Myrla had been easy enough to deal with — after a few moments of soothing her fears that Nora wasn't a synth, she'd agreed readily enough to a trade, giving up a fair number of mechanical and electronic components for Nora's gold, and a couple hundred caps on top of it. Then they'd stopped in to the office of a Nick Valentine, a detective Piper suggested who might be able to help Nora out, but his secretary had said that he'd gone missing, down a subway station halfway across the city and into an old Vault. (Now that's one word that started to make Nora uneasy every time she heard it — based on some of the stuff she saw and read down in good ol' 111, she doubted that hers was the only Vault that was secretly a fucked up science experiment). So Nora had offered to go look into it, wondering if that made her a detective. What were this guy's qualifications, anyway? Did he watch some old noir movies on holotape or something? If so, Nora was just as qualified. (Not that she shared those thoughts aloud, that would have been rude to the obviously grieving woman).

After leaving his office, Piper then suggested, not meeting Nora's eyes (that should have been a big red flag right there), that she could arrange for a water delivery for Sanctuary Hills from the person who operated Diamond City's water purifier. Nora agreed that that sounded like a good idea, as the town's water supply consisted of one hokey little pump she'd managed to throw together, and that definitely wouldn't serve her long-term vision for the settlement. A visit from a water caravan would give her a bit of breathing room towards a more permanent solution to that problem.

Nora followed Piper as she led her to the flooded outfield and the water purifier built over it, and stopped when Piper did. "Well, there he is," Piper said, an indecipherable look on her face as she gestured towards… the kid.

The kid was bald as an egg and wearing little better than rags. "Water for sale! Fresh, pure water! You won't find better in all Boston!" He locked eyes with Nora. "Hey, lady, buy some of my water, or you'll die! Of thirst!"

Nora spoke out the side of her mouth, unable to tear her eyes away from him. "What the hell's his deal?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," Piper said. "His name's Sheng Kawolski. He was running this thing when Nat and I got here, and he inevitably dovetails any conversational topic to 'buy my water'. And I've asked everyone else in town, and I get variations on grumbling, swearing, yelling, or a combination." She snorted. "He tried kissing Nat last month. She socked him a good one. God bless that kid."

"Cool," Nora concluded. She decided to bite the bullet and walked forward. "Hello, uh, Sheng," she said. "I'd like to make a bulk order for delivery."

Sheng eyed her coolly. "Hmm, I've never done a bulk order before. Where would you want it delivered to?"

"Oh, Sanctuary Hills," Nora said. She opened the map on her Pip-Boy and showed him its location relative to Diamond City.

He tilted his head back and forth, doing some mental arithmetic. "Okay… five hundred caps," he finally decided.

Nora recoiled a little. She didn't have nearly that much money. "Can you tell me how you arrived at that figure?" she asked.

"Three hundred caps for the water itself," Sheng said matter of factly. "That's a bulk rate discount, and it almost bleeds me dry as it is, so don't try to talk me down. Then, I have to pay one of the caravan merchants to move the goods, and they'll want a fee for themselves, extra pay for their guards, maybe even money to rent a pack brahmin if they can't carry enough of your order with what they already have."

"Oh, you know all that from never having done a bulk order before?" Nora challenged, crossing her arms.

Sheng didn't respond at first. "…Tell you what," he finally said. "I can cut you a bit of a deal if you want to help me out with a little chore." He swept an arm over the water. "Go have a little swim and clean out any big pieces of debris you find in the water. The filters on the purifier can handle the little stuff, but anything bigger than a baseball can lead to clogging. Do that, and I think we can work out a better deal."

"You've got it," Nora said. She gave Sheng's hand one quick pump, then dropped her backpack at Piper's feet and handed her her pistol for safekeeping. "Wish me luck!" she said, before springing out into the water. The entire sequence had taken less than ten seconds.

Piper watched, bemused, as Nora swam around in Diamond City's water supply, head occasionally submerging as she scanned beneath the surface of the water. "Hey Blue, is that gizmo on your wrist going to be fine?" she asked Nora during one of her gasps for air.

"Oh yeah, totally," Nora said reassuringly as she treaded water. "These things are fucking indestructible. I remember one commercial where House — the dude who made them — blathered on about how…" She struggled to remember the words. ""From the frontlines in Alaska to the friendly waters of your local beach, the Pip-Boy is your rugged, all-weather companion for all your.." Shit, I don't remember how it ended!" She shook her head, frustrated. "But yeah, I pulled it off of a centuries-old skeleton which had all of its other clothing rot off of it, and I didn't even need to get it a new battery. Shit's built to last." She took a deep breath and dove into the water again.

"I had no idea she would do that," Sheng confessed to Piper a few minutes later. "Your new friend is an idiot!"

Piper fixed her gaze on Sheng. "Talked to Nat lately?" she asked. She grinned when Sheng quickly walked into his shed and made himself busy. Her grin vanished when a loud thump startled her; she looked down and saw that Nora had already found one big piece of garbage and had tossed it ashore already. The process repeated itself several more times over the next half hour, until finally Nora pulled herself up out of the water and began panting, slowly catching her breath.

"Hey, Sheng!" she finally called out. The boy walked out of the shed. "What the hell's this doing in here?" she asked. She held up the final object she'd hauled from the water, which she'd been clutching to her chest. Piper slowly blinked upon realizing it was a skull.

Sheng shrugged indifferently. "Okay, so you're not the first person I've asked to clean the water. At least there aren't any more unstable hand grenades down there!" He shot Piper a look. "And yes, I already informed Security about it!" He and Nora went back and forth on the price a little bit more until they finally settled on something agreeable to both of them.

"A little unorthodox, but you handled that pretty good," Piper remarked.

"I try," Nora said with a quick smile. She let most of the junk lay where she'd tossed it, but she knelt down, opened up her backpack, and — to Piper's horror — shoved the skull inside.

"Are — are you keeping that thing?" Piper asked, taking an involuntary step backward.

"Yeah," Nora said, meeting Piper's shocked face with her calm one. "It's kinda neat. Should I not keep it?"

Piper forced herself to relax. She'd seen a lot worse things out there in the Commonwealth. "Look, do what you like, okay? I think it's a little morbid, but, uh, you do you."

"Cool!" Nora grinned and finished zipping up her backpack before putting it back on. "Hey, can I change at your place?"

XXX

Piper sat on the couch, doing her best to not imagine Nora slipping out of that soaking wet, skintight Vault-Tec suit. She focused on the keeping of the skull. Now, THAT was weird. Right? Who saw a random skull and thought, 'Mine!'? She was relieved when Nora came back downstairs from up in Piper's room, wearing a fresh, dry suit. "It's a good thing I always keep a few spares with me," she said, pulling at the fabric for emphasis. "I hope you don't mind, I left the wet one upstairs — draped it across one of your filing cabinets to air-dry."

Piper shook her head. "Nah, I don't mind at all! Come back and get it, uh, anytime!" Piper suddenly realized that within just a few minutes, Nora would be walking out that door and… and leave Diamond City! Gone! Maybe forever! God, if only Piper could resist a pretty face! "Or, uh, we could come back and get it?" She gulped as Nora stopped and looked at her, a questioning look on her face. "I mean, well, you said you've only been out and about for a month, right? Maybe you could use the help of a seasoned journalist like myself? Someone who's been around the wasteland a few times?"

Nora considered this, then nodded. "Actually, yeah, that sounds great!" She briefly glanced towards the door. "Uh, what about your sister, though? Will she be alright by herself? Will Mayor Dickwad try to kick her out?"

"Nat?" Piper asked. "Yeah, she'll be fine!" she said, dismissive. "McDonough talks a big game, but he doesn't have the scrote to kick a little girl out into the world. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time we've been apart for a while… she's a tough one, alright." She rubbed the back of her neck. "And while I like to give them a hard time, I'm sure Diamond City Security can keep a good eye on her when necessary, too. Some of them are real good folks."

"If you're sure…" Nora said with a half smile. "I'd love to have you along, Piper."

"Great!" Piper said, her voice cracking a little from excitement. "Uh, I mean, that's good," she amended, making a conscious effort to control her tone. "I'll, uh, I'll go get my shit."

XXX

To get back to Sanctuary Hills, Nora backtracked the path she'd taken to get to Diamond City in the first place — she travelled north until she hit the river, west until she reached railroad tracks, and then followed them north, going through Oberland Station and Greygarden. "Hey, let's go to Corvega," Nora said a little ways past Greygarden, leaving the tracks and heading west.

Piper grimaced. "Uh, Blue, you might wanna reconsider. The old Corvega plant is a raider stronghold. DCS isn't sure, but they figure about three or four dozen raiders call the place home."

Nora gave Piper an indulgent smile. "I think they're working with slightly outdated information," she said. "Unless you believe in ghosts, ain't nobody in Corvega anymore."

"Well… well, that's good," Piper said, taken aback. She began to follow Nora. "Was it Greygarden? A shitload of Mr. Handys would probably have managed to clear them out…" She watched as Nora's smile split open, showing a veritable shark's grin. "Okay, what aren't you telling me?"

"It was me," Nora confessed. "Well, me and Preston Garvey. We cleared out Corvega together."

"…What? Two people cleared out a small army of raiders?" Piper said, gobsmacked and disbelieving. "…Wait, Preston Garvey's alive? I thought the Minutemen were all dead!"

"Nope, we're alive and well!" Nora confirmed, striking a quick parade salute before continuing her walk. "It wasn't all that hard, though, really — raiders are terrible at teamwork and planning, and their reaction to someone breaking into their stronghold was 'Attack the invader piecemeal' and 'Don't bother summoning anyone from other parts of the building'. Anyway, with that gold offloaded, I was hoping to salvage a bunch of raw materials I had to pass by when we were here last — mainly, a shitload of aluminum, plus a few other odds and ends."

Piper narrowed her eyes and decided to revisit the impossible tale of the siege of the assembly plant at another time. "So, you met Garvey and joined the Minutemen? I'm guessing you and him are set up out of Sanctuary Hills?"

"Yeah," Nora said. "Me, him, Codsworth, Mama Murphy, uh… oh hell, what are their names?" Nora bit her lip for a moment before smiling as the memory came back. "The Longs — Jun and Marcy — and Sturges."

Piper brightened up. "Well, I'm glad to hear Mama Murphy is still alive — all of them, really, though I haven't met any of those other ones — but I don't know how Preston's going to bring the Minutemen back with less than half a dozen people and a robot butler."

"Oh, it's not Preston's job, it's mine," Nora pointed out. "He made me the General of the Minutemen. And the radio beacon Sturges and I set up before I left for Diamond City might have attracted a few more people by now, who knows?"

Piper felt a headache coming on from the increasing cognitive dissonance vibes she was getting from Nora. "Okay, hold on: you've been out of the vault for a bare month, and Preston, a soldier with years of experience, put you in charge? What, were you a soldier before the Great War?"

Nora shook her head. "Lawyer," she said. "Nate was the soldier. Although he did show me a few things here and there…" she said, trailing off. Things were quiet for a few more moments. "I should point out that he didn't make me general after a month, though. He…" Nora grunted, trying to hold it off, but began cackling. "He made me… he made me…" She sank to her hands and knees and began pounding the dirt in her laughing fit. "You won't believe a word of it!" she managed to shriek out, hysterical tears streaking their way across her face. "He… he…"

"Come on, Blue, snap out of it!" Piper demanded, flicking Nora across the ear.

"Ow!" Nora snapped, falling onto her side. "That really hurt!" She rubbed her ear gingerly, but was quietly grateful she'd been snapped out of it. "But…" she let out one last chuckle. "But yeah, he made me general on my first day out of the Vault."

"Brahmin shit," Piper snapped out.

"It was either from saving him from a dozen raiders, or from the big-ass deathclaw," Nora speculated. "Or probably both."

Piper groaned. She couldn't believe she'd talked herself into accompanying such an obvious charlatan. Nora was obviously either crazy, a liar, or a crazy liar. She'd accompany her the rest of the way to Sanctuary Hills, but she'd keep a wary eye on Nora the whole time and double time it back to Diamond City the second she caught so much as a whiff of sinister intentions from her companion.

XXXXXXXXXX

Much of my fanfic is dedicated to Bethesda's godawful writing. How is it that some bald kid runs Diamond City's water purifier? What logical sense is there in making a complete nobody general of the Minutemen, even if they just pulled your ass out of the fire? One of my main goals is to make the stupid shit make sense; one of my other goals is, where I can't make it make sense, to just have fun with it.

You can't actually arrange for bulk water delivery to any of your settlements ingame, of course. (You could in Fallout 1!) Sheng does give you that quest to clear out the reservoir of junk, and you do indeed find a skull down there. Collecting bones is actually a great idea for non-morbid reasons, since (if I recall correctly) they can be processed into fuel or something. (Not gonna bother looking up the recipe, this isn't a strategy guide, haha). You can also make fun decorations that utilize bone, and some of the robot mods in Automatron use bones too. Bone bone bone.