The Boneyard - November 12th, 2287
I wonder how Ted and Victoria are doing, December thought to herself as she sat patiently outside of an office at the Angel's Boneyard Medical University. The pair had become a pleasant fixture in her life since she first saw them two weeks prior–she followed up with them daily to check on Ted's progress at home and got them connected with extra support.
She had many updates to share with them.
A few days ago, the head medical doctor and administrator at the Old Mormon Fort, Julie Farkas, had announced that December was being nominated to assist the Followers of the Apocalypse in expanding their humanitarian efforts.
Today, December sat outside an old professor's office in Southern California to be interviewed and further briefed on the project. She was eager to learn more about what they had planned for her.
December stood from her spot and stepped in front of a reflective window, using it as a mirror to make sure she was presentable. She wore her dark, wavy hair in a thick French braid down her back, loose strands framing her heart-shaped bone structure. Having been kissed for years by the sun, the auburn streaks in her hair and her ochre skin glinted in the reflection.
One of the Followers in Freeside was a skilled seamster and had altered a Navy blue three-piece suit for her to wear, making it more of a feminine cut. He made it so it was recyclable–the seams could easily be pulled for another wearer. To her delight, he added a tan fedora with the ensemble, and it fit her head like it was destined to be worn by her.
She leaned in to admire her dark almond-shaped eyes, the upper lids lined with charcoal smudging. She smacked her currant-inked lips, a color she had acquired from an old makeup kit she disinfected and rehydrated so she could adorn her face just like she had seen in pre-war advertisements. It was for the rare moments when she had extra grooming time.
As December licked her finger to smooth out a disobedient eyebrow hair, Dr. Alexina Perez opened the door and invited her in with a warm smile and wave of her hand. The office was sparsely decorated, if one did not count the stacks of files and paperwork everywhere.
She sat across from her host.
"December, it is so nice to see you again," Dr. Perez began. Her voice was sagely and had a melodic accent. "Thank you for traveling all this way to meet with me on such short notice. I've heard a lot about you since you left the university and I can't wait to learn about it from your perspective."
"I look forward to sharing it with you."
Dr. Perez eyeballed December's face, asking, "how old are you now?"
"If memory serves me correctly–twenty-nine going on thirty."
"Hoh-hoh! A big milestone to celebrate." The doctor sighed, "I remember thirty."
Dr. Perez searched her desk for a legal pad and plucked one from a drawer, plopping it on top of the loose files in front of her and producing a pen from her bun of hair. She dug through papers at her right and slid out two pages covered with neat typesetting. Taking the top one in her hands, she placed the other next to the legal pad.
"I figured we could just get right to it if that's okay with you," she offered, adjusting her lab coat.
"Sure."
December folded her hands in her lap to steady the jitters. Her legs ached as she resisted the urge to bounce them.
Dr. Perez began reading from the paper in front of her.
"As you know, myself and several other senior members at our headquarters have tasked ourselves with an important mission to expand our humanitarian efforts to the East Coast. We asked the administrators from each branch to nominate someone they felt would be a valuable ambassador in the new territories. You were nominated by your administrator, Julie Farkas.
"Each candidate will become an ambassador on the East Coast. He or she will be verifying–or debunking–the data we have gathered from various community needs assessments. They will gather additional intel and report it back as they go. They will be expected to work closely with allied factions and contacts in the area. And lastly, if our initial findings are correct, the ambassador will take the lead in setting up a new branch and supervising its operations."
December's breath hitched with excitement. That idea still sent shivers down her spine.
"We have cross-referenced each nomination with records and interviews with colleagues, but we wanted to make sure the potential ambassadors themselves were ready, willing, and able to take on the challenges.
"This is the first part of your assignment process. My job is to interview each candidate and discover where his or her skills and personality would fit best based on the region's current needs and conditions. After this, you will meet with other leaders who will assess your physical health, mental health, and training needs." She paused to allow December time to process her words.
"Do you have any questions so far, December?"
The interviewee shook her head with a smile.
"Is there anything in here you have a problem with or do not agree with?"
"Nope!"
"Are you willing to report any problems you may have to me or other members of my team?"
"Absolutely."
"Perfect." Dr. Perez passed her the pen and turned the page towards her. "If you could sign that we went over this right…here."
December scanned over the page and placed her signature at the bottom.
The doctor slipped the paper under her legal pad and wrote "December - 11/12/87" at the top of its first clean page. She looked back up at her interviewee.
"Now is the part of this process where you get to brag and show off," she said with a smile. "I'm going to ask you questions and take notes as we go. And please, please, please answer as honestly as possible. Even if you feel your response sounds bad, nothing will automatically disqualify you. Honesty will keep you safe out in the field, because we don't want you lying that you've fought deathclaws and then end up becoming an alpha female's lunch, for example."
Dr. Perez's face was deadly serious. December wasn't sure how to respond, but then the doctor grinned.
"I'm kidding."
December laughed nervously in response.
Dr. Perez adjusted the second page of typesetted paper next to her and used it to refer to her list of questions.
"Okay," She began, clearing her throat, "some of these questions may seem irrelevant but I promise they all have a purpose. First things first: where are you from, December?"
"Here, actually. Well, Adytum."
"Ooo, your ancestors must've been vault dwellers then?"
"Half of them were, or so I've been told. My mom's side of the family were definitely wastelanders."
"Are you close with your family here?" The doctor added.
December sighed, "No. 'Moment I joined the Followers, I went no-contact."
Dr. Perez smiled gently. "I don't want to make you go into details, and you don't have to, but–can you tell me why you all don't talk?"
December considered the question for a moment, brow drawn in a straight line. It had been a while since she thought about the why.
A foggy memory of her mother flashed through her mind: sneering and cruel, face twisted like an ogre and towering over her.
"My parents were not…the nicest people. I have not heard anything about or from my biological family since I joined."
Dr. Perez nodded.
"I'm sorry to hear that," she said gently. She allowed a silent moment to pass between them as she scribbled notes down. She cleared her throat before moving on.
"The same goes for the next two questions. I don't need details, I just want to see what might come into play while you're out there: are you married or in any long-term relationship?"
"No."
Scribble.
"Do you have any children?"
"No."
Scribble.
"That's fairly common for many of us in this faction, huh? We're married to our jobs," Dr. Perez said with a chuckle, scratching a line across the page.
She looked over her questions, finding her next point.
"I see you started with us on December 1st, 2275. Why then?"
"It was the day I turned eighteen."
"Oh really? What made you join?"
December smiled fondly.
"Gosh, I probably spent every day in your library, bugging Followers, and pestering students of the university. A lot of 'em encouraged me to join when I was old enough."
Another foggy memory came into view: adults with warmth in their hearts, both young and old, delighted that a child–and later a teenager–was so hypnotized by their lives. Sometimes the university students practiced their theses, capstones, or presentations in front of her. One of the librarians taught her how to write in cursive. Another about multiplication and division tables. She was a permanent fixture there during her childhood.
Dr. Perez flipped the page on her legal pad. December caught a glimpse of her rows of chicken scratch as she scooped the page under and laid the pad back down.
"So you joined in 2275. Our notes say you started off as, quote, 'a jack-of-all-trades.' What exactly did you do?"
"Oof. I've worn a lot of hats in the past twelve years," December said, thinking through the timeline she had practiced on the trip over.
"When I first started, all I knew was that I wanted to be out in the field, like, I didn't care what I did as long as I was helping people. When I made it to Freeside, the administrator at the time, Sahiti Rudolf, threw me onto the first open position he had."
"When did Dr. Farkas take over?" The doctor asked, curiosity floating on her voice.
"Oh gosh, Sahiti passed away in…2280? Julie became administrator shortly after," December recalled. She giggled to herself, an image of a young Dr. Farkas resurfacing.
"Julie and I were actually recruited and stationed together; she had long pink hair and was fresh out of med school. I think she was twenty-six or twenty-seven."
December drifted into the past again. So far, this interview had placed her in a state of melancholic limbo between then and now.
Julie was like a big sister to her. On especially rough nights, they kept each other company well into the morning with a bottle of whisky shared between them. No matter how many times they got together, they never ran out of things to talk about.
She brought herself back to the topic at hand. Her eyes drifted to other points around the room; it was easier for her to keep her train of thought when she wasn't making eye contact.
"One of the Followers Sahiti had under him was a hunter–well, he was really more of a mountain man–named David Britton. And David was an old man in his mid-sixties who was in desperate need of a replacement to take over for him in a couple years so he could 'retire.'
"David's pride and joy was a program he created that taught Freesiders hunting, gathering, and survival skills. It was really cool–he took them on bi-weekly overnight 'hunter-gatherer' trips as he called them. When he wasn't doing that, he acted as a courier between the Followers and other NCR settlements outside Freeside, and when he wasn't doing either of those things, he satisfied the 'other duties as assigned' part of his job description."
December brought her eye contact back to Dr. Perez.
"So you apprenticed under him?" The doctor asked.
"Huh. Yeah, I guess so."
"What sorta things did he teach you?"
"Before I joined, I had picked up some basic shooting and survival skills just being a wastelander, but David taught me all the fancy specialty tricks. I shadowed him every day for three months and slowly started doing things on my own more and more until he was ready to step down. 'Took about a year."
December looked to the side of the room like David's apparition had appeared. Thinking about him made her heart ache. His death had been especially hard on her.
Dr. Perez noticed the change in December's demeanor.
"I take it you all were close?"
"Quite."
She glanced down at her legal pad and pointed out a previous spot to herself.
"You said he, quote, 'filled in wherever he was needed.' I'm assuming you did that too?"
"Ohhh yeah."
"Can you give me some examples?"
"Damn, where do I start?" December began rattling off, "delivering medications to Freedside residents, teaching basic classes like food safety or sex ed, minor repairs, feeding animals, watering or weeding crops, minor first aid, you name it. I didn't do all of those every single day, mind you, just when extra help was needed…which might as well have been every day."
Dr. Perez shook her head.
"You weren't kidding about wearing a lot of hats," the doctor mused with a hearty laugh. "I have trouble just keeping track of which patients are on my caseload."
Her laughter trailed off as she flipped another page.
"If memory serves me correctly, you started here at the university in 2281?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"But you studied social work? What brought you to that from hunting and survival? I'm curious."
It wasn't the first time someone had pointed that out.
"I know, it's a weird jump. Julie was the one who recommended it."
"I would have thought Julie would do everything she could to keep you, even if it meant hog-tying you to a chair," Dr. Perez teased.
"She's like a big sister to me, so it's more back and forth. Sometimes I drive her crazy with my questions and disagreements and she wants me gone."
"Who took over David's program when you left?"
December smiled to herself. You hear that, old man? She called it "David's Program."
"I already knew who I wanted to replace me even before I applied. One of the younger guys who had attended a lot of the hunter-gatherer trips was interested in joining the Followers so I recruited him and set him up to take over."
"And now?"
December furrowed her brow in confusion.
"Now…?"
"How is David's program doing now?"
"Oh! It's still running. Although it's more of a club as many of the skills we taught have developed some permanency in the community. We still get newbies, but a lot less than before. I join them when I can."
"How cool. I love hearing those success stories."
"They make all of what we do worth it."
Dr. Perez nodded. Another page of chicken scratch was flipped over.
"I take it, then, you've come across more than animals in the wastes?"
"Oh yeah. Feral ghouls are quite common. I did run into some raiders one time, though."
The doctor smiled, pointing a finger in December's direction.
"That's right, I remember reading in Julie's report that you had made a deal with a group of 'em! I'll admit, I didn't believe her at first. I thought she might be trying to blow smoke up my skirt."
December cocked her head at the strange idiom. Must have been a pre-war one the doctor picked up from a book or something.
"I did in fact manage to get my hunting group out of a pickle with some raiders," she said, "and it was wild."
The doctor leaned forward. "Well…what happened? How'd ya do it?"
"I should probably preface that we had a lot of leverage. My hunting group at the time was, what, seven strong? And I had been working with them for about a year."
Like a moving painting hovering before her eyes, the scene came back into view.
"We were on a usual trip when we discovered some raiders had moved into the area since our last one. It was weird 'cuz the NCR and Mr. House's robots were doing a pretty darn good job of keeping them away on the outside while the Kings kept them from coming inside. The local raiders knew the area wasn't worth it.
"So when I saw these idiots, I thought maybe they were too cocky to care, or they didn't know huge murderous robots regularly patrolled the area. Not to mention, we could have easily taken them out so it was also either stupid or ballsy of them to approach us. But I didn't want to risk anyone getting killed.
"So I leveled with them. I said, 'we come out here every two weeks, so either you kill us and only get food once, then get turned into laser-cut swiss cheese by robots as you try to find more food, or, you let us live and you'll have a steady supply of food twice a month without needing to life a finger.'"
Dr. Perez's eyes were affixed to her words.
She asked eagerly, "they didn't demand more or everything you had?"
"Oh, they did." December put on her best raider impression. "They tried the ol', 'No, you're going to give us all of your food or we'll kill you, find your settlement, and kill them too!'"
"And?" The doctor beckoned for her to continue.
"I asked them how they would be able to get food if they killed all of the people sharing it with them."
December shrugged. "It was a bit too easy. I'm not sure if that even counts."
"It's still impressive. How long did you have to share with them?" Dr. Perez asked.
"That's the best part, we didn't! We immediately sent word to the NCR and the next time we passed by there, the house was empty."
Dr. Perez leaned back, taking it all in.
"That's incredible," she mused. "Maybe you should teach a hostage negotiation class here or something."
December sensed she was half-joking.
Okay, but a hostage negotiation class would be pretty neat, though, she thought. Future December project?
The doctor centered herself once more.
"Okay, so you finish university at the end of 2283 and are sent back to Freeside. Thankfully, you've kept great records, so I'm just gonna go through and ask you a few clarifying questions about your more major accomplishments."
December's brow furrowed. Did she just skip my two years at the university on purpose? Some life-altering things happened during that time. She made a mental note to come back to that if the doctor didn't by the end of the interview.
Dr. Perez began going down the list, starting with the discharge process December had created when she first made it back to Freeside, to two weeks ago when she saved Ted's life. December was only half-engaging by the time her interviewer had made it to the end of the list; she couldn't shake the feeling that Dr. Perez was avoiding the subject of Shady Sands on purpose.
During the second year of her time at the university, the NCR city of Shady Sands had been turned into a crater, killing thousands and displacing many more. To respond to this, one of the Followers' adaptations was to turn some of the university's different curricula into field work. December was among the first to respond and put her skills to practical use.
Did I do something wrong during that time? She wondered anxiously. Fuck, it's because I slept with one of NCR Rangers, isn't it? How did they find out about that? Her thoughts began to race, eyes staring blankly forward as she unconsciously bit at her stubby fingernails.
Dr. Perez saying her name pulled her back to the present task at hand.
"December? Did you hear me?"
"Huh?"
"I was saying that you probably noticed I skipped over your time at university."
"Oh. Yeah, I did."
"Part of that is because I worked with you during that time and remember quite a bit of the impact you made here. The other part of it has to do with your placement."
"My placement in Shady Sands?"
"Sort of? I meant your placement for this project, but yes, it has to do with your time in Shady Sands."
December became aware of a loose piece of skin hanging off her lip. She sat on her hands to prevent herself from picking at it.
Dr. Perez continued.
"I already had an idea of where I wanted to place you before this interview and I am a lot more confident of that choice after speaking with you now, but I still need just a bit more information."
"I thought the whole point of the interview was to discover where to place me," December critiqued, a dab of annoyance adding spice to her words.
Dr. Perez ignored her comment, turning her page of questions over. Her behavior only added to the growing bad taste in the interviewee's mouth.
"I remember reading that you arrived at Shady Sands the day it was bombed, correct?"
"I did. Had to wear a chicken suit and everything."
The doctor blanched.
"A chicken suit?"
"A radiation suit. Looks a bit like a rubber chicken," December said.
She could remember taking in the carnage of Shady Sands from behind the plexiglass mask as if she was there in that moment. She tried to blink away the images.
Is it getting harder to breathe? She wondered, pulling at her shirt collar.
"Speaking of 'other responders,' you worked closely with the Brotherhood of Steel." Dr. Perez's eyes flicked up to meet December's like she anticipated a negative response.
December paused, her face hardening.
"Yeah. I did." Her voice was flat when she answered.
"Can you tell me a bit about what that was like?"
"Terrible."
"...Can you give me more than that?"
December crossed her arms and sat back, jaw set and mouth tight.
"No, not really."
Dr. Perez looked her up and down. December became aware of her defensive posture and tried to relax.
"Do you think you could swallow your obvious disdain in order to work with them again?"
December's breath quickened. "'Obvious disdain?' Do you even know what kinda bullshit we had to go through just to exist with those tin cans there?"
The doctor only blinked.
December gasped.
"Holy shit, you knew I wouldn't like this, didn't you? I can't help but notice this wasn't included in your earlier disclaimer I signed."
"I mean, you did sign off that you understood you would be expected to work closely with 'allied factions.'"
December's mouth hung open in shock.
They are allying with those tin cans?
"Disdain" was an understatement–December loathed the Brotherhood. It was not as fascist as the Enclave, but it towed the damn line. It was oftentimes a necessary evil the Followers dealt with, but Freeside and the Fort had been spoiled by the isolationism of the Brotherhood's branch in the Mojave.
The idea of working with those assholes in power armor again made December's stomach drop and her chest burn for a number of reasons. It wasn't just that she thought they were cocky and annoying, although that certainly played a role. She saw what happened to the civilians in Shady Sands who did not immediately fall in line. They were often manipulated and tricked into submission.
The Brotherhood's presence and behavior in Shady Sands meant herself, her comrades, and the other responders (hell, even the NCR) had to bite their tongues at the discrimination and the greed in exchange for its access to technology and the strength of its fighters. They had to endure its cult logic, warmongering, and holier-than-thou attitude. They had to sleep with one eye open, lives constantly put in the middle of a mine field of unstable soldiers who thought they were entitled to hero status. The Brotherhood members in Shady Sands exercised their crooked beliefs a lot on the female section of the population especially.
To the Brotherhood, its presence in Shady Sands was not a humanitarian effort, it was a crusade– they micromanaged everything being done to help the refugees to further their mission.
December tried to extinguish the anger bubbling in her veins.
"I don't know if I can, ma'am," she finally added.
"I can tell. What are you feeling right now?"
December identified the first words that came to mind: "Terror. Dread."
"How come?"
December scoffed.
"Are you serious? You were there! You should know!"
The doctor sat still in her chair quietly. Her face was calm but serious. She allowed December to continue:
"I don't trust them to keep me safe Dr. Perez. In Shady Sands, I had people I knew to look out for me, there were other factions there, other witnesses, but if you send me out to the East Coast alone with those…inquisitor wannabes…you might as well be sending me into a nest of cazadors. Hell, I don't even know where you're sending me yet, but apparently you've known this whole time!" She shouted, gesturing pointedly at the doctor with her hand.
She held the doctor's gaze, her eyes intense. The doctor maintained her poker face which only added to December's panic.
"There has to be other options, something else I can do to support this project, other factions I may be able to ally with."
Tears now threatened to escape onto December's cheeks, and a burning lump had taken up residence in her throat. It felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest. She felt so violated; she was being taken advantage of.
"Take a deep breath with me, December."
December squeezed her eyes shut and forced her mind to escape to her cabin, the tears receding with each flow of the tide. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…
Dr. Perez set her notepad, paperwork, and pen aside.
She pursed her lips as she thought of her next move.
"I appreciate how upset you are about this, December. This project–in many ways–is unlike anything we've ever done before. What we're asking you to do is not easy." She reached across the desk, beckoning for December to take one of her hands. December declined the gesture.
The doctor nodded her head in acceptance and resorted to leaving her own clasped in front of her instead.
She pressed on.
"I know you must be wanting a change of pace. You've spent ten years in Freeside and things have mostly stabilized there. You have the opportunity to bring that stability to another community.
"As far as the Brotherhood goes, each branch has a common thread but is also unique depending on their leadership. The branch you would be working with, under Elder Maxson, is nothing like the zealots out here in the West. I worked with him when he was a paladin assisting the NCR against the Legion. He is level-headed, altruistic by Brotherhood standards, and above all: honest and transparent. Don't get me wrong, he still leads a bunch of 'wannabe inquisitors'–as you call them–that hoard technology, but in the Commonwealth, our goals align more than depart."
December froze.
"The Commonwealth?" She asked, her voice an intense whisper.
"Yes," Dr. Perez sighed, realizing she let the cat out of the bag. "The Commonwealth."
December brought her hands to her mouth. She searched her mind to see if she remembered anything about the region from the books she had read. Nothing came to her at that moment. Her brain was slowly turning to mush with all the twists and turns of this "interview".
More like "interrogation," she quipped to herself.
All she could squeeze out of the data banks was that her cabin on the beach dream could come true there. The landscape would be a bit different, but the sentiment would be the same.
Dr. Perez began sifting through the file underneath her legal pad. She turned each loose page over like they were in a book until she got to the one she was looking for. She pulled it out and slid it across the desk over to December.
"Earlier this week, we received a telegram. It's a newspaper article written by a Diamond City woman named Piper. For reference, Diamond City is the largest settlement in the Commonwealth."
December looked down at the paper. It was a transcript of an article titled, The Man Out of Time.
December held the paper in her shaking hands and started reading: a vault dweller, cryogenically frozen by Vault-Tec for 210 years. The Institute, an organization that killed the vault dweller's wife and stole his child, and was shadowy and evil, kidnapping the Commonwealth's family members and replacing them with synthetic look-alikes to monitor the wasteland. Sometimes, if its synthetic copies became too sentient, the Institute would steal them back. Sometimes, people killed innocents thinking they were synths. As if tearing families apart wasn't enough, the Institute's unsupervised coursers terrorized settlements trying to find their machines that had escaped or gone rogue.
If what the reporter alleged was true, what was happening in the Commonwealth was horrific; it was sinister.
"Handing me this feels even more manipulative," December said with a half-smile–half-playful and half-resentful.
The doctor knew what she was doing. December supposed she couldn't fault her for trying.
"Have you verified these claims yet, Dr. Perez?"
"Absolutely. It helps that Piper is not the only one with major grievances against the 'Commonwealth's Bogeyman.'"
"The 'Commonwealth's Bogeyman'?
"Yep. It's what the locals nicknamed the Institute."
"That's way too whimsical."
A chuckle passed between them, the kind that helped them to keep from wallowing in the awfulness of it all.
Dr. Perez added, "the Commonwealth is already vulnerable without The Institute victimizing them as well. Its citizens likely need as much support as they can get, and you are the perfect candidate for the job. I hope you see that."
December leaned back, groaning in frustration.
"Argh, I'm still having trouble getting over this whole Brotherhood component. How am I supposed to do any good for the Commonwealth if this 'Elder Maxson' is up my ass the whole time? You're telling me none of your other candidates have worked with the Brotherhood?"
Dr. Perez sighed. December could see her questioning was starting to grate on the doctor, but she didn't really care.
Maybe if you had been completely transparent from the beginning, we wouldn't be here. She stifled the schadenfreude that played about her lips.
"You're the only one so far that has worked as closely with the Brotherhood as you have. I know you begrudgingly worked with them, but you sure as hell didn't show it, and–"
"Because if I did, they wouldn't let us work with the civilians."
"Exactly, December!" Dr. Perez was now raising her voice. "You put the priority of the refugees in Shady Sands above everything else, even your own hatred of that crooked faction. You knew how to stroke the Brotherhood's ego, so much so that Elder Cleric Quintus put in a good word for you."
December blinked.
"He did?"
"Yes. I mean, it definitely included some, 'if only those tree-hugging hippies hadn't brainwashed her first' bullshit, but yes, he did."
December shifted uncomfortably.
"Do you know how soul-draining that was, Dr. Perez?"
Now it was the doctor's turn to scoff.
Fuck, that was a stupid thing to say.
Before the doctor could respond, December held up her hand: "I'm sorry, of course you do. I need to chill."
Dr. Perez breathed in deeply before continuing.
"Do you remember the project I assigned in our ethics course where I challenged you to address the question, 'are there times when the Followers can prioritize safety over its pacifist ideals?'" Dr. Perez asked.
December raised an incredulous eyebrow.
"Yeah?"
"Do you remember how you supported your answer?"
"I think so."
"You had managed to find a pre-war book about how helping professionals would join the police and military in pre-war times. Like, they would actually partner with them as if they were another police officer or soldier. Except they didn't use their issued service weapons or pepper sprays or grenades or tasers or handcuffs. They used de-escalation techniques and compassion and patience."
December nodded. She sensed what her interviewer was getting at. She both admired and hated how persuasive the doctor was being.
"They had to align themselves with a dangerous institution to keep people safe, December. Their love towards the community, and their abilities to use words instead of violence, were contagious to the men and women they partnered with who were taught to be afraid. It made a big difference in the number of civilians being killed and gave those officers and soldiers someone to ground themselves with."
It took them a long time to get there, though, December interjected, to herself. But it had to start somewhere, another voice in her mind conceded.
She leaned back to stare up at the ceiling and ran her hands down her face, bringing them down over her mouth as she breathed deeply.
She closed her eyes and sighed. She imagined a devil and angel on her shoulders.
"It's for the greater good," the angel said.
"Fuck it, just go for it," the devil finally agreed. It added for good measure, "besides, maybe one of those tin cans is good in bed."
December whined in defeat.
What the fuck have I gotten myself into?
"Alright, fine, I'll do it," she capitulated. If it was anyone else, she'd be begging them to never accept such an assignment under clear manipulation and distress. But for her…hopefully the risk was worth the reward. "There is something I need from you and your team, though. I need you all to help me plan for my safety in the event the Brotherhood decides I'm no longer useful or one of their soldiers gets bloodthirsty. I need you to promise me–and follow through on that promise–that you will do everything at your disposal to make sure I don't end up dead, and If I don't feel like you've done enough by the time I'm supposed to be sent off, I quit."
December was serious about the last part and Dr. Perez could see that.
The doctor stood and held out her hand, a big smile on her face.
"You have a deal, December."