Summary: Sequel to Loneliness (Is The Toughest Role You Ever Played). Cooper's world turns upside down when he and Lucy stop at a seemingly-inconspicuous vault after collecting on their recent bounty.

Start A/N: Featuring Cooper being rambly because I wrote parts of this at 1 AM across two different days. ANYWAY. I am very sorry for this.

(I'm Aware) My Heart Is A Sad Affair

There's a bounty drop-off point in the nearest town. With the guy still alive- and unharmed- they get the extra caps, too. But there are no vials to be bought, and Lucy and Cooper are on the move again, no worse off than before. They come up on the pond later that evening, and he spends a good couple of hours cleaning the blood out of his clothing whilst Lucy cooks up some of the deathclaw meat they'd brought along. He takes over when he's done, finishing off the cooking whilst the girl bathes both herself and the dog.

"Happy?" he asks, handing off a skewer of meat when they rejoin him. They're both blue again, his shirt and her vault suit.

Her free hand combs her wet hair back into place, and she smiles when she settles down to eat at last. "Very. I haven't been this clean since Max and I fell into Vault 4."

"...Fell into?" he inquires, reluctantly curious.

And she spends the next while telling him all about her adventures between leaving him at the Super Duper Mart and walking through the gates of the Observatory, tossing chunks of meat to the dog when she's too busy speaking to eat herself.

The story is about as wild as he expects, and it makes sense when he figures out that the Maximus guy is the knight wannabe that tried to fight him back in Filly. The two of them are troublemakers all by themselves, and the way things had gone after they'd joined up only makes sense. It really is a miracle they made it as far as they had. Not that it keeps the Ghoul from hoping they never cross the guy again. He'd spared him a couple of times, but he highly doubts he has the patience for another encounter with him. Though it's no secret that his companion hopes otherwise.

"He's not a bad guy," she insists, when he shakes his head.

"Not yet," Cooper shoots back, the image of the mech stuck in the ground fresh in his memory despite the weeks that have since passed. Good guy or not, though, clearly he's as dumb as a box of rocks. But there's no point in ending the day with an argument.

He kicks sand into the fire, watches the flames burn out, and lays on his back, staring up at the stars.

Between cleaning and storytelling, quite a bit of time has passed. The moon's almost directly above them. Still, he's not mad about it. Their being next to a source of water means that he's got to stay up all night and keep guard anyway, lest a predator try to take a piece out of one of them. Lucy and Dogmeat need their sleep, after all. Not him. Not yet.

The company hasn't been half-bad, but he'll enjoy the peace and quiet. He always does. It's the rancher in him. The one part of him that's thriving up here in this hellscape.

"Cooper-"

He sighs, props his head up with an arm, lays his rifle across his chest with the other. "Go to sleep."

She gives up on trying to talk to him after that, the sand shifting as she shifts to lay down on her side, facing the smothering coals to soak in what remains of their heat. The dog curls up at her feet, head resting in the sand.

The Ghoul sighs again, because telling her off isn't as entertaining as it used to be. But he needs her to keep her distance. She knows too much about him, and anything more might turn into a death sentence if they so happen to find what he's looking for first. He doesn't want that for her. As ridiculous as she is, she's good. And he wants her to stay that way.

If pushing her out is what it takes, so be it.

He picks up a tune to drown out his thoughts, whistling into the silvery darkness like he's got not a care in the world. If only it were true.

Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze

And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees

Send me off forever but I ask you please

Don't fence me in

Naturally, he wakes the girl up at dawn, when the first beams of light start reaching out through the dark. They eat as they pick up camp, and they start marching back out into the desert just as the sun starts peeking over the horizon.

Dogmeat gnaws on a gloved hand to convey her own hunger, and he tosses some food for her as they walk. Smiles as her tail wags, watches her trot over to Lucy and nudge her hand. The girl's keeping up pretty well, that ankle of hers almost good as new. There's something happy in her gaze, and he finds himself wondering if maybe she's actually getting used to life on the Wasteland, after all.

It could be a good day, Cooper thinks. And knows immediately after that he's doomed it to be a bad one. Eh, whatever. Good days don't actually exist, anyway.

"Cooper!"

Oh, geez. And so starts the chatter.

.

The morning itself is relatively uneventful. They don't come across anyone. Hell, even the radscorpions stay in their burrows. It's a bit too quiet, truth be told. It keeps the Ghoul on edge for anything that might be lurking, whether that be raiders or another deathclaw.

But there really is nothing out here.

They walk beneath the blazing sun and not a thing jumps out at them.

"Why do you wanna stop by this vault, anyway?" he asks, breaking an hour's silence when they stop for lunch. They're getting close. He's recognized a few landmarks from when they'd been heading the other way. "Ain't givin' up on me now, are ya?"

Her head snaps up from where she's fiddling with her Pip-Boy, looking somewhat taken aback that he'd consider the idea. "What? No, I'm not giving up. I know you might want me to, but-"

And she calls him reactive? Jesus.

"Whoa, easy there," he chides, loosely raising a hand between them. "Just teasin', sweetheart. Like it or not, I know you're in this for the long haul. Just. Like. Me. Hopefully not as fuckin' long, though."

Because he really would hate to see her end up as jaded as he's become. Despite his own old attempts to drag her to ruin himself. Her optimism is bringing parts of him back that he'd thought long gone. She's the first person he's actually wanted to play nice with in a few dozen years. It's a strange feeling, yearning for someone to tolerate him. And it's been working out, so far. She keeps saving his ass, despite all the ill he's done to her. Lord knows neither one of them can do this alone.

It's kind of relieving to watch her settle down. He knows she hasn't said as much, but he's likely the only person that hasn't lied to her since she left that vault of hers. It's part of why she can be so antagonistic toward his own behavior. Waiting for him to slip up. Relaxing when she realizes that he's still being honest with her.

It's kind of sad.

"Sorry," she mumbles, awkwardly turning back to her Pip-Boy.

He huffs. "Don't sweat it, Vaultie. It's a cruel world up here- I'd know. I ain't exactly the kindest thing out there myself."

Cooper tosses a hunk of meat at the dog, watches her crawl across a foot of sand to reach it, gobbling it up like a starved feral. His lips quirk a bit when she turns those big eyes on him, cocking her head. Roosevelt had never begged like this. But then again, Dogmeat's no Roosevelt. His girl's a killer, just like the Ghoul himself. She knows how to get what she wants, without the same restraint as someone's house pet. That dog is as dangerous as any other creature of the Wastes.

And yet, he still waits until she's about ready to snap at his fingers to throw the rest of her current ration toward her. It's amusing, watching her chow down on it. Until he remembers just how hungry Roosevelt had been when he'd finally made it to the house after the bombs dropped on LA.

"You're not so bad," Lucy says, startling him from his musings.

He turns his gaze on her, and wonders- not for the first time- what the hell it is she sees in him that she thinks is worth redeeming. "A thousand dead men would beg to differ. Now, you about ready to go?"

She's not, but it's only another five minutes or so before they're back on the road, Dogmeat trailing just behind them. And just as he'd promised, just as he's been doing since he made the promise, the Ghoul keeps his pace reasonable. The girl's practically right beside him as they set off from their midday camp- and, if she pushed hard enough, he's sure she could take the lead if she really wanted. Not that it would do her ankle any favors.

Thankfully, there'd actually been a clothing store in the settlement they stopped at the previous day. After turning in the bounty, they'd swung by there and he'd waited for her to pick out a new pair of boots. Actual leather ones this time, too, thank the Lord. Tougher than what she'd had before, and offering better support to those legs of hers. It's helped her with her posture as well, and that has increased her stamina. She's had more energy in the past twenty-four hours than any day they've traveled since the Observatory.

Cooper's not sure if she's noticed it, but he sure has. Those boots are probably one of their better investments. And good investments are a hard thing to come by these days. He's still questioning whether or not stopping by this vault will be one. Even if the vault-dwellers are still alive, what do they have to offer him that he can't get for himself?

He's only going along with Lucy on this side-venture because there's the slightest chance that he'll find information about Janey. On whether she's living or not, on where she is if so. On if she died free, if not.

What will he do, if she's gone?

All the years he's had to ponder that scenario, and he still doesn't know. Maybe he never will. Maybe going on without an answer is better than the one he might get. Maybe I'm better off just not knowing.

The more time that passes, the more likely it is that she's passed, after all.

But he can't afford to think like that. Can't afford to bring up the what ifs and maybes. Lots of good those have ever done anyone. He might as well go feral if he's going to let himself lose his mind like that. And that's just not who he is. The Ghoul's never given up on a hunt, never let his emotions drag him sideways. Pragmatism has kept him true to his course. Keep going, finish the job, get paid, move onto the next.

Janey's out there somewhere. She has to be. All of the bullshit he's lived through has to be worth something.

He doesn't think anymore about the vault, not until they're upon it and the door is in his sight. Stops and inhales his daily ration of sanity chems whilst Lucy approaches it, bouncing on the balls of her feet. There's a yellow forty-one printed out numerically on the steel, bright against the silver backdrop.

The door, he sees when he finally makes it over there, is sealed as shut as it would've been when the bombs fell. No signs of forced entry. Sure, it's dusty, but, well, not many vaults are still in one piece these days.

"Looks like it's hot off the fire," Cooper remarks, dumbfounded.

And it turns out, of course, that he should've kept his fucking mouth shut. The moment his voice slices through the silence, a pair of goddamn turrets pop out of the earth on either side of the door like angry flowers. They are dustier than the vault door, but they lock onto the Ghoul and his companions as quickly as a brand-new set would, dual barrels swiveling at an alarming speed. The fact that they don't fire is a miracle, because even his well-established reflexes never would've outpaced the turrets.

The Ghoul jerks to a stop, exhaling harshly at the tail end of his sigh. Of fucking course.

He really should've seen this coming.

Cooper's fingers flex in his gloves, old leather creaking with the motion, but he doesn't grant himself much larger movement than that. A single step and all three of them- Dogmeat's whimpering in the background, somewhere- could very possibly get blasted to bits. Who's he to know what'll trigger the things to shoot? Or the person behind them, for that matter. People do tend to run trigger-happy these days- and it'd be just his luck to accidentally prompt the guns into going off.

Standing there, staring down a set of double barrels, he scoffs. "Shoulda known there'd be a catch."

Why did he agree to this side-venture again?

Lucy's tense at his shoulder, having frozen more out of fear than surprise. He'll admit that he's a tad impressed that she managed to withhold whatever shriek that must've boiled up that throat of hers. "...What do we do?"

For what it's worth, he does wish he had an answer for her. This isn't exactly the way he foresaw their partnership ending. Because- okay, he'll bite- that's what it is, much as he's tried to deny it and pretend otherwise. Neither one of them would've gotten here without the other. But, then again…

Here is a pretty fucking bad place to be, at the moment.

His accent drags a little when he responds, and the precise tone of agitation almost takes him back to the gulper lake, to after the vials got shattered and he mocked her Golden Rule. "You're the vault-savvy one 'tween the two of us, sweetheart, so you tell me."

"My vault didn't have turrets outside!" She squawks into his ear, far louder than necessary, voice accentuated a moment later by the dog's mediating bark.

He flinches, seething a little, just loud enough to know the woman can hear it. Even now, after all these weeks in her presence, she has a way of grinding his gears. Forgive him if he can't be bothered to hide it. He respects her like hell, but holy shit- they're lucky the change in volume alone didn't trigger the turrets into going off. Or that it didn't burst his eardrum. Really. He's right fucking here, thank you very much.

(Though, really, he should be blaming his own radiation-addled mind for being so sensitive to bringing up bad memories and setting him off. He's spent too much time in his head today, things were bound to turn ugly.)

Cooper huffs another sigh, slowly bringing his arms up and crossing them over his chest, relaxing the slightest bit when that doesn't get them shot. Maybe him speaking triggered the turrets and sent out an alarm for someone to run over to the controls and man them, and that person is late? He'd thought they'd be dead by now, to be honest.

"What're they waitin' for?" It's rhetorical, of course, because he knows she doesn't have any more of an answer than he does, and yet-

A low, metallic groan suddenly makes itself known, and Cooper absolutely does not jump. Just because she did and he's still almost perfectly aligned with her does mean that it startled him as well. But it did, and, by the time he's recalibrated himself and has tuned into the source of the sound, the vault door is already halfway open. Looks like they might not be getting shot after all.

But that means someone's approaching, because even vault-dwellers know better than to let strangers from above inside. He can see their figure in the dim vault lighting already, and lets a hand fall to the butt of his gun. Just in case.

Lucy catches the movement out of the corner of her eye and shoots him a look that clearly says, don't shoot anyone.

The Ghoul rolls his eyes. "Here we go," he mutters under his breath, turning his full attention back to the gaping maw that is the vault's fully open entrance.

A man emerges into the light, squinting terribly against the relentless sunlight. There's a white lab coat overtop of the blue and yellow beneath, neatly pressed, front open. There's something artificial about the perfect cut of his beard. It's a tad unnerving, but then again- Cooper can't say he's ever met a scientist that hasn't been. The turrets on either side of him don't exactly help, either.

"Greetings, surface-dwellers! Welcome to Vault 41. How may we be of service?" The high-pitched cheer of his voice does not match his appearance. Not one bit.

Dogmeat growls.

He waves her back with a low, "Easy, pup."

The scientist doesn't appear to notice. He only has eyes for Lucy, and the Ghoul really does hope that it's only the vault suit that's caught his eye. "Oh, you're...You're one of us. But you're not from here. Has something happened to your vault?"

"Oh! No- my vault's fine. Well, it was when I left." At his baffled look, she adds, "Raiders kidnapped my dad and I came up here to look for him...I found him! Sort of."

Jesus Christ. The pathetic excuse of an explanation clearly further confuses the poor man, and a mild flash of dismay passes through his features upon realization that whatever this exchange is may not be straightforward. Because, clearly, he's trying to move through the interaction as quickly as he can.

"Ah, yes, a most unfortunate predicament, I'm sure," he stammers, sounding mechanical, like he's reading a line from a play or something. Something's up. He's hiding something, and he's doing a pretty good job of advertising the fact. "But, may I inquire- for what purpose have you come to Vault 41? Surely, you must realize that these grounds are protected by advanced security measures."

"We noticed," Cooper deadpans, flicking his gaze toward the turret on his left for the briefest of moments. And, then, just because he can, he doubles down on his accent to fire off a jab that hides his curiosity on the subject: "Say, you got any ammo for those things?"

The scientist turns beet red, a sort of mortified indignance crossing his features. "Of course-"

No, they fucking don't.

Dumbasses, the both of them. They were never in danger. Like he said to the Brotherhood's goons back at the Observatory- a big gun makes 'em feel like a big man. Cowards.

"I'm sorry, please ignore him," Lucy cuts back in, speaking quickly to undo the damage he just inflicted. Her voice softens after that initial sentence, desperation trading itself into some sort of emotional appeal. "It's been a long journey. He fought a deathclaw the other day and we used up most of our medical supplies after, trying to make sure he didn't die, either."

He's pretty sure they only used two stimpaks, a quarter of his thread roll, several inches of bandage- for her ankle- and an extra chem vial, but okay, sure. Let her spin her tale. Maybe the guy'll actually believe it. That little frown pulling at the edges of his mouth doesn't appear any more hostile than before.

"If your overseer doesn't mind, would you allow us to restock? It would be nice to get out of the sun for a while," she adds. "It gets very hot out here."

And, well, fuck him. The scientist actually lets them in. Who'd have thought?

It's been a good few decades since the Ghoul last entered a vault, and there's still the faintest prick of fear when the door starts to roll shut behind them. It's something to do with cutting off the open air, the light of the sun, he's sure. But he goes along anyway, because he agreed to this for some unfathomable reason. Does his best to hide his wince when the door clicks into place with a final groan. He'll be fine. Probably.

There's never a guarantee, not these days.

He follows along after Lucy and their escort- poor Dogmeat had been left outside; no dogs in the vault even now, it seems. Though, he's sure he'd have been locked out with her if he'd protested, based on the uneasy familiarity the man had looked at him with when Lucy had said, "My friend, too, please."

So maybe these people aren't completely cut off from the outside if they know what ghouls are. Good on him for being wary.

Anyhow, granted entry as he has been, Cooper keeps his senses on alert for anything odd on the march in, sparing even the ceiling a cautionary glance, playing it off as fascination. This artificial roof makes him wish they were back in that cave.

"Why didn't you have a spot in a vault?" Lucy asks, dropping back to his side from where she'd drawn ahead. Curious as ever, this girl. Something tells him that maybe that exact curiosity is half the reason she left good ol' Vault 33 to begin with. "Were you not able to apply? I mean, there's quite a few around, and while I understand it probably cost a lot of money, I kind of assumed that you would have been able to afford it, with your fame and all."

He would've been able to buy twenty spots if he'd wanted, thank you very much. Before the divorce, anyway. Speaking of which- are they really having this conversation? Right now?

The fuck?

"It wasn't about the money," he huffs out. "I chose not to apply. But that's a story for another time."

There'd been a few months between the eve of the divorce and the bombs actually dropping. And, while he'd struggled to fight off the regret of that hasty decision, he'd stuck with it. Didn't exactly have a choice anyway, after he broke off his contract. Vault-Tec wouldn't have let him in if he'd come crawling back to them. As if he ever would have.

He wonders, distantly, how many of the people he'd known there are still alive. He'd met his fair share of Vault-Tec employees. Bud. Hank. Betty. And then there's Barb herself, of course.

Well, he knows for sure one thing: Hank's out there, somewhere. Maybe he's even made it to a safe location by now. Not that it'll be a safe location much longer, of course. One way or another, the Ghoul's gonna find it. He's gonna ask questions, get his damn answers, and maybe blow the place up if they ain't the ones he's looking for.

"Did you know…?" Lucy starts again, hesitantly, and he cuts her off because the question's fucking obvious.

"That I'd become a ghoul?" he all but snaps. "No. No, I did not."

And, for the record, he's glad he didn't. Because the Cooper Howard of two hundred years ago might have actually kissed back up to Vault-Tec if he'd known what would come of himself. Or, he would've killed himself. Which also wouldn't have been helpful. He's stronger now than he ever was, and he's gonna make it pay off. All of it.

He strolls on ahead of Lucy as the scientist leads them further into the vault, eliciting not to think about the growing distance between himself and the exit. The interior of Vault 41 is crude in comparison to some of the other vaults he's seen. Especially compared to what Vault 4 had been when he'd toured it for his commercial. It's strange to think that it's still around, down beneath the ruins of Shady Sands. But then again, when he'd strolled through it, he'd also thought it strange that he was walking through a piece of the future. Funny, how things like that work.

The Ghoul has no such thoughts about Forty-One. Intact as the vault door is, the inside is about as disorganized as any other place in the Wasteland. Everything's so cluttered. Not a clear furniture-top in sight. And when his boots accidentally scrape the floor, he drags a layer of sand against it. The Mojave's infected this place.

"Don't y'all got a janitor down here?" He asks, frowning at a clearly-broken window and the shards of glass laying beneath it. "Thought you vault-types preferred things clean an' orderly."

It comes out sarcastically, as intended, masking his befuddlement. Because, everything- everything he's learned about Vault-Tec comes back to one thing. Order. Cleanliness. Safety. It puts a bad feeling in his gut to be in a thriving vault that doesn't live up to those old standards. Something's not right here.

"We manage," the other man replies tersely, clipped tone suggesting that he's not interested in sharing the details of the situation. "Resources are scarce, as I'm sure you might understand. We've had…incidents."

Well, now he has to know. "Incidents?"

He can hear the stride of Lucy's step speed up a bit as she moves closer to listen.

The scientist clears his throat and pauses, turning to face them, apparently unable to continue the conversation whilst marching across the vault. "Vault 41, upon its completion, was assigned a handful of Mr. Handy robots tasked with ensuring that the residents vote off one individual each month for experimentation. We inject them with a dose of radiation that turns them into, well," he gestures at Cooper, "And us scientists see if we can create an antidote to reverse the process."

Cooper jerks back a good foot, having not expected that to be the explanation. Did they really have to come to this vault? Jesus Christ. He was safer back up top. "Have any success yet?" he snickers, voice a little too hollow to pass it off.

"No, but the Head Vault has been working on a cure as long as we have. Last time we spoke, they told us that they were close."

"Head Vault?" he asks.

But the scientist shuts down, muttering something about having said too much already, and turns back to resume their course. The Ghoul hopes to fuck that he's actually taking them to the infirmary. He'll kill himself before he goes feral. But he doesn't imagine they'd have been allowed to keep their weapons if they were getting thrown into some test chamber or another anyway. It's a small comfort.

He sure as hell doesn't feel safe, though, and something about the way he pauses as the scientist starts off again seems to tip Lucy off. In his peripheral, he watches her shift on her feet beside him, mouth opening and closing, and-

"Shut up, MacLean," he grunts in advance, voice rough to mask his discomfort.

Cooper ignores her indignant sputter of, "I didn't say anything!" and listens to the familiar old sound of his spurs jingling as he picks up the pace again. There's something about it that's always been a little soothing. All these years, and he's still not quite sure what it is. Must be some old memory connected to it that he can't find the right strings to pull on to recall. He has a lot of memories like that.

Though, that's probably normal for a man that's lived three lifetimes and still has no obvious end in sight. Fuck, he's had so many head injuries that it's a wonder he's not an amnesiac by now.

Guess he should count himself lucky, then. Because, after all, his whole reason of being (other than the freedom to do whatever the fuck he wants, that is) is to find Janey. That'd be a pain to do if he couldn't remember even having a daughter. She'd only been a spark in his life for about seven years, and that was oh-so-long-ago, the fact that he remembers her even now should be a miracle-

Heh.

The Ghoul's full of terrifying thoughts today. He really should sleep before the end of the week. Surely, one all-nighter won't kill the vault-dweller, right?

He rather pointedly does not allow himself to think at all, really, in the last couple of minutes that it takes to get to Forty-One's infirmary. Turns his attention back to their surroundings and ignores paying too much attention to anything that could flash him with nostalgia or another trip down memory-lane. A hard thing to do in a vault, but he manages it.

Vault 41's infirmary is, in short, a storage closet with a desk shoved inside and ninety perfect of the shelves removed. One would think, in a lab-setting that experiments with ghoulification, that there'd at least be room for a couple of cots, but nope. It's laughable. Cooper would bet his chems that the vault doesn't even have a proper doctor. Not that he'd actually put them on the table and have his lifeline go to a group of lost-cause labrats.

The scientist, for all of his distrust, decides to leave them to it- and tells them to meet him at the exit in fifteen minutes- because he's got other matters to attend to. The Ghoul watches his back with a scoff, Lucy calling a bewildered "thank you" and popping into the closet.

Cooper knows better than to try and squeeze in with her. He leans up against the outside wall and rattles off the list of medical supplies they need when she asks. He'd have told her to steal the whole kit if he thought she would do it. Unfortunately, he knows her about as well as he knows himself by now. Maybe a little more. Lucy MacLean's clinging to her morals, just like he had for a time after the world ended. He's not gonna be the one to break that; he's already tried, and that didn't exactly work.

"Don't forget to restock on RadAway," he adds. The settlement they'd stopped at last hadn't actually had any for sale anywhere. Not completely unusual, if he's being honest. No one wants to die of radiation poisoning.

And he can't threaten to leave her behind next time it catches up to her, because he's already proven that he's not ditching her anywhere.

Still, though, he's not carrying her if she passes out.

It's funny, how he can still hear things rattling around in her bag despite him having taught her how to sort through what to keep. Mostly, he can hear metal clinking, and he wonders how much of those bullets are actually compatible with their weapons. He knows she's been collecting a little bit of every type.

"How much should I- is three bags enough?" She calls through the doorway.

Shouldn't she be able to figure that out herself? "Get four," he says. "You've been usin' one a week. Once we get back to the city, we're pushin' in full force, an' there ain't no tellin' the next time we'll find a town or trader. Always best to have a month's supply at a time."

Lucy chirps some sort of affirmative, but he barely hears it, traveling gaze catching on the door across the hallway. Or, rather, the window- it's one of those old classroom-type doors with the skinny windows by the doorknob. There's some sort of security system or something inside, he thinks. An array of small screens visible on the opposite wall. Must be hooked up to a terminal.

The scientist, he'd said that Vault 41 is in contact with the Head Vault. That they're running ghoul experiments, too. And Janey, she'd been with him when…has she turned, too? Is that what all of this is? Barb trying to undo the damage?

Maybe…

Maybe he can find out. Here.

Shit, well, he's not going to let the opportunity just slip by him.

He's not really all there when Lucy slips out of the medicine closet, offering up replacement items for what he'd used on her ankle. She seems pleased with herself, though, and he mutters some sort of acknowledgement at her as he drops the supplies into the front of his saddlebag, still eying that door.

And his companion, well, she's always been observant. Has only gotten better at it since he took her under his wing. "What's in there?" she asks him.

The Ghoul hums and offers a mischievous smirk. "We're 'bout to find out."

Something about her adventure in Vault 4 has opened her up to snooping without question, and he revels in the lack of protest when he steps forward. He strides the few feet across the hall like he's meant to be there, and opens a door that really should have been locked.

The room is dark, monitors aside. He can see them a bit more clearly as he steps inside, make out a few that are most definitely live camera feeds- and those labrats, they're locked inside old coolers just like the ones at the Super Duper Mart. Cooper winces at the sight, turns to glance around the room. There's about a hundred server boxes lining the walls, which isn't a surprise, but there's not even anyone there to watch the feed. And he's willing to bet that they only come down here when they're trying to track down an escaped feral.

He steps over to the console hosting the monitors, pushing the office chair in front of them away with his foot, vaguely listening to the rolling of the wheels. It's been years since he's had the need to access any sort of computer system.

A dim light flicks on overhead, and he turns back to look at Lucy, who's flipped a switch just inside the door; he'd forgotten that she can't see quite as well as he can. She glances around the room with as little interest as he'd had, and then settles on the interconnected terminal system. "Do you even know how to use that?" she asks, nonjudgmental.

He scoffs. "I'm old, not incompetent. These things have been around longer than I've been."

Though, fuck, the keyboard is smaller than he remembers them being. He shirks his gloves, shoves them in the opposite pocket his inhaler's hiding out in, and gets to work, plastic keys foreign beneath his fingers. Of course, the terminal's password protected and his skills are rusty, but Lucy helps him hack into the thing and then he's free and clear to search through the system.

The terminal itself is only in control of one of the screens. The rest are all wired up directly to the camera through the walls, and nothing he presses seems to affect them- which is fine, he only needs one monitor.

He scrolls silently through active projects, all of the meaningless names and subject numbers, none of them catching his eye. Cooper doesn't know any of the people they're turning to ghouls at the present time, and that's probably for the best. But Janey's name isn't there either. And he's not quite sure whether that's a blessing or a curse. If she's free or if he's too late.

Flicking back to the main menu, he types archive in the prompt bar and the list of names, there's so many that there are sixty-seven pages of them. He can practically hear Lucy stiffen over his shoulder. "That's a lot of people…"

If any part of her still thought that Vault-Tec could be good, he's sure it's vanished now. All of those people, turned into ghouls, and for what?

"Jesus Christ, they've hidden the search bar," he huffs, bemused. He scrubs a hand over his face with a sigh, mismatched pointer-finger pressed down against an arrow key as the cursor flies back up the page. It's not even sorted alphabetically. Each subject was assigned a goddamn number. That's all they are to Vault-Tec, anyway, though- numbers and variables, subjects to be controlled. Labrats. Just like everyone in this vault and every other one out there.

He'd almost been one, too; the Cooper Howard of old. There was no way the man he'd once been would've come through the end of the world unchanged. This- the Ghoul- he's the better of the two options.

Even if it doesn't feel like it three hundred and sixty-four days of the year.

"Who are you looking for?"

He's in the settings now, perusing through the different lines of customization, deep in thought, but something about the way she says it jolts him away from the task. Because something about the way Lucy's asking is hesitant, almost like she understands just how personal this is. Almost like she's afraid of pulling the wrong thread and wounding him.

It gives him pause, makes him wonder: How much does she really know about him?

Outside of Barb's side of things, not many people had known about his family life. It was never public knowledge that he'd had a child. He never spoke about it on any of the radio shows he got roped into, and never on television. That Cooper was a private person. Went on and did the work he got contracted for and kept his home life separate.

Even Barb herself never made a spectacle of their daughter, only mentioned her with her colleagues when it was relevant to something she was doing. But, surely, surely, Hank knew, right? Though, given the man's transgressions against even his own blood, he's willing to bet he never even confessed to knowing Cooper. Probably didn't talk about him as an actual person. The one time they'd met, the guy had looked at him like he was a god, like he was something to be worshipped. And on that day, of all days…Fuck him.

Yeah, Lucy doesn't know shit about who he really was, about what his life was like. She doesn't know that he…

Eh. She'll find out anyway, one of these days.

"...My daughter," he murmurs at long last, because she's been good and honest with him, and she's more than earned a little knowledge about what this monster used to be. Because she's the first person since he turned ghoul that's actually given a damn about him.

The search bar's back on the screen now, and his fingers find the keyboard proper, typing forgotten letters into it.

H-O-W-A-R-D

And then he's hitting enter and the list of names disappears, sixty-seven pages narrowed down to a mere eight names. Lucy's saying something to him, but it's background noise, his eyes honing in on the third down the list.

.

Howard, Jane

.

And something catches in his chest. Because this is under archived files, and then his gaze is trailing right and. In all capitals, there's one world-ending word:

.

DECEASED.

.

That can't be right. Cooper blinks, once, twice, but not a pixel changes. There's a familiar old buzzing in his ears again, and he makes a sound that comes out as something between a gasp and a laugh. Then his teeth are clenching, and he's tasting copper, and then-

He pulls up the file.

Because the words aren't enough. Because there's no way they're true. Because his Janey can't be dead. Not after everything.

His vision's going fuzzy, too, so he skips past all the writing. Hits enter on a video file that jumps up into the middle of the screen the moment he's done it. Resists the urge to punch the monitor out when it buffers for more than ten seconds. Because he needs to know. He needs to know now, and the computer's a fucking potato, and-

There's a lab, bathed in black and white. It looks like an interrogation room, really, a lab that wasn't originally meant to be one. There's a steel table nailed down in the middle, and a little girl with dark skin and frizzy hair curled up in the back corner, and.

It's her.

Janey.

She looks a little older, but the video's got a date in the corner, reading 2080. Three years after the bombs dropped. And the girl, she's crying.

Between what any Wastelander would recognize as the snarls of a ghoul.

Cooper doesn't know why he watches until the end. He already knows there's no cure. But he sits there and puts himself through it anyway. Watches his Janey cry herself to sleep in her last moments of sanity, and watches a tiny feral ghoul leap on the first person to enter the cell. Watches her tear them to shreds, and watches a soldier put a round right through her head immediately after. Watches a pool grow under what had been her head.

Over what had been her head, two hundred fucking years ago.

Some father he's turned out to be.

It doesn't feel real. Any of it. But there's a sharp sting behind his eyes and a fierce ache in his chest, and there's no denying what he's just seen. Janey's gone. Dead. Just as he'd feared. He's too late. Way too late.

"...Cooper?" Lucy's there, leaning into his personal space, those big eyes of hers sad and wet, and he can't breathe, and-

He stumbles back when she touches him, eyes breaking away from the screen at long last, blood leaking warm through trembling lips. The world's spinning around him, spiralling, narrowing into a single point. His voice cuts in, unsteady and higher-pitched than normal, words slurring together because there's nothing he can say right now. "I…Are you fuckin'-

"FUCK!"

So, he curses the Earth instead.

Throws all the strength he's got left into a howl, something raw and primal that tears his throat up by the roots, and kicks the chair to the back of the room. Plastic snaps at the impact with the server boxes, and the terminal whirs once, twice, and then every screen in the room flickers out.

It's not enough.

The Ghoul is a whirlwind, duster flaring out as he spins around and throws a fist into the wall. And he doesn't stop there, either, no. He keeps going.

The wall, concrete as it is, doesn't crumble beneath his strength. He doesn't care. His fist beats against it again and again, with all his might. Bones crack, some start to stick through his skin, and he doesn't give them the time to heal over because he can't. He can't stop. He can't stop, and he can't breathe, and he keeps going until he knows nothing but blood. And then he leans his opposite arm against the wall, presses his head against it, and realizes that he's not gasping from the exertion but that he's crying.

"Goddammit," he chokes, because Janey's dead and he's fucking crying, and this is not how he thought his day was going to go. They were here for supplies, dammit. And now, and now…

The world's on fire.

Cooper swallows. "I'm gonna fuckin' kill 'em all."

Oh, yes, he is. He's going to wipe this vault off the face of the earth. He's gonna put a bullet in each and every one of them, because they were experimenting on ghouls and Janey was a ghoul, and Janey's dead. The executives aren't here to pay for their transgressions, but these people sure as hell will for them.

He's got nothing left to lose, after all. And, apparently, he never had to begin with.

Might as fucking well, right?

The Ghoul's staggering away from the wall, half-thought-out vengeance at the front of his mind as he sets his fingers. He slings his rifle from its holster around front, pops it, checks the ammo, closes it back up. Stumbles toward the door.

And Lucy's there, stepping in front of him, his name on her lips. "Cooper-"

"Keep my name out of your mouth," he growls, shoving her aside. Because there's no world in which Cooper Howard would take up arms in anything but defense. Because there's no world in which Cooper Howard would associate himself with someone willing to kill for any other reason. Because Cooper Howard had divorced his wife for this kind of thought, and he is not the same man as the Ghoul. He won't let anyone call him by that name again, if he can help it.

Cooper Howard died a long time ago.

With Janey.

He'd shoved her to the floor when he left. She's still there, actually, his blood staining the front of her vault suit where his arm had made contact. Lucy doesn't quite know what to think, if she's being honest with herself. She hadn't even known that Cooper had a daughter. Just one more thing on the long list of information her father had kept from her.

But that knowledge means nothing now, because apparently Cooper's daughter is dead.

Even now, in the stillness of the security room, she can hear his rifle going off at the other end of the vault. Slaughtering the people that live in Vault 41. Slaughtering them like they slaughtered his daughter-

She shivers.

What would he do- what will he do, when he runs out of people to kill?

The answer comes to her way too quickly for her liking. It has her freezing, shoots fear up her spine, because…Because the version of Cooper Howard she's come to know, he-

"Get my gun."

This version of Cooper Howard absolutely would kill himself. And because she's his…friend? Partner? Because she's his something, she can't let him do that. It would be wrong, and she wouldn't be able to live with herself. So, Lucy scrambles to her feet and runs.

.

She can still hear the gunshots as she makes her way through the vault, so she allows herself to search through some of the carnage as she goes, to separate the valuables from the gore. There's not much on any of the corpses, but she finds a handful of vials in one man's coat pocket, and a certain feeling in her gut tells her to grab them.

At one point, the blood is so thick on the floor that there are bootprints. They're so defined against the floor that it reminds her of the stamps she used to press against her students' papers to tell them that they did a good job on their assignments. She decides right then that if she ever goes back to Vault 33 that she will never use red ink again. She doesn't want to relive this day. Never.

It all hits a little too close to home. The blood, the bodies, the fear. It reminds her of the attack on Thirty-Three all over again, and of how she'd abandoned them after. All to chase down her father, who'd turned out to be a big, giant liar. She hopes they're doing well. That Norm is okay. Norm, and Steph, and Chet…

But she has bigger things to worry about now.

The prints lead her to the cafeteria, and that's where she finds him, in the end. Surrounded by bodies and blood, previously-cleaned outfit stained deep in it.

Cooper doesn't even look up at her entrance. He stands near a wall at the edge of the room and turns his sidearm 'round and 'round with concerning focus. There's blood on the cylinder, almost like he'd run out of ammo and pulled a bullet from someone's body just to have one.

Lucy won't let him flip the barrel on himself.

They'd had suicide prevention classes in the vault, and she'd taken them, of course- it'd been required- but they haven't prepared her for this. How could they have? What could prepare someone to console a man that's spent over two hundred years searching for a dead girl? She doesn't even know if it's possible. But she'll be darned if she doesn't try. Because, despite how he'd treated her immediately after Filly, she cares for him. And Cooper Howard doesn't deserve this.

No one does. No one, and especially not him.

She approaches him slowly, offering him the chance to sense her approach, vials clutched tightly at her side. And yet, even when there's only a few feet between them, the Ghoul doesn't acknowledge her.

"Hey," she tries, raising her vial-filled hand between them, hoping he can't hear her heart pounding as loudly as she can. "I won't even try to pretend that I know what you're feeling, but suicide isn't the answer."

He meets her gaze with a prolonged silence before he speaks up- and his eyes, no longer wild with grief and rage, are terrifyingly dull- his voice quiet with defeat. "Then what is?"

Lucy isn't really sure. But she's going to fight tooth and nail to keep him alive.

She takes a moment to think, remembers how he'd spoken his taste for Vault-Tec even before they were properly acquainted. He has experience with them, and it's nothing good. Bad enough that he didn't bat an eye before taking his wrath out on the poor souls of Forty-One. And she knows him, now. Knows he wouldn't kill without good reason. He knows things, horrible things, that not even she does.

The words slip from her mouth almost easily, and the woman she'd been a month and a half ago would have been horrified to hear them:

"You want to kill them all, right?" Lucy echoes his words back at him. "This can't be all they have. It's so…small. There has to be more of them out there. Though, I understand that my knowledge on Vault-Tec is limited-"

"We can't do it alone," he grunts, cutting her off as he catches onto her train of thought.

"No," she agrees, frowning briefly. And then she thinks of Maximus. Of how they had led the Brotherhood straight to Moldaver's stronghold (which, in hindsight, she does regret). Of how easy it had been to sway them. What if…What if they could do it again?

Lucy smiles. "I think I know someone who can help."

"The knight." The words hang in the air, empty of the mockery he'd displayed when they last spoke of Maximus. Carefully neutral. Not for, not against, but the slightest bit curious. A silent go on.

And she takes the opening, because it's all she has to offer right now, and she can't give up on him. "I know you don't like him, but he can help us. The Brotherhood-"

Cooper wrangles out a bitter chuckle, piecing the plan together before it's even fully out of her, remembering the events that went down at the Observatory just as clearly as she does. "Gonna lead 'em against Vault-Tec, huh, sweetheart? Trade one superpower for another?"

And she shrugs, because he seems amused and that's a good sign. "...If it works."

"Hmm." He falls quiet for another long minute, eyes lowering back to the revolver in his hand, weighing the options. The pros and cons. Whether or not it would be worth it to change the power balance once again. His eyes flick back to her outstretched palm for the briefest of moments before they return to his gun, gaze betraying nothing.

And just when Lucy thinks she's going to pass out from holding her breath, she watches him holster it. There's the ghost of a smirk creeping up his face when he reaches out to accept the vials.

"Why the fuck not?"