic Codsworth as he began to worry and fret that they'd lost Quinn to the unknown. He was positively ecstatic when she returned and with the promised arsenal and weaponry in tow. He floated off to meet with her, bobbing in delight around his sister as she came back with the handmade weaponry and ammunition.

"Good lord, what do you have in your hands? What happened to your hands?!" Codsworth shouted, his pincer-digits reaching out to Quinn worriedly before he snatched them back, almost as if self-consciously so.

"Oh, you know, just…cut myself making these."

She tossed one of the makeshift longbows to Quill, and he caught it, dismayed. Codsworth hovered around them, remarking on the craftsmanship.

"You know I can't shoot for shit with one of these! I haven't been bowhunting in years!"

The wire used for the bowstring must have been recovered from one of the houses. He spied a little bird carved into the arm of the bow he held and suspected that was how she had cut herself. It was crude work, but kind of cute. It was good quality, for something made with only scrap and a knife on the fly. Just like their dad had taught her.

"Oh, I know. You're just gonna be carrying my extra gear."

Quill reddened as she tossed him an extra quiver made of bark and vine and the tree limbs, filled to the brim with arrows that had duct-tape for fletching instead of feathers. It was, again, crude work but it would hold up for the short time that they needed it for. It would work until she could find better materials to craft something more worthwhile, something sturdier.

He was more surprised at how quickly she'd gotten it all done.

"You made all of this? In just a few hours? How?" Last time he recalled, it'd taken her much longer than a few hours to do all this work.

Quinn grinned proudly at him in answer at first. It was a mischievous thing painted on her face.

"I've gotten better and faster over the years, baby brother. The only setback I had was stopping to fix up my hand up when I slipped with the knife, so there's that."

She held up her hand, wrapped in gauze and flashed him a chipper grin. "So, how goes the hunt over here? Any food? Water?"

"We…might have to go elsewhere to find some food."

That put a dent in Quinn's good mood. Her smile faltered and her brow beetled together. She looked between Quill and Codsworth. "There's nothing here?"

"Nothing edible. Not unless you feel like braving two-hundred-year-old canned food. I wouldn't."

"The Blamco Mac N' Cheese is perfectly edible, I tell you! At least the noodles are. I'm not so sure about that processed powdered cheese," Codsworth interjected with a huff.

Quinn mulled on the options. She turned to Codsworth.

"Is there any rabbit around? Or deer? Squirrel? Anything at all?"

The Mr. Handy hummed and hawed, one of his pincer-like appendages rising and he made a motion across his rounded body, like he was rubbing an invisible chin.

"I…believe there might be. It's been a while since I've seen either, granted…" Codsworth replied, hesitating. His front eyestalk dipped to glance at Quinn's feet before springing back up.

"There's a herd of radstag that likes to stop by the river down a ways, across from where the picnic area used to be. I sometimes like to watch them, especially the does with their yearlings…oh, they reminded me of…" The Mr. Handy's voice quivered, as though he was about to cry. Quinn shot her brother a look, and he nodded to her enthusiastically. She groaned internally but reached out to the robot and patted his curved dome sympathetically. It felt kind of awkward, but there was a little pang inside her that felt for the robot.

"There, there. It's okay. I know it's…hard. I'm sorry if I made you upset."

"Oh…oh, it's not you, ma'am. It's just…it feels so nice to have someone else around. Aside from the occasional drifter, there hasn't been a soul around these parts in ages. Please…please, do come back, safe and sound. I would dread having to mourn you. I know we haven't known each other long, but…I do enjoy how this feels, right now. This renewed sense of…community."

"There's…just the three of us," Quinn said, ignoring the way her brother glared at her.

"I know, Miss Quinn, but…community starts somewhere, doesn't it?" Codsworth replied, the front eyestalk bobbing. Quinn found a smile snaking its way onto her face.

"I…guess it does. Okay, well…I'll follow the river and try to track down that herd so we can eat tonight. And Quill, for the last time, do not try and eat those fucking eggs! There's something moving around in there, it's too late to make any omelets out of them!"

"Oh, my god! You won't drop it, will you?!"

"I've already given them all names; you can't get rid of them either!"

"You're unbelievable, you know that, right? And I swear to god, if you named one of them Drogon, I will drop-kick you into the next century."

Quinn only gave him a shit-eating grin as she strolled out of the house, wiggling her fingers in goodbye over her shoulder.

"She-she named one of them Drogon, unbelie—unbelievable! Can you believe this?!" Quill stood in a huff, gesturing wildly in the empty space where Quinn had been standing moments ago. Codsworth, to his credit, didn't shy away from the man.

"What's a 'Drogon', if you don't mind my asking, sir?"

"It's…from this book series, and it's the name of a dragon character."

"There certainly aren't any of those around here, I assure you. Children's fairy tales, nothing more."

Quill clucked his tongue and glowered at the trio of eggs that were placed lovingly in a nest of blankets, set close to the fire for warmth. His sister, with a bleeding heart for animals, was going to bite off more than she can chew one of these days. He glanced at Codsworth.

"Yeah? And what about Deathclaws?"

At first, the connection didn't quite click with the Mr. Handy. Quill gave it a few seconds before he saw the lenses of all three eyestalks tighten up and shrink to pinpricks. One of them swiveled to view the eggs more clearly.

"Oh…oh my, word. Is that what those are? That's not good."

"Understatement of the century. Trust me."

The bridge was serviceable enough to cross, but it creaked and groaned in ways that made Quinn more cautious as she did. It was a relief when her feet hit the pavement and she snaked around into the ditch to follow the river's edge. She had to step lively around overgrown bushes as she noted the state of the river itself. It was clear and clean, as far as she could tell, with only a few bits of random refuse in the waters.

An easy fix, she told herself before remembering, if it weren't most likely contaminated with radiation. Otherwise, oh yeah! It's perfectly safe to drink! Crisp, clear, and ready to melt your insides to a runny puddle.

Her head was still fuzzy on how to get around that problem and they'd have to do it soon. They were running on nearly a day and a half without water, and she was parched as hell.

Can't go for much longer…like Dad said, the rule of three. Three minutes without air; three days without water; three weeks without food. It was something everyone should know.

The Vault seemed to have its own separate water system. That water should be safe to drink. The thought hit her out of the blue as she paused to kneel beside a bundle of broken branches beside the river. She inspected it carefully, spying tufts of short fur with the same consistency of a deer's caught on the end of the browning twigs.

We have clean water there. But hiking all the way up there, and then activating that fucking elevator…ugh. And whatever system that thing ran on, it only reacted to the stupid fucking thing on her arm. What did Quill call it again? A Pip-Boy? Jesus, this thing is an eyesore.

Her personal tastes aside, it began clicking like mad when she stepped too close to the river and ended up stumbling into the waters until one of her calves was completely submerged. She realized it was the clicking of a Geiger counter as she hurriedly pulled herself out of the cold embrace of the water.

"But I guess it has some merit. Welcome to the team," she muttered aloud. Quinn kept her eyes peeled, depending more on her eyes than her ears at this point. She ducked and crouched when she saw movement up ahead, coming close to the water's edge. She peered around the scraggly underbrush she was besides, and she hated the way her thighs burned from the exertion alone just to keep herself aloft in this position for even just a few seconds.

Christ alive, we really were down there for too damn long. Everything feels like jelly. I don't know my own body anymore.

A rack of antlers swept into view, strong and jagged. It was the first thing she noticed off the bat when she hunted deer. She could no longer count on her sense of hearing, given half of it had gotten blown to hell and back, but she still had her eyes. That had to count for something, right…?

The deer's head cleared into view…and then another head did the same. And instead of two front legs, there were four—two of them were small and stunted and vestigial at best, sprouting out of its chest. It was some kind of birth defect that had somehow managed to not become a detriment to the thing's survival. Patches of fur were missing from its lean, almost haggard, body—like it was suffering from mange or chronic wasting disease.

The buck gave pause to give its surroundings a cursory glance, both heads working in tandem with one another. Quinn kept herself low and hidden, watching through the eaves of brambles and branches. It finally deigned to dip both heads down to drink the cool river water.

Fucking Christ, Quinn thought. A queasy feeling rolled through her stomach as she carefully brought her bow up and nocked an arrow. She drew it back until the makeshift fletching kissed her cheek. God, I hope we don't get sick from eating this, because I am not eating two-hundred-year-old mac n' cheese.

OoOoOoOoOoO

The makeshift sled she'd made for the buck was scraping along behind her as she hauled her kill back toward…what had Quill called it? Sanctuary Hills?

She hadn't realized just how far she'd gone until she was well into the task of dragging the deer. It was back-breaking work, but this was the hardest part. The easy part would come when it was time to gut and clean this once she had it back at camp.

Quinn took pause when she thought she heard something. She tilted her good ear in the direction of the noise, straining to listen, to really listen.

Thanks for the hearing loss, deployment to Afghanistan. I really needed this crippling, life-long defect to barge into my life before I was even twenty-five!

It sounded familiar, the noise. That deep-chested keening noise…rhythmic, like a drumbeat. No. No, that's not right. There were pauses, pitches differing every so often.

Barking.

It hit her like icy water in the face. She was hearing a dog bark.

If deer can survive, so can dogs, she thought with a dash of hope wriggling in her chest. She was close to the road and that was where it seemed to be originating from. She picked up the pace, ignoring the deep and fiery ache in her thighs, the tight embrace of the lashed-together vines she'd used for ropes digging into her shoulders.

Once Quinn hit cracked pavement, she pulled her arms from the makeshift harness, freeing herself from the sled, and took off down the road. She kept her good ear tilted toward the source of the barking, pleased to hear it wasn't growing distant. The dog sounded angry, though. Something was upsetting it, but what, she had yet to figure out.

She rounded the bend of the road, spotting a glint of painted metal through brambles and bare tree branches until she found herself looking at what appeared to be an abandoned gas station. A few rusted shells of what used to be cars lay scattered here and there in the lot.

She saw the source of the noise and a satisfied warmth etched itself in her chest at the sight.

It was a German Shepherd. Strong-looking, fully grown, healthy even. No deformities or patches of missing fur or extra growths that she could see. He was, all in all, a perfect specimen.

The warmth faded, replaced by cold suspicion.

I may have a soft spot for animals, but I'm not a complete fucking idiot. There was no way anything looked that healthy out here, not if this place is just one big soak-tub full of radiation.

It was suspicious as hell.

What wasn't suspicious, was the pack of large, furless animals scrabbling around the dog and causing its distress. They growled and hissed, some feigning attacks to distract the dog while others dove in from elsewhere to attack. One of them slammed into the dog's flank, making it yelp and snap back, black lips pulled into a snarl. Teeth gleamed in warning as the dog's ears flared against its skull and its hackles rose to attention along its scruff. She could see it was limping, back leg drawn up and bleeding from the last attack. Its sides heaved, and despite all its bravado, she could see its energy flagging. And she could hear the pained whimpers that interspersed its growling and snapping.

Goddammit, I really am a fucking idiot.

Quinn readied her bow and drew an arrow from the quiver at her side, took aim, and fired.

"What in the actual fuck—you went and met Dogmeat already?"

Despite the harsh edges prickling at her brother's tone, Quinn could hear the elation hidden in them as well. He dropped to a knee and motioned for the dog to come to him. To his credit, the dog did just that: he went straight to Quill with a wagging tail and tongue lolling happily out his mouth.

Quill was grinning from ear to ear, like he was greeting an old friend. And to him, Quinn recognized, he really was doing just that. But that name…who the fuck named their dog 'Dogmeat'?

"Hey boy…who's a good dog? Who's a good dog? Geez, and judging from your packed sled, you met the giant mole rats, too."

Quinn snapped her fingers in triumph and clapped her hands twice.

"That's what they were! The name was on the tip of my tongue. Aw, shit, wait. No, I shot up Rufus's family. I'm sorry, guys."

"They're pretty aggressive. Don't feel too bad about it. They need to be put down."

The dismissive way he'd said that rubbed Quinn wrong.

She was already formulating a response to that in her head, ready to crack it off like a shot in the dark—but stopped herself short and instead took a deep breath, held it a few seconds, then released.

"You know what? I don't care. I have work to do."

She saw the flash of hurt cross Quill's face as she turned away and began to unload the bodies of her hunt. All clean kills, arrows to the chest or the head. She could sense her brother hovering as he edged closer. She ignored him as she laid one of the smaller mole rats out on the concrete between two larger ones.

"Do you…need help?"

"You get squeamish with this stuff. Just let me handle this."

"I-I know, I just…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound like an asshole, just then. I know how you feel about all this, and…yeah."

She peered at him from over her shoulder, looking him up and down. She assessed his level of sheepishness before giving him a nod.

"We'll start with these and move on to the deer after. I want to work on that myself, since I work quick. I want to make some proper quivers from that hide, and I don't want it fucked up."

Quill was quiet as she spoke, kneeling down beside her.

"You sound like Dad." His voice was quiet and reserved, and she could hear that hurt again. That sent a pang through her, and she stiffened at his words. It hit her and was gone in a split second, but she knew he noticed.

"…let's get to work."

Night came quickly for the Commonwealth, and as the sun descended past the horizon, the cold enveloped them just as readily as the darkness.

The fire was going strong, though. At the very least, it wasn't raining, and it wasn't windy. The holes that peppered their shelter would have wreaked havoc on them if that had been the case. Quill was working on dinner, using a cooking pot and some recovered spices from one of the surrounding homes to make a small stew for himself, his sister, and their newly acquired canine companion. Codsworth was gathering more firewood, and sounding like he was having a good time about it.

Dogmeat followed after Quinn like a lost puppy. She didn't take to him like Quill thought she would.

"Quill, come get your…ugh, Dogmeat, would you? Shoo. Ugh. I hate that name. Who names a dog that?"

"Queenie, I thought you, of all people, would be ecstatic about this. It's your favourite dog breed! A German-freaking-Shepherd!"

Quinn leveled him with a glare. She was too restless to sit by and wait for food to finish cooking. She began working on patching up the holes in the living room walls with what she could scavenged around the area, to stave off the weather and elements.

"That dog was trained. I don't know who trained it, but they did. What if they're watching us right now?"

"That's not how it was in the game—"

"Goddammit, Quill!" She shouted, throwing the hammer in hand down and glowering at him. Quill jumped back, hand flying to his chest as he stared up at his twin sister.

They looked almost nothing alike, despite being twins. Quinn bore a honey complexion like their father, Mateo, along with his lean and scrappy frame that held more strength than one would expect from a short woman such as herself. She was tough, tougher than he was—which surprised most people. Quill was two inches shy of hitting six foot even, with a cooler sienna complexion and a broader frame than his older sister that he shared with their other father, Charlie. Yet he too wore a crown of red hair—a trait only gifted to them by their surrogate mother—although his was a darker hue, almost auburn in shade. Quinn's was a flashier, deeper red. They did share one other thing, and it was another trait from their surrogate birth mother: they had her hazel-amber eyes.

People took one look at the two of them and thought that Quill was the muscle side of things. He ran on occasion, and the occasional yoga or weightlifting at the gym when it piqued his fancy. The benefits of living in Los Angeles, there was hardly any shortages of that kind of lifestyle when one felt the urge to do one of those things. But between Quill's work and school schedule, he found he hardly had the time to do any of those things, especially when he worked overtime, trying to make a break in the film industry. He had to hustle, and at this point in his life, it was the most exercise he found himself actively engaging in.

Quinn ran marathons on her off time for fun. She hiked with packs full of gear and weapons that weighed as much as her, while handling a seventy-pound military working dog glued to her side at the same time. She jumped out of airplanes with said military dog strapped to her chest for training exercises. Quinn had deployed multiple times and went hunting for terrorists and bombs buried inside dead animals and in the ground and inside buildings like she was tracking deer or rabbit back home in Montana, where they'd grown up together with their dads.

Quinn lost her leg and half her hearing during her time in the military. She came back, missing pieces of herself that she could never get back. Quinn lost her damned dog, her best friend, to the same bomb that had taken her leg and her hearing.

Quill, by comparison to his older twin, was soft. He wasn't much of a fighter, not in the way Quinn was.

Quinn could kick Quill's ass with terrifying ease, even when she weighed even less than when she had left so many years ago and had to wear a prosthetic leg just to get around. She was supposed to be in the FBI by now, having served her country and decided her time in the military was enough and she had wanted to move on to something else with her life.

Quinn frankly scared the shit out of Quill at times. She had chosen the harder path in life than Quill, and yet in spite of all their differences, they were still the same two halves of one whole. He sometimes felt like he both knew her too well and didn't know her at all.

People didn't see all that when they looked at the two of them.

People saw a sprig of a woman and a broad-shouldered man, and they think: tiny girl and big guy. The clichéd and archetypal duo.

He almost felt sorry for the assholes Quinn beat up when they tried to start shit with either or both of them. Out of anyone in the world, he would definitely rank Quinn the highest on his list of people to bring to a fight.

But where she excelled at the hunting, the fighting, the stuff he knew his dad Mateo secretly wished that Quill was good at…Quinn was shit with tech. That was where Quill excelled, and their other dad Charlie couldn't be prouder.

He could look at the engine of a car and eventually figure out what's wrong with it, like it was a puzzle to solve. If it had a computer, he could suss out any glitches in the coding. He could break down his PC back home into little parts, piece it back together, and have it working without a hiccup. And he has on occasion done just that and not just for himself, either. He was great at figuring these things out, after years of pouring himself into working things out mostly on his own. He could make a computer sing its secrets just as easily as his sister could take a look at a patch of mud and have it reveal washed out tracks to find her quarry in the middle of the woods.

There was a kind of beauty to that, he thinks. There was also a touch of sadness to it.

Quill chalked it up to the gift and curse of being a twin.

He knew why Quinn was angry with him, her shoulders shaking, and hands curled into tightly balled-up fists. Dogmeat startled from his position on the ground and leapt to his feet, alert and stiff.

"This…isn't a fucking video game. I know it might have been when…when we were home, but this? This is fucking real, right now. Everything around us isn't made up of digital code and algorithms and funny little bugs and glitches and all those things that you like the most about games."

Quill was silent at the stony edge Quinn's voice had taken on. It was rough and ragged. She was usually good at hiding it most of the time, but he could hear the rawness now, naked and stark. She was terrified and he hadn't noticed until now. I'm so stupid. It was right in front of me, and I didn't see it.

Quill got to his feet and bridged the gap between himself and his sister, tugging her into his arms and squeezing her into a tight hug.

"I'm sorry. I know this isn't a game right now, I just…I'm trying to cope. I can't remember anything and I'm…" The words were failing him as he struggled to properly find the right ones and string them together coherently. He fell back on the tried and true method of staying quiet instead and rubbed her back consolingly. Quinn was shaking. He wasn't sure if it was still-simmering rage or frustration or if she was crying. He wasn't sure if he wanted to really know. He hasn't seen Quinn cry in years and he was fairly sure she wouldn't want him to, either.

"We're not entirely fucked, you know. Between the two of us, we can hack it out here. Given who raised us, and between your combat know-how and my knowledge of this place…we just might make it." The words came to him at last, slow like treacle, but they were better than nothing at all. "I think…we might have come here…from another Vault."

Quinn shifted in his arms, and he let them drop as she pulled away, her face tilting upwards to peer at him, her hazel-amber eyes filled with questions. There was a cautious flash of hope in her gaze as she looked up at him.

"You remembered something?"

"Not much," he admitted sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I remember…being in D.C. It…was supposed to be a surprise, but everyone was coming to see your graduation from the FBI the day we…got snatched."

That felt like the right word for it. Snatched. He was fairly certain that's what happened. He rubbed the back of his neck again, as if he was expecting to find the hole where the needle had bitten into his skin, yet there was nothing there.

"Both of them were here? Both our dads? In D.C. I mean?"

"Yeah. I know, you were technically in Quantico for training and stuff, but…we thought we'd come and see you…you know. Graduate. We were sight-seeing in D.C. at the time of…well…before all this." Quill's shoulders sagged as he waved his hands in a half-hearted jazzy manner. "Surprise! Sorry it's ruined."

Quinn's lip trembled for a brief split-second before she ducked her gaze. She really wasn't one for crying, not anymore. Quill has cried more times in the past year thanks to crunch time during work and school, he thinks, than Quinn has in years.

He doesn't even remember if she had once cried when she woke up stateside in a miliary hospital, missing her leg and her dog. It had taken him weeks to able to get on base and see her. She had been dry-faced and dry-eyed when he did get to see her. Quill doesn't think she cried, not really.

The last time he recalled her crying was after her girlfriend Becks had left her and that had been on a phone call. That had been years and years and years ago. Quinn has always felt the need to put on the big girl pants and ride out whatever shitstorm she's stuck in with hardly a complaint. That was his big sister. Always trying to be the bigger, stronger person.

"I'm sorry the surprise is ruined. I'll try to act it later on when we're back home," she joked with a half-smile painted on her face. "You said there's another Vault?"

"Over a hundred, because, well…obviously. Vault 111, duh. I…I just can't quite recall, it's on the tip of my tongue, but…I just don't know. I'm…I'm sorry. If I remember more, I'll keep you posted."

His memory was still chock full of Swiss-cheese holes. They were right where he didn't want them to be, inconveniently enough.

Why can't I just forget all the embarrassing stuff, like last year's Halloween party where I got so drunk that I told Jaden Whittaker I wanted to blow him in front of half the fucking people there?

Embarrassing memories aside, he remembered a sliver of something. A fraction of something and he was willing to grasp at literal straws if it meant a fucking clue to work with.

Vault 113. He remembered seeing the stenciled lettering of Vault 113 on the backs of Vault suits. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing at all.