Archive of Our Own ^beta

She wouldn’t be his first choice, as far as travelling companions go.

Never mind that his preference is for no companions at all. On more than one occasion he’s been roped into working with someone – usually some underling of whatever crime boss has had the caps to hire him – and more often than not they’ve been completely fucking useless. Good for little more than drawing enemy fire. The ones who looked at him with fear or disgust were somehow more tolerable than those watched him with awe, or tried to impress him.

Even in those instances he was saddled with someone who knew to keep their eye on the goal, Cooper would find himself counting down the hours until he could work alone again.

Well, he can count down as much as he likes now. Not that it’ll make any difference. Unless they get incredibly lucky – or Henry MacLean shows himself to be less of a cockroach than Cooper knows he is – he’s got a feeling he’ll be travelling with this latest companion a while yet.

… At least this one’s a little easier on the eyes than those who came before.

Course, he could still be getting ahead of himself. There’s no guarantee she won’t change her mind, decide she’d prefer to attempt this on her own. Shit, they could both find out the exact limit of his mercy, depending on how much she pushes him.

Likely she doesn’t understand just how close she came with her whole vial fuck up.

Still. He can’t rightly enjoy her discovering the full extent of the man her father is if he puts a bullet in her head. He’ll just have to find something else to take his frustrations out on.

In this, at least, the Wasteland is happy to provide.

She knows her way around a gun, he can give her that. And she’s shown a surprising unwillingness to lie down and die. As far as pragmatism goes that’s still a pretty low bar to clear, and whether those two facets make up for the rest of her is yet to be determined.

Girl’s a vault dweller at the end of the day. Even if she wasn’t the daughter of a man he despises, that’d be enough to know the kind of person she is. That brief stint they spent together only proved the sort of trouble she’s capable of getting up to – trouble he’ll now find himself involved in by association.

This is the person he’s chosen to travel with.

And yet, therein lies the potential.

There is something beautiful there, something he wants to see break, be it all at once or slowly, crushed under the weight of inevitability. Time may not be a luxury they’ll have, not to that degree, but if it somehow is? He wants to watch it happen. Wants to see those fractures splinter further and deeper through her sense of self until it’s shattered completely. Wants the reality of life in the Wasteland to set itself fully upon her shoulders, radiation and resource wars and goddamn sand that gets into everything, raiders and the Brotherhood of Steel and even the smallest of worthless creatures trying to find a way to snuff you out and desecrate whatever’s left of your corpse –

He wants her to carry all that, stagger until she buckles beneath it, end up with her face ground into the dirt alongside her fucking positivity, her optimism.

Hell, Cooper’ll do it himself if he has to, show her all the cruelty of what this world’s become on their way to finding her daddy. Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time, and he has no doubt the same will be true of this little journey of theirs –

At his side, Dogmeat whines.

Cooper glances over to find the dog has stopped, and now stands watching him expectantly. With the uncanny, deliberate motion only an animal seems to possess, Dogmeat turns to look behind them.

The vials in Cooper’s saddlebag clink lightly as he shifts, following the dog’s gaze.

Lucy is trailing behind them. She’s further back than feels wise, especially as they’re meant to be travelling together. It would suit his poisonous thoughts to leave her there, string her along behind him like wounded cattle, a tasty, oblivious morsel for any stupid enough to bite.

There are tactical considerations to be made here. Tempted as he is to indulge those urges, he’d just as much prefer her to be somewhere she can be immediately useful to him. Girl’s tenacious, if nothing else. The little detour they took following the gulper more than showed him that.

It’s not injury slowing her pace, or even distraction; he watches her eyes flick over the horizon every few steps, switching between the road ahead and the uneven terrain underfoot.

Not completely hopeless, then.

… He hadn’t realised he’d left her behind so easily.

Maybe he just needs to aim her in the right direction before he tries pulling her trigger.

“Best move those legs, MacLean, before the super mutants decide they’d make better use of ‘em.”

“Super mutants?!” Lucy squawks. Her voice carries over to him even as far away as she is.

Cooper opts not to elaborate any further on the matter and instead resumes walking. If his pace is a little slower than before it hardly matters: a few moments later there’s the sound of boots pounding quickly against the dirt, and then Lucy is beside him, hanging just behind his right elbow and ever so slightly out of breath.

They’ve been travelling together barely a few days when they spot the Brotherhood of Steel again.

He isn’t sure if he should be surprised they went this long without running into them. Whatever plot device he left them behind with seemed important enough to hold their attention awhile, but that in no way means they’ve got short memories. No one out here knows how to let go of a grudge. The moment one of those tin cans gets the chance to hunt down the ghoul who cut through their ranks, they’re gonna take it.

And if it just so happens they’re looking for the pretty little vault dweller accompanying him – well, they’d have even more reason then, wouldn’t they?

It looks to be only a single squad, no more than a dozen men. Could be a platoon if there are others off scouting the surrounding area, but he hasn’t seen any hints of that. Crouched behind a broken-off slab of concrete, Cooper eyes them, considering.

Those not standing around delegating are hauling detritus out of one of the more intact buildings left in this particular stretch of Wasteland. There’s nothing especially notable about it, beyond size and completeness. Might’ve been a showroom once, or part of a strip mall.

Those Brotherhood lackeys are clearing it out with purpose, though, and there are a suspicious number of footlockers already set down in the surrounding space. If he squints, he thinks he can make out a few more of them by the Vertibird hunkered not too far off.

… Setting up an outpost, maybe?

Cooper won’t claim to be one of the greatest tactical minds there is. He knows enough to be dangerous, which has served him just fine out here so far, thank you kindly. Sometimes just having a sense of how much shit to stir does the job of putting him over anyone ballsy enough to try their luck; and sometimes all it takes is being the first to pull their gun. For all the half-baked plots Cooper’s found himself roped into, he’s not gonna pretend he understands the particulars of the goddamn Brotherhood of Steel’s plans. A place in the middle of actual nowhere providing them any real strategic value seems doubtful.

But there are lights on out here now, more than he would’ve thought possible, and it’s not hard to imagine the Brotherhood wanting to stake their claim on all that. Build up everywhere they’re lacking until they’ve entrenched themselves. And why push out into the vast nothingness of the wastes when they could start seeding outposts closer to civilisation instead?

Just out of arm’s reach hovers Lucy. One hand rests on her pistol as she peers over the concrete.

Cooper flicks his gaze back in the same direction.

Much as he’d enjoy cracking open those tin cans, his ammo reserves are running low. The vaultie at least looks willing to fight, a point firmly in her favour. Cooper is not at all eager to learn whether she’ll follow him into a shootout, however, or if he even wants her watching his back. And while the challenge all of this adds up to certainly has its appeal –

Well. He has another goal to keep in mind.

The men are engaged in their task, and a decent enough distance between them and where he and the vaultie are huddled. So long as they keep behind cover, they should avoid detection.

“Move, now,” he says, voice low, and doesn’t wait around to see if she listens.

Dogmeat matches and then outstrips his pace, nimbly covering the slightly uneven ground. She makes it to the next piece of cover and lingers at its edge without a word from him, apparently waiting for his next move. Cooper ducks into safety, pausing just a moment before glancing over the edge.

A couple seconds later Lucy slides in beside him. From the corner of his eye he sees her looks his way, before turning back to the men in the distance.

“I don’t recognise any of them.”

Cooper says nothing. He watches for a few moments longer before slipping out into the open again, towards the next bit of cover.

With every piece of ground traversed the building and the Brotherhood get further away. It doesn’t put him any more at ease. Some part of him is waiting for a shout to go up every time he moves out of cover, or for a shot to ring out, cracking the earth close to him. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. Three targets are easier to spot than one, and Lucy hasn’t exactly kept pace with him here.

But the minutes pass without threat, and each chunk of rubble he peers around reveals the men still engrossed in their task.

Lucy cranes her neck for a better look. “Do you … do they look familiar?”

“Don’t make a habit of befriending the Brotherhood.”

If it comes out sounding like advice, he certainly doesn’t mean it to. Frankly he doesn’t really give a shit what she does, so long as it doesn’t blow back on him any. He’s not her keeper. Seems like it’d come too late even if it were, judging by the way she’d been hovering over that Brotherhood kid.

It’s not his business. No matter how determined she seems to make it so.

The vaultie’s eyes are locked on that spot in the distance, as though she might make out their features through sheer will alone. Her lower lip is caught between her teeth, expression something like concentration or concern.

“He wouldn’t be out here,” she says, more to herself than to him.

Cooper frowns, looks away.

There’s enough of a gap between them now that he’s no longer inclined to keep to cover. Cooper strides out into the open, quickly picking out the road they’d been heading down before this little interruption. Dogmeat trots along at his side, alert but unbothered. And that right there’s enough for him to tell himself they’re past any danger, that the part of him warning they’re still in range of being seen is traitorous and over-cautious.

Lucy doesn’t seem to have any qualms with it. He hears her footsteps fall in line with his, a little hurried to match his gait but steady otherwise. It’s the only attention he pays her. He doesn’t need to know where she’s looking, or what her face is doing. It’s enough that she’s quiet, even if he can all but hear her thoughts turning over.

Only a matter of time ‘til she can’t keep it to herself any longer. He knows that with a certainty he’d rather not possess.

Somehow it’s still amusing when her voice travels over to him however long it is later.

“I shouldn’t have left him like that. He didn’t deserve it. After everything we’d –” She cuts herself off. “He’ll be okay, right?”

Cooper keeps his focus firmly on the task at hand, and his mouth shut.

There’s a stretch of blissful silence, long enough he thinks she must’ve surely caught the hint that he doesn’t intend to answer. Hell, maybe one better, that he isn’t listening at all, and she’ll save whatever other inane commentary she has for someone who cares.

The longer it goes, the more confident he feels. And then:

“Yeah. Of course, he has to be,” Lucy says. Her voice grows more assured with every word. “He’ll be okay, and the next time I see him I can just … explain it all to him! He’ll understand, I’m sure he will –”

“You want I can call that lot over and you can tell it all to them too?”

Lucy’s mouth hangs open, half caught on whatever she’d been about to say. Surprise is quick to overtake that, her eyebrows shooting up and those big eyes widening, and some part of him is curious if it’s what he said or that he spoke at all that’s caught her so off-guard. She shifts a little, almost like she’s about to glance back towards the men, all but out of sight, but the movement doesn’t go far enough that her gaze leaves him.

Whatever the source, her surprise doesn’t last long. Her mouth snaps shut, a glare on her face that’s sweetly familiar.

“Why are you like this?” she asks. “What’s wrong with you?”

The way he bares his teeth at her then could in no way be mistaken for a smile, not by even the most charitable of standards. Lucy gives him a withering look in return, and stomps off without him.

She doesn’t speak to him for the rest of the day.

Cooper pretends like he’s not counting the hours.

“Dogmeat? Really?”

He won’t react. Girl’s like a fire: don’t feed it and it won’t grow none. He doesn’t quite expect her to die the way this metaphorical fire would, though – Lucy seems like the kind to make conversational fuel out of anything and everything. He’s borne the brunt of it thus far, but more than once he’s seen her corner random townsfolk into speaking with her, vault dweller courtesy and friendliness weaponised and on full display.

If her smile is a little more forced, her replies a little terser than usual, Cooper pretends not to notice.

The way some folk try to shut her out would surely discourage anyone else. A smothered fire can’t burn, no matter how much fuel it has. And yet evidently such reality doesn’t apply to Lucy MacLean, for as little as those strangers try to give her, she won’t be stifled. Hell, probably doesn’t even need oxygen –

Cooper’s losing track of his point.

… The point is a girl like that needs no encouragement heading down whatever dialogue path she’s on. If he doesn’t react, then at least he’s cut off one potential avenue she’d have otherwise.

He can do it. Just don’t react.

“You couldn’t think up a nicer name?”

“… It’s a dog.”

Lucy splutters, the sound so affronted he can’t help but stop to look at her.

She and Dogmeat trail a little ways behind, unhurriedly walking beside one another. Dogmeat looks entirely unbothered, as one would expect. Lucy, by contrast, appears just as baffled as she’d sounded, looking between Cooper and the dog as though there’s some great conflict between them she might suddenly understand that would explain his attitude.

Hell, maybe she expects Dogmeat to tell her, who fucking knows.

Cooper’s not about to get offended over his choice of name being insulted. Lucy’s ability to create or encounter the most ridiculous, unnecessary distractions is never not gonna get under his skin, though.

And yet here he is entertaining them, saying, “Guarantee that Enclave dipshit weren’t any more creative.”

Lucy gestures grandly towards the dog. “This is a trusted companion! A partner who’s risked life and limb to keep you safe! The least he deserves –”

“She.”

“She?” Lucy frowns, momentarily thrown, and looks to Dogmeat as though for confirmation; Dogmeat cocks her head. “The least she deserves is a name that’s worthy of her!”

“… This really a hill you want to die on?”

Cooper stares at her in disbelief, so intently that she stops in her tracks, shifting under his gaze.

“All the bullshit we’re still to get through – what’ll be waitin’ for the both of us at the end – but this is what you decide matters?” He can hear the way his voice has turned scathing, doesn’t especially care. “What would you know about naming an animal anyhow? No dogs in the vaults.”

Lucy blinks. “Well, yeah. But I still know the importance of naming something.”

She looks at him in that way she does sometimes, like if she just gives it enough time she’ll work out everything there is to know about him – or worse, like she already has.

Cooper’s no longer interested in entertaining her.

He spits at the ground and turns back to the road, eyes firmly on the horizon. He said too much, he knows he did. She probably knows it too, judging by that look she gave him. And because this is Lucy MacLean he’s dealing with, she’s not gonna let this go until she’s done with it.

That, or she’s gonna be kind and pretend like she never noticed anything.

He’s not a fan of either outcome.

He doesn’t know how long he walks with only silence behind him. Any other time he’d welcome such a thing, but now it leaves him full of suspicion. Cooper’s not about to indulge that sense – or her – by glancing back. Maybe if the bullets start flying and she’s forced to pay attention to what actually matters; maybe once she realises a plucky attitude and a few good shots alone won’t get her through and she starts calling for him – maybe then he’ll look.

And then:

“Alright, lady, let’s see if we can’t come up with something more fitting, hmm? How about … Hunter?”

Cooper can’t help the way his ears perk up, drawn to the sound despite himself.

“No? Don’t like that? What about … Shadow? Ooh, that’s a good one!”

No response that he can hear from the dog. He wonders if she’s being more expressive with her, or if Lucy’s also largely receiving thousand-yard stares.

“Hmm. Maybe … Filly, like that city?”

It’s the closest to sentimental he’s heard of the suggestions thus far. Cooper can’t imagine anything about that place would inspire such feeling, but who the fuck knows when it comes to Lucy.

“I guess Nora’s nice, if you want something normal?”

… He tries to remember ever meeting someone called Nora. Certainly feels like the sort of name that would be at home in the past. He wonders where she heard it for it to make this sort of impression.

There’s a long, long stretch of silence, long enough that he thinks maybe she’s finally given up on this venture of hers.

“… Princess?”

Dogmeat actually growls.

Cooper can’t help himself. He pauses, throwing a look back over his shoulder in time to see Lucy with her hands up, trying nervously to placate the animal.

“See, now this is why you ain’t in charge of the decision makin’,” he calls.

Lucy scowls at him, the threat of the dog momentarily forgotten as she plants her hands on her hips. He snickers, enjoying the defiant look on her face a moment longer before turning back to the road.

He doesn’t give a shit about the name, really. There was probably never any chance he’d let her have her way, especially after she started making such a fuss over it. Maybe it’s the literal decades of needing to look out for himself that’s made him so contrary – or maybe he’s just an asshole.

He can admit to being a little tempted, at least privately. The fact there are some occupants of the Wasteland who’d absolutely shit themselves knowing they were being mauled to death by a dog named Princess almost makes him want to let her win this one.

Only almost, though. Like he said – contrary.

Either way, he gets some amusement from the whole thing. Cooper smirks into the sunlight as he continues on, not bothering to look back to see whatever Lucy and the mutt are doing. Seems like she’s run out of suggestions for the time being – ones that could see her attacked, at least.

It’s quiet enough – or maybe she just makes such a production of it – that eventually he hears her sigh.

“Okey dokey, then. Don’t say I didn’t give you options!”

Cooper doesn’t know if she’s talking to him or the dog.

A bullet goes speeding past his ear, punching through the wall opposite. Cooper eases slightly more into cover, mentally calculating his remaining rounds.

Across the room, crouched behind a counter, Lucy glares at him.

“Just how many people have you managed to piss off in your life?”

“Oh, I don’t even know these ones,” Cooper calls back, largely unperturbed.

It’s the truth, as far as he’s concerned. As of right now it is, at least. Maybe once he has a chance to pick over the corpses he’ll recognise something of whatever’s left of their faces.

They’re certainly angry enough to be folks he’s crossed in the past. The only quirk in that theory is how he tends not to leave such individuals alive.

They’d been making good time that morning when they’d come across a smattering of buildings, popping up out of the horizon like discarded matchboxes. Closer and closer they’d gotten, until he’d been able to see the buildings were run-down and forgotten, like most everything out here. And rather than edge around them, rather than take any course that might’ve allowed for a bit more in the way of defence, they’d both walked straight through the middle of them.

At least their assailants had known to shoot first, even if they spoiled their ambush by being fucking godawful shots, the first taking a chunk out of the ground by his feet. Cooper had been moving even before the next one rang out, head low and gun in hand, a few rounds of suppressing fire blindly tossed behind him as he’d made for the nearest cover.

And now here they are, pinned down in an old gas station, outmanned and outgunned.

Lucy looks like she’s about to say something, face all twisted up in that animated way of hers. Then another shot pings across the counter, a little too close for comfort, and the moment is lost as she ducks instinctively.

There’s at least one asshole with a rifle out there. He can only guess how many others, armed with whatever else. The rate of gunfire peppering the building has been consistent, stupidly so – why keep firing when neither of them are in sight? Waste of good ammunition.

If there isn’t already one of their number creeping in to flank them, it’s only a matter of time. Lucy is in no better position to move, and he lost track of Dogmeat early in the chaos. They can’t stay here.

“Fuck this,” Cooper grits out, switching to his rifle.

He waits for a break in the gunfire then steps right up to the edge of his cover, popping around the corner with his rifle already raised. His eyes dart over the buildings as quick as he can process, picking out targets. And before any of them have the chance to make the most of him being out in the open Cooper takes aim, and fires.

He doesn’t leave it another second, easing back into cover in one fluid motion.

There’s a scream of pain, startled and suddenly loud. It stretches out into the silence that follows for an almost comically long time – and then it stops, and the way the quiet just continues on after couldn’t possibly be missed.

Cooper pops into the open and lines up another shot, the shout of agony reaching him before he’s even back in cover this time.

Raiders. Can’t make out much more of them than that from here, so what he said earlier still holds true. Whether they’re part of a group he’s tangled with before or just some random collection of assholes they’ve walked into, it doesn’t much matter.

They’re in the way. If they don’t have the sense to flee now, all that’s left is to go through them.

Amid furious shouts and hurled obscenities, the gunfire starts up again; clearly the remaining men have recovered from their shock. Cooper’s too engrossed to care. The moment there’s an opening he can use he’s taking aim, lining up shots meant to suppress, disrupt, or kill.

Hell, he’ll even take maim as an outcome. Likely it’d lead to one of the others anyway.

He only needs to keep up enough pressure long enough to put a real dent in their numbers, or to allow Lucy to get clear. Whichever comes first. Hell, maybe he can make a challenge of it: see if he can pick off their entire party before the vaultie is unleashed on them.

Shit, that actually sounds kinda fun –

“On your right!”

Cooper’s already shifting back into cover when he hears the shout. To an outside observer it might look like he knew the attack was coming; judging by the shocked face of the raider, that’s exactly the thought running through his mind. The man’s arm is still raised above his head, an honest-to-god spiked club clutched in one hand, his eyes wide in surprise.

Cooper’s not above using such a thing to his advantage. He doesn’t give the man time to ponder it, bringing his rifle up smoothly and blasting him right in the chest.

The raider goes flying in a spray of blood, landing in a crumpled heap. Cooper keeps his rifle up, scanning the immediate environment. Just as he’d suspected: they’ve already started moving in on his position, even as he’d been picking them off. There’s another sneaking up from the same direction; Cooper can see one foot sticking out from under the rusted-out car the raider is crouching behind.

He blows the raider’s foot off with his revolver. Follows it up with a round to the face when the man falls screaming out of cover.

This is their moment. In the chaos of his counterattack, before any more of the raiders come creeping up on their position. Now’s the time to take the fight right to them.

Cooper’s already moving, long strides eating up the distance he means to cross. He keeps up a steady rate of fire, enough to stop most from popping out of cover; none of the shots that do come his way meet their target.

He’s firmly left the gas station behind him when Cooper thinks of her.

He throws a quick look back to the spot where Lucy had been taking cover –

Just in time to see her crawl through a gap in the wall and disappear from sight.

She’s kicked out a vent panel built into the nearest wall, are you kidding –

There’s no time to think about it. Not when he’s still half in the open himself.

“Fucking ghoul prick! Come out, you coward!”

Safe to assume that’s their leader, then. Figures the one giving the orders would find some way of keeping furthest from the danger.

Cooper makes that voice his objective. Even if it’s not the leader like he expects, he points himself towards it, moves around the edges of buildings and past the fallen bodies of those he’s already picked off. Bullets ping off ancient cars and signs, kick up tiny clouds of dust upon cracking the earth – and not only near him. It’s next to impossible to tell from the noise, but some of the remaining raiders have clearly taken aim at another target, little flashes of light and motion from off to the opposite side.

Lucy’s busy making new friends, then.

He slips around a corner of a cratered-out store, taking the opportunity to reload his revolver –

There’s a rush of black and brown as Dogmeat races past, launching herself with a snarl. The next thing Cooper hears is a scream of pain, and he peers through the gap she’d thrown herself into to find her dragging a raider down by his arm, teeth buried deep in the exposed flesh.

Dogmeat’s shaking her head like she means to tear the limb right off – and hell, that’s probably exactly the case. The raider has lost his weapon in his panic, grasping uselessly at the back of Dogmeat’s neck like he might dislodge her himself. Cooper watches for a moment, curious as to just how much damage he’s going to let himself go through.

The raider finally raises that other hand, curls it into a fist –

Cooper puts a hole through the man’s head before that strike can land.

Dogmeat drops the arm, looking from the body to Cooper like she’s putting two and two together.

“Good dog,” Cooper murmurs.

Dogmeat snaps off a bark, then goes trotting off out of sight again.

The gunfire has largely petered out, and he doubts it’s just because he’s been out of view. Cooper moves a little quicker now, still heading for the source of that voice from earlier. Might be they’re not even alive anymore; Lucy could’ve gotten there first. Or maybe they’ve actually accepted the inevitable and fled. There’s no need to take any risks over some random fucking raider, but Cooper’s been inconvenienced enough by this to want to see it through.

Further down the stretch of buildings, past more bodies he’s dropped. The silence is starting to feel a little more significant now. Not just the raiders, but Lucy, too. Vaultie would probably have announced herself from halfway across the strip if they were the only two left.

Cooper adjusts his grip, lets his revolver sit more comfortably in his hand, and doesn’t strain his ears for any sound.

It starts off as a shuffling noise, shoes against concrete. A few muffled thuds, solid, heavy impact – and then a startled scream of pain. Masculine.

Cooper’s already striding towards the nearest doorway, rounding the corner quickly –

There’s a man hunched over in the middle of the room, one hand pressed tightly to his cheek. Blood is running out from under his palm, down his arm, dripping sluggishly to the floor.

Less than an arm’s length from him is Lucy, half sprawled on the ground. She’s glaring at the man, and there’s blood smeared all across her mouth.

… Huh.

Maybe the thing with the finger wasn’t a one off.

“Well, ain’t this a picture.”

Two pairs of eyes snap to him. The raider’s surprise is plain to see and quick to fade, replaced in a couple of heartbeats with a look of disgust.

“You,” the man rasps. “Fucking ghoul bastard. Undead piece of shit –”

“Lookin’ in the wrong direction, son.”

The man blinks, anger thoroughly interrupted. Slowly, like he can’t help himself, he turns back to Lucy.

Just in time to see her rising to her full height, a pipe held above her head.

Cooper stands and watches her bring the pipe down on the raider’s head again and again, until he’s gone from upright to a crumpled mess on the ground. He doesn’t go to stop her, not even when the man’s face is largely unrecognisable, blood spattered vividly across the floor.

The pipe clangs sharply when she tosses it aside. Cooper eyes her as she steadies her breathing. There’s no sign of injury that he can see, nothing to explain this sudden burst of violence from her.

She’d taken a chunk out of his face with her teeth though, there’s no ignoring that. Doesn’t need to have a mark on her for something to have happened.

Lucy finally looks at him, drags a hand across her face like she means to wipe the blood away. She only succeeds in smearing it further.

“So? Who is he?”

“Well,” Cooper drawls, “I can’t rightly say, seein’ as I didn’t get a good look at his face before you turned it to mush.”

Lucy frowns, folds her arms over her chest. “Sure seemed like he knew you.”

Cooper prods the corpse with his toe, for no reason other than he can. “Might’ve just hated ghouls.”

“I guess,” she concedes. She doesn’t sound fully convinced.

She’s looking at the body in a particularly cold way when he glances at her again. Paired with the blood on her face it makes her look ferocious, violent to a degree he might never have expected of her.

It’s somehow both fitting and foreign on her.

“Wasted enough daylight on this already,” Cooper grumbles. He looks back to the corpse, crouching beside it. “See if any of the others have anything useful on ‘em.”

Hell, maybe there’ll be a note on one of them ordering a hit, or a wanted poster – something to give this little interaction actual meaning. He rummages through the first of the raider’s pockets –

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

Cooper pauses. Hand still in that pocket, he twists to look up at her.

Lucy draws herself up a little, defiantly. “Back there. When we were pinned down.”

She jerks her chin in the direction of the gas station. Cooper doesn’t need to look, but he plays along anyway, letting only his eyes move from her face, to where she’d gestured, then back to her.

Lucy pulls her arms a little tighter around herself, but doesn’t look away.

Cooper can’t stop the smirk that pulls at one corner of his mouth.

“Go wash that shit off your face, too. Folk gonna think you gone feral.”

And he goes back to checking the pockets, clear dismissal.

After a few long moments he hears Lucy huff, then the sound of her trudging off.

She could’ve pushed him more for it, but didn’t. He can give her credit for that much, if forced.

But then, he doubts she expected him to ever say thank you anyway.

He catches her looking at his hands across the fire one night.

It’s cold enough to warrant the risk, the remoteness of the area they find themselves in a danger and defence both. A short cluster of buildings had popped out of the landscape as they trudged onwards, half-crumbling, but intact enough to risk it. Offices, or stores – whatever they’d been before, it doesn’t matter now. A search of each had revealed no signs of occupation, not even a hint of a recent rummaging-through, and with night setting in and Lucy’s hand already firmly on her holster he’d made the call.

That’s where they now find themselves, seated around the small fire Lucy has set. The light from the flames bounces off the walls around them, making the warm glow seem stronger than it is. Some of that light is surely escaping into the expanse of the Wasteland, but he’s settled them in the most complete of the buildings, and with eyes on the entrances and a roof mostly over their heads it’s the best they can make of the situation.

Dogmeat is stretched out between them, head on her paws but facing firmly towards the main entrance.

Good dog.

He’s taken off his gloves to work on his weapons. Taking care of his gear had been a practice he’d quickly and thoroughly enforced; accounting for every sliver of the Wasteland’s bullshit is frankly impossible, but so long as he controls what he can, dealing with it becomes a little more manageable. A man only needs his gun to jam once from lack of maintenance for him to never make that mistake again.

Hadn’t even needed the apocalypse to teach him that one. Fighting for his country had been education enough.

Cooper strips his guns one by one, components carefully inspected, set aside, and reassembled. It might not have been as necessary to do it right this moment – repair kits aren’t the easiest thing to come by, and the guns are still in good enough condition from when he last did this – but he carries on all the same. There’s a familiarity to this that’s almost relaxing, each motion well-practiced and consistent in its outcome.

Lucy has been silent since setting the fire, the only sounds that fill the space that of the flames and his own tinkering. Cooper doesn’t know what mood has gotten into her to cause this silence, but he’s damn glad for it. Dare he says it’s almost peaceful, no questions or comments or offerings of folksy wisdom absolutely no one asked for.

Surely even she has moments of needing to tend to whatever thoughts are galloping circles round her head. However rare that may be.

… Still. Complete silence isn’t like her. And there’s still just enough of that vaultie unpredictability – stupidity – in her that he’d rather not let it get the best of him.

He flicks his eyes in her direction, quick and casual.

That’s when he discovers she’s already looking his way.

There’s that unpredictability, right on cue. Cooper is careful not to react, keeps his hands moving through those familiar steps all while his focus is fixed on her.

Furtive as he is about it, she appears entirely unaware of the scrutiny: she’s looking at him, but not at his face. She hardly seems to blink. There’s a little frown creasing that spot between her eyes, her bottom lip drawn between her teeth.

Frowning, Cooper tries to follow her gaze. Any other time he’d snap her right out of whatever little fantasy she’s having, but right now he’s more curious as to what –

It takes a second for him to realise it’s his hands she’s staring at. No, more than that.

A specific hand. A specific finger.

He’d pulled the thread out some time ago, when he’d been sure the thing wouldn’t just drop right off. Hadn’t thought of it again until right this moment, with Lucy’s eyes locked firmly on the digit.

Is she contemplating the bite that took from him his finger, or does she know what’s replaced it is hers? She has to suspect at least, surely, with the way she’s staring? It’s hardly the strangest exchange she’s gonna find herself part of out here. And hell, it’s not like she didn’t end up with her own loss remedied.

… In fairness, Cooper can’t say he’s ever found himself willingly travelling with a person who’s maimed him, and especially not then taking that piece from their body to substitute his own. A finger’s not insignificant, either. A trigger finger especially, and though it has its other uses, the point remains that he’d notice its absence. Can’t fault a man for wanting to be whole.

A piece of her that’s a piece of him now, like some fucked up Wasteland matrimony ritual –

Huh. Weird thought.

… Whatever.

From across the fire her gaze finally shifts, lifting just enough to meet his own. It holds there, the seconds stretching out like she isn’t quite aware of where she’s looking –

And then the spell breaks, and he knows the exact moment she realises she’s been caught, those big eyes of hers going wide.

Cooper grins in a way entirely befitting the name he’s taken for himself out here.

“Don’t you worry, sweetheart. I’ll take real good care of it.”

He crooks his finger at her, deliberate and shameless.

Lucy gives a tight-lipped smile in response. Or maybe it’s meant to be a grimace, and even in this she’s somehow unfailingly positive. Regardless, she says nothing, looking sharply away from him and beyond the fire instead.

He doesn’t miss the way she traces along the seam of her own replacement finger, absently, the touch there and gone again.

It’s been an otherwise peaceful day when they stumble across the bodies.

The coyotes have got there first, muzzles buried in the remains. By the time they step over the ridge it’s already too late; Dogmeat’s warning growl doesn’t come fast enough, lost beneath the barks and yips of the animals. Their free meal is forgotten quickly in the face of fresh prey, the coyotes edging closer as part of a pair or alone.

Lucy’s gun is already in her hands. She aims hesitantly at one of the closer animals, like that might convince it not to attack.

Cooper isn’t so cautious. And when the shot he fires spurs a couple of the coyotes forward, it turns out neither is Lucy.

Animals are never as unpredictable as humans. That doesn’t mean they’re safe to underestimate. Cooper puts down as many as he can as quickly as he’s able, but any beast that can survive in the Wasteland has to be some degree of cunning. The coyotes don’t all attack from the front; they use the deaths of their own as distractions, creeping around to leap at them from the side or behind. Keeping them out of range is the only thing he can really do. The further away those teeth are, the better.

The gunshots and the whines of the coyotes are his only indication Lucy is holding her own. It’s not worth the risk taking his eyes off the ones nearest him to check.

Their numbers are dwindling; it’ll be easy enough to pick off the remainder –

Which is when the radscorpions burst from the earth, naturally.

“What the fu –”

Lucy’s exclamation is cut short by her own yelp, and Cooper looks just in time to see one of the creatures emerge in the space between them. The coyotes are bolting, a few scavenging one last mouthful before fleeing into the wastes. Cooper’s tempted to follow suit, even if it means dragging Lucy from the scene.

One encounter is bad enough, but to immediately be thrown into another? And radscorpions, of all things? The bastards are pricks to deal with at the best of times. Let ‘em have what’s left.

But even if he can barely see Lucy anymore, he can still hear her shooting. Dogmeat is barking from somewhere out of view, and he can only assume she’s throwing herself equally into the fight.

And that right there just ain’t right – that he would be the first of them to advocate fleeing, instead of crushing these monstrosities beneath his heel.

After, when bug guts have been splattered over the ground and they’re no longer being interrupted by goddamn creatures, Cooper takes stock. Neither of them ended up poisoned, by some small miracle. Dogmeat’s the best off out of them, despite only having teeth and nails to fight with. Cooper ignores his few minor cuts in favour of piling the beasts’ corpses, hauling them to the base of the ridge to be burned.

He’s not worried about being tailed. Anyone who follows the smoke is already taking their life in their own hands being out this far; if they have even a lick of sense they’ll see the pile and know whoever’s responsible can take care of themselves. Maybe they’ll be less likely to walk into the same issue he just did.

Not that he’s doing this for some hypothetical stranger’s sake, mind. More that it’s an easy way of venting his frustration at being so caught off-guard by simple fucking wildlife.

And all while he works, Lucy’s busy stitching herself up.

No bites to deal with, at least. No poison. The radscorpions got a few good gashes in, but for her – apparently? – first encounter with them, Lucy handled herself well enough.

Didn’t die, which is more than can be said for a lot of folks.

She pulls her wounds closed with only slightly unsteady hands. Cooper doesn’t watch, doesn’t look at her any more than the occasional glance when his path to the corpse pile aims him that way.

But on those occasions when he finds himself looking at her, he finds himself wondering. Just how many times has she had to fix herself up like this?

She doesn’t seem too bothered. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was more worried about the tears in her suit – which he fully expects her to stitch back together in due course.

When she’s finished mending herself, and the pile of carcasses is burning merrily away, they finally get the chance to see what attracted so many creatures.

More than a half dozen bodies are strewn across the ground. It’s hard to get a good take on the number, what with how the coyotes got to them first. What’s clear is that these people, whoever they were, didn’t fall prey to the Wasteland creatures. Some of the more intact corpses bear clear bullet wounds, and there are tracks that resemble something like a cart. They’ve already been stripped of their valuables, and in some cases, their clothes. There’s no uniformity to the bodies from what he can piece together – and Cooper actually surprises himself, very nearly wincing at his own line of thought.

These people were old, and young, and older, and too young. The sizes of some of them –

Well. He’s not the best judge of age any more, but it doesn’t take a genius to recognise a child.

Cooper takes in a deep, quiet breath, and unclenches his teeth.

A family unit, maybe. Some group that’d split off from a town or settlement, seeking fortune elsewhere.

Might’ve been they found themselves in the wrong place at the worst possible time. Or maybe they earned the ire of someone they shouldn’t have and were brought out here specifically. There’s no way they’ll ever know.

It’s hard to pass judgement when he’s looking at the bodies of multiple kids, though. Harder still when Lucy’s standing there, too, expression utterly numb.

They don’t stick around long after that. There’s nothing to pick off their corpses, and tossing them onto the pile with the coyotes and radscorpions almost feels worse than leaving them where they are. Lucy covers the smaller ones with earth, nothing remotely close to an actual burial, but he’s sure she’d argue it’s the thought that counts.

Soon enough the ridge and its grisly contents are so far behind them it could almost be as though they never stumbled upon it at all. They travel in silence, and it hangs over them in a way not even Cooper can pretend he doesn’t notice.

Lucy’s been a surprisingly mute travelling companion on occasion. Especially in those early days – though he can forgive a little ruminating after the revelation she’d experienced. This little state she’s in has been a few days in the making, and he can’t say he knows the source of it. Their discovery may have amplified her mood, but that’s not the same as being responsible for it.

And strange as it may be, considering everything … he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her this dour.

It kinda pisses him off, to tell the truth.

“Whatever happened to that sunny disposition, vaultie? Don’t tell me Wasteland livin’ is getting you down?”

“Don’t imagine you actually care,” she mutters, and maybe she means for it to go unheard by him, but that’s not what happens.

“You wanna run that by me again?”

Lucy cringes. To her credit, she recovers quickly, looking him right in the eyes despite the faint flush of embarrassment tinting her cheeks.

“It’s not getting me down,” she sneers.

It’s about as venomous as he’s ever heard her. Hearing it fills him with a strange sort of glee.

“Good. ‘Cause there’s no telling when we’ll track down your dear old daddy.” He leans right into her space, half hoping he’ll force her to lean back. “Won’t be useful to nobody if all you’re gonna do is mope.”

Lucy doesn’t bend. Even though it means tilting her head back so she can keep eye contact with him; even though it leaves barely any space at all between them. Even though he can see the way her fists are balled at her sides, a fine tremor running through her with how tightly she’s clenching them.

But she doesn’t bend.

Lucy’s quiet after that. All through the rest of the day and well into the night, when that bloody sight they’d stumbled across feels more like a shared vision. He’s really not in any position to say whether it’s different to how she was before. Maybe that frown is a little more determined, a bit more focused – or maybe he’s just seeing what he wants to see.

Maybe he needs to stop fucking paying any mind to her beyond whether she’s still breathing, or about to get him involved in some fresh nonsense.

He should’ve kept his damn mouth shut.

It doesn’t start right away – mostly because providence chooses at that time to keep their path through the Wasteland clear of others. But the next little settlement they come across?

They’ve barely stepped over the boundary before Lucy is drawing herself up, a smile plastered on her face.

“What’re you up to?” Cooper asks, not bothering to hide his suspicion.

Lucy turns on one foot, facing him even as she keeps walking backwards. “Upholding my reputation, of course.”

There’s a glint in her eyes that he only catches a glimpse of before she turns again, flouncing off into town.

Cooper frowns. He’s not entirely sure what it is he’s missing, only that he is. He glances down at Dogmeat, still at his side, as though she might suddenly offer up an answer.

“You got anything for me, girl?”

Dogmeat only wags her tail a little, then continues on sedately towards the nearest building.

Well, then. No use in just standing around.

They’ve traded off duties of obtaining supplies and selling junk on the occasions they’ve needed to. She’d looked at him a little hesitantly when he’d first handed off the task, and he can’t say he blames her. Even now there’s a quiet voice of warning in the back of his mind urging him not to trust her with such things. He’s managed this long on his own, after all, hasn’t he? No need for anything to change.

He’s already trusting her not to shoot him in the back in the middle of a gunfight, though, be it deliberately or otherwise. If he can do that much, asking anything else should be simple by comparison.

It gives him a nice reprieve, at least. Most times he enjoys the utterly shit-scared looks he gets from the vendors, and the sentries, and the general citizenry. Hell, he’s usually inclined to lean into it, scowling and looming in a way he knows will be bolstered by his reputation – or, alternatively, being so damn pleasant and polite there’s no way anyone would believe the person relaying the story.

But sometimes he just wants to get what he needs and be on his way without incident. Having a smoothskin like Lucy around is good for that much, at least.

He doesn’t leave everything to her, of course. A man’s gotta have some responsibility. Anything he’s especially particular about he makes a point of handling himself. He wouldn’t expect her to ask him to seek out items she has a personal use for, after all. No sense in him asking it of her.

It’s a system that’s worked for them so far. Time will tell if it’ll remain that way.

So he gets what he needs, then finds a nice shady spot beneath an overhang to wait. Most of the townsfolk give him a wide berth, which suits him fine. He holds the gaze of every one of them that stare at him until they invariably look away, taking some small amusement from the discomfort it leaves them in.

It’s because he’s watching in such a way that he gets a perfectly clear view of Lucy as she steps back into the town square.

She’s smiling. At everyone. Every single person she passes, whether they’re looking at her or not. Those that are looking at her get a nod or a wave as well; some confusedly return the gesture, while others just look dumbfounded.

Cooper can’t take his eyes off the scene, either.

… At least she’s not making conversation with any of them –

“Hello! You have a lovely town!”

He just barely keeps from dragging a hand down his face.

There’s a trio of children following after her, because of course there is. It’s ridiculous. She’s ridiculous. He doesn’t think he’s ever met someone who wears cliché as well as she does – and yet he knows there’s so much more to her than that.

It’d be easier if this is who she was. This cheerful, naïve stranger, wholly unaware of her own ability to shape the world around her. It’d be easier to disregard her like that.

It’s actually a little strange to see her so … perky, especially after her recent brooding. He can’t say he knows what’s behind the change of mood, only that it’s come on quickly –

Wait.

God damn it all. She’s only doing this because of that thing he’d said.

… There’s not a chance in hell he’ll ever admit it took him this long to realise that.

He keeps watching as she crosses the square. Two of the children are walking beside her now, very nearly in front of her, and it’s clear that Lucy is trying to pay attention to them even as she continues walking. They even go so far as to follow her inside whatever little building she stops off at next, one of them remaining outside.

Cooper eyes the kid – the way he’s pacing out front of the entrance, how he keeps glancing around the nearby street – and feels his suspicions rise.

The two kids are still with her when Lucy steps outside again. She’s smiling, pack slung over her back, caught up in whatever story they’re telling her. They move their hands in that animated way children do, exaggerated and wide; any occasion Lucy manages to look away from them they’re quick to draw her attention back.

And all the while the third child is hovering behind, watching her closely, inching closer with hands poised.

He could leave it. It’d make for another nice little lesson for the vaultie, and a particularly embarrassing one at that.

But is that worth the stain on his own reputation, associating with someone who got swindled by children?

Cooper steps out from the shadows.

They’ve still got her attention as he draws nearer, so caught in their own con they don’t even see him approaching. The third kid has his hands right above her bag, and Cooper is weighing exactly how far he can scare these children shitless when he realises Lucy’s speaking:

“– so nice, and I’ve really enjoyed listening, but I need to get going, okay? So if your friend could quit trying to steal out of my bag I’d really appreciate it!”

Cooper and the trio all freeze.

Lucy looks between the surprised faces of the two before her, her guileless smile never fading. It’s only as she turns to glance at the thief behind her that she notices Cooper standing there.

She doesn’t seem all that shocked to see him. Cooper doesn’t think his surprise is visible, but he schools his expression into a scowl all the same.

“Oh! See, this is my travelling partner!”

The children turn to look at him. Their faces pale in an instant.

“Holy shit,” one tiny voice squeaks.

“You heard the lady,” Cooper growls. “Now fuckin’ scram before you regret it.”

The children don’t need further prompting. All three scramble to keep their feet beneath them as they flee, nearly knocking each other down in their haste.

“You could just ask next time!” Lucy shouts after them, a hopeless look on her face.

Cooper watches until the little cloud of dust the three of them kicked up has faded from sight. Then he turns back to Lucy.

He’s not gonna ask how she knew. She’d never let him live it down, and he’s not about to give her the satisfaction. But he can’t deny that he’s curious.

Lucy’s attention is still stuck on the point where the trio disappeared from sight. There’s a frown working itself deeper across her forehead, and one hand has come up to fidget at the straps of her pack.

Cooper frowns. “You done?”

“I’ll meet you at the edge of town, okay?” She finally drags her gaze to meet his. “There’s something I forgot.”

She almost looks like she’s going to wait for him to approve before she catches herself. Before he can pass judgement either way she nods sharply, and sets off back the way she’d came.

He stands there until she too has vanished, an odd sense of purposelessness winding through his chest.

There’s a shift of movement at his feet, and he looks down to find Dogmeat tilting her head at him curiously.

“You’re too late, girl, and she didn’t need me at all,” he says.

Cooper’s already started walking when Lucy catches up to him.

He’s half expecting an insult, a complaint about him leaving without her. But she says nothing, adjusting her pack as she settles in and matches his stride.

Lucy glances across at him then, meeting his gaze. She smiles, not that overly bright grin she’d been offering to the townsfolk, but something smaller. Something he thinks more of as her.

Cooper looks away, giving her nothing in return.

He’s got a feeling those kids will have ended up better off than if they’d actually managed to steal from her.

Lucy takes to scavenging like someone born to it.

Not that it’s a particularly difficult skill to learn. Generally whatever they’re picking through is already dead or abandoned, and corpses aren’t typically the sort to complain – especially when they’re responsible for putting them there.

Still, it’s not an entirely risk-free venture. Cooper still remembers the first time he went rifling through the pockets of what should have been a long dead raider, only for them to lurch upright suddenly, gnarled fingers reaching for him and mouth open to devour.

He’s mostly learned the signs by now. And on those occasions where he isn’t sure, it’s worth spending a bullet to make sure what looks dead actually is.

It’s only a matter of time ‘til Lucy samples that particular Wasteland experience. He just hopes he’s around to see it when she does.

To the original point, though: he has few misgivings about letting her scavenge. He’s watched her at work, quick fingers rummaging through pockets and opening busted desk drawers. She has a good sense of what to prioritise, not over encumbering herself with things that don’t fulfill an immediate need.

Food or water, ammunition, medical supplies. Everything else follows after and is based entirely on usefulness.

She doesn’t have a good sense at first of what has value in the Wasteland, the old-world trinkets that can be traded or sold for a waterfall of caps. There’s more than one occasion where he has to salvage whatever piece she’s tossed aside, slipping them into his bags for safekeeping. He doesn’t like to be laden down, but it’s good to have a little insurance. He only ever holds onto them until the nearest town, anyway.

The next time they stop in such a place Lucy sets her own loot down on the counter, pieces he hadn’t even seen her take. She flashes a grin at him, eyes bright, and then turns to haggle with the shopkeeper.

Seems she’s watched him just as much.

Then there’s the habit she seems to have picked up of collecting vials of his medicine.

He pretends not to notice at first. Whatever fascination she has with this, it has no bearing on him. Cooper has his own stash, still rather well stocked from their misadventures at the Super Duper Mart. He can’t rightly say he knows what she intends to do with them, but he’s sure it’s only a matter of time ‘til he finds out.

Hell, maybe she’s planning on selling them. A desperate market makes for good caps, and there’s always someone looking to take advantage of ghouls.

Knowing Lucy MacLean though, it’ll likely be something well-meaning, something nice. Probably gonna pass them out like candy to whichever ghouls look most desperate.

He thinks this right up to the moment he finds a cluster of them placed beside his bedroll.

She isn’t brave or crafty enough to try slipping them directly into his saddlebags. It’s a fact he’s actually grateful for: he just might have to take one of her hands for even daring to interfere with his things, and while a finger here or there could be overlooked, Cooper doubts a partnership as new as theirs could survive such an act.

Nor could Lucy, without a hand.

And they just keep showing up. Lucy manages to be conveniently absent whenever he discovers them, off sweeping the perimeter or scavenging some new spot or staring into the desert like the weirdo she is. It’s the most perfect example of the sheer fucking ridiculousness of her, because why even bother with the subterfuge?

What does she imagine he thinks is going on here? As though the vials could be coming from anywhere else. Like maybe he’s been granted some fucking Wasteland fairy godmother whose sole interest is providing him drugs and then disappearing before he can give so much as a thank you.

… Alright, so maybe he wouldn’t mind that quite so much were they a different kind of drug, but the point stands.

Hell, he finds a collection of them nestled inside his hat at one point. He never once saw her even come close to the damn thing. How the fuck did she manage that?

It’d be easier if he just kept pretending not to notice, but … it’s just so damn familiar. So kind.

It’s enough to make him sick.

“You tryin’ to tell me something, vaultie?”

Lucy glances up at him. “Sorry, what?”

She’s guileless in a way you just don’t see in the Wasteland. In anyone else he would call it an act, a lure to draw in the next unsuspecting target; she could make a killing out here with a performance like that. But even having seen the fire she has in her, Cooper knows she’s not playing pretend.

He holds up a fistful of vials.

Her gaze shifts, eyes widening when she realises what’s in his hand.

“Oh,” and she actually smiles a little, nervous but genuine, what the fuck?

“You think I can’t take care of myself, is that it?”

“What? No, I –”

Cooper plants one foot and looms over her. “Now, I’m fairly certain you remember what transpired the last time you involved yourself with my meds. Don’t imagine you’d be eager for a repeat performance.”

Lucy glares at him, and there’s that fire of hers. If she’s intimidated at all she’s doing a great job hiding it, never once breaking his gaze. It sets his heart beating a little faster, seeing her look up at him like that, fierce and defiant –

“Save your pity for someone who needs it.”

He opens his fist and lets the vials rain down over her head.

Lucy kicks at his leg strongly enough it nearly sends him stumbling. She’s on her feet quicker than he thought her capable of, vials scattering around them, just barely avoiding being crushed under hand or foot. She has to know how dangerous this is – he’s killed men over less, and he bets she knows that – but that doesn’t stop her from getting right up in his face, visibly bristling with anger.

“Fuck you, I was trying to be nice. See how you like finding them in your boots next time, asshole.”

And then she stomps off, fists clenched at her sides, Dogmeat trotting unconcernedly after her.

Traitor.

Cooper watches until she disappears from sight, off behind one building or another. He’s not especially worried. She won’t go far. She never has.

It’s far too easy to call up the image of her anger, how she was so alive with it, feisty and ardent and all of it directed at him. He imagines he can feel the heat of it, the way it would rise from her skin matching the burn he now feels sliding through his veins.

Maybe he should’ve riled her up more.

He has his doubts she’ll act on her threat, but it’s easy enough to check his boots on those occasions he takes them off.  He’s found worse things than vials in them before, after all – it helps to keep the habit.

She doesn’t end up sticking them in his boots. What she does is drop a rather impressive amount of them right on his face in the middle of an actually deep sleep, god fucking damnit –

The smirk she gives him in that moment is burned into his mind.

She doesn’t stop collecting the vials, either.

The bridge is remarkably intact, considering the sheer number of years it must have been standing. Not to mention the threats of damage or outright destruction. It might’ve lucked out not being hit by the bombs, but there have been plenty of idiots running around with guns, or makeshift explosives, or goddamn power armour in the ensuing years that could have seen it collapse.

Hell, piss off a yao guai enough – or god forbid, a deathclaw – and they’d surely cause some harm.

Cooper eyes the bridge from its base to its highest point, and as far along its length as he can see. Then he looks towards the break in the earth beneath it.

The drop off is fairly steep, the bottom of the ravine farther below than one might expect. The river running beneath them likely isn’t as deep as it once was, but what’s left courses past with good speed. He can see no sign of predators lurking at the edges of the water or against the rocky walls, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.

Cooper clicks his tongue, looking back to the bridge.

He can only see its underside up to a certain point; unless a hole or two has been blown through its surface, the bridge hasn’t been built in a way that they could see the bottom from above. Its upper side is easier to scrutinise, but not even he can see to its very end, or around every curve of its frame.

They haven’t run into any threats thus far, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Wasteland knows that’s not a fact to be relied upon. Why should the possibility of danger ever stop him, though?

The bridge stands waiting, steady and certain.

Well. No sense in delaying the inevitable.

“Right,” he says to himself. Turning, he asks more loudly, “You ready?”

Lucy is standing a short distance back, before the start of the bridge. Her eyes trace the shape of it, up to the peak of its arches before settling at some point past him.

She doesn’t move.

Cooper glances back, half expecting some monstrosity to have spawned there in the time since he last looked. But the stretch of bridge is still empty, not a sign of anything he could think of that would cause such a reaction.

Her eyes finally flick to his when he faces her again.

“Tell me I don’t have to explain the concept of a bridge.”

“I know what a bridge is, thank you,” she says, a little primly. “It’s just that the last time I had to cross one, it got … messy.”

“Messy.”

She shrugs. The look on her face is one he can only interpret as ‘what are you gonna do?’.

Only a vault dweller could find a way to make crossing a bridge ‘messy’.

Hell, maybe it’s not even vault dwellers, per se. Maybe it’s just Lucy.

Cooper doesn’t ask her to elaborate. He doesn’t want to know. She’ll probably tell him regardless, if she’s so inclined.

Rather than inviting the possibility, Cooper continues on, taking the first steps onto the bridge. The click of Dogmeat’s nails against metal accompanies him almost immediately.

From behind he hears Lucy curse under her breath. A moment later and she’s at his elbow, one hand resting carefully against her holster.

He’s not a fool. He knows the advantages and dangers a bridge can offer. He’s made use of them himself more than a few times, funnelling a target through the only path left available to them, picking them off easy. Even before the bombs, he learned from experience: anywhere that you can be pinned down and out in the open is not a place you want to be, and charging into such a space is a quick way to a pointless, preventable death.

But short of trying to ford the river themselves, they don’t have many options. And any alternative will naturally come with its own risks.

Sometimes the most direct road through is actually the best one, despite how it might appear otherwise.

He leads the way across the bridge. Cooper keeps their pace unhurried. There’s no doubt in his mind that Lucy is eyeing every angle, as she should. He himself is as alert as he can be without giving himself away. For more than one reason he wouldn’t leave this sort of lookout solely to Lucy, but it’s reassuring to know she’s taking it seriously.

What better way to ensure she’s willing to step up than to let her think she’s doing all the work?

A more reasonable man would have concluded by now that Lucy was not only proficient, but capable of being trusted. And on some level he does recognise that. On the other hand, he sacrificed the notion of being reasonable so long ago he can’t even remember it.

It only seems to grow quieter the further across the bridge they get. Even having prepared for it, it feels conspicuously empty, and somehow more exposed than he anticipated. Where normally the Wasteland is dotted with its favourite decoration of rusted-out cars, this particular bridge is shockingly clear of them. It’s so out of the ordinary he can’t help but think it’s deliberate.

“Hey, so, I’m only asking this because you’ve been up here a lot longer than I have, obviously, and we were always told growing up there was no shame in asking questions, no matter how silly – though I kind of doubt they meant that – and I figure especially up here, being forewarned is forearmed and all, so I’m sure it’ll sound strange –”

“Vaultie –”

“– but are trolls a thing now?”

Cooper actually stops in place. Anything he’d been about to say regarding her shutting up flies immediately out of his head.

“The fuck did you just say?”

“Trolls. You know, like in fairytales? Live under bridges, eat anybody who tries to cross?”

She looks at him with a face he doesn’t think he has words for. He’s seen her look this way before, of course he has – but never in these circumstances.

Never at him is maybe more accurate.

She looks so fucking sincere. Just completely open in a way that might as well not exist in the Wasteland anymore. Hell, he knows it doesn’t.

And she’s looking at him like that.

Cooper doesn’t know how he should react to that. So he does the only thing he really knows these days.

“And here I thought I’d remember you sustainin’ head trauma.”

Lucy rolls her eyes so expansively she tilts her head with it. “Really? Did you just forget how conversations operate after so long? You don’t have to be rude all the time, you know.”

“How else is a fella supposed to react to that? Trolls? Are you –”

“Ghouls. Gulpers. Two-headed cows. Irradiated cockroaches and scorpions. And whatever the heck a super mutant is,” Lucy says, ticking off each listing on a different finger. She raises her eyebrows, giving him a look that seems to say ‘shall I go on?’.

“So by that reasoning, your next logical assumption was … trolls.” Cooper tilts his head at her in a way he knows – hopes – will infuriate her. “You gonna ask about dragons next, or what?”

“You know, if you just answered my questions instead of sassing me every time, I might ask fewer of them.”

“Oh, I very much doubt that,” he says, voice dripping faux sweetness. “But in the spirit of imagination, let me assure you: trolls do not exist.”

If he’s moved a little into her space, neither of them comment on it. She holds his gaze regardless, giving a little nod of acknowledgment and a tight-lipped smile.

“Good. Great. Glad we got that worked out.”

Cooper barely resists rolling his eyes. “Now unless you got some other pressing questions to ask?”

Only now does she step back, motioning widely with one arm to the remainder of the bridge. Part of him rails against the gesture, as though he somehow needed her permission for them to continue. There’s no sense dwelling on that feeling, though, not unless he really wants to blow things up between them, so he swallows his irritation and leads off again.

They’re halfway across when he hears the whirring.

Lucy’s pistol is already in her hand and Cooper’s bringing his rifle up when the Mister Handy rises up over the railing, descending in a neat arc to come to hover before them.

“Greetings, travellers! And a very fine local time of day to you!”

That familiar, upbeat voice sounds even more out of place in these circumstances. From the corner of his eye he sees Lucy sneak a glance his way, her arm wavering ever so slightly. Cooper’s aim doesn’t falter, though he’s in no hurry to fire either.

“My name is Mister Trivia, and it is my pleasure to inform you that as clients of this particular crossing, you are eligible to take part in an exclusive challenge featuring a fabulous reward!”

Cooper can’t help himself – now he glances over at Lucy, the two of them sharing a look of bewilderment. Far more on her part, of course, but that’s to be expected.

Mister Trivia hovers in place, as though expecting a response. Exactly what kind is beyond him.

Can’t say he’s met a trivia bot in the Wasteland before.

“… What’s the reward?” Lucy asks. Her gun lowers a fraction.

“Continued safe passage across the bridge, of course!”

Cooper narrows his eyes.

It’s starting to make sense, in its own nonsensical sort of way, why they haven’t run into any other travellers on the road out here. Even the openness of their surroundings fits with the knowledge of a Mister Handy needing space to manoeuvre. Any cars or other objects an unlucky ‘contestant’ could use for cover would only get in the way, wouldn’t they?

The unit itself looks clean enough, no blood or viscera staining its casing or its arms – but that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.

Lucy’s clearly picking up on the same vibes, the way she’s easing back. “Oh, well, um … thank you for the offer, but I think we might just go back the way we came, if that’s alright –”

“Participation is mandatory!” Mister Trivia announces cheerfully. Its lower section whirls around, displaying all its arms, while the ‘head’ remains stationary, eyes fixed on them.

Lucy freezes in place.

“Um.”

She’s brought her gun down so gradually he very nearly missed it. Her other hand she’s raised in that universal sign for calm, and while the bot surely understands the gesture, the question is whether it cares.

She catches his eye then, giving a not entirely discreet nod towards Mister Trivia. The look on her face isn’t quite panicked, but she’s clearly hoping for a lifeline – and what kind of man would he be to ignore such a request?

Cooper lowers his rifle.

“Mind if my fellow contestant and I confer a moment before the challenge starts?”

Mister Trivia bobs its eyestalks at him. “Of course! Teamwork is humanity’s greatest asset!”

Cooper takes hold of Lucy by the arm, pulling her a few steps back and turning her so that he’s between her and the bot. They aren’t far enough away that their conversation will go unheard, but it’s better than the alternative – namely, Trivia thinking they’re trying to escape, and acting accordingly.

Lucy immediately uses his physicality to her advantage, hiding from view behind him.

“So we shooting this thing or what?”

… At least she tries to keep her voice low, fruitless as the outcome is.

They don’t have many paths left open to them, so Cooper feels compelled to consider the possibility.

They’re already off on the wrong foot, out in the open and with no real means of catching the thing by surprise. Their options for cover are abysmal; it’d need to be a quick fight, with one of them acting as the bait. And as keen a shot as Cooper is, he’s not sure he could bring down a pissed off Mister Handy in only a few shots and keep Lucy from gaining a few extra holes in the process.

Course, he might not have a choice if they fuck up whatever this little trivia game involves.

“Let’s see how this plays out,” he says, and savours the surprise that crosses her face.

“Wait, you’re not serious –”

Cooper’s already turning back to the bot.

“Alright, Mister Trivia. Why don’t we get this show on the road?”

“Splendid!” The bot spins its lower section again, briefly hovering higher in its apparent joy. “The terms are thus: answer all of my questions correctly and you shall be allowed to proceed across the bridge. An incorrect response will result in failure of the challenge!”

“So what’s the theme?” Lucy asks, stepping up to join him.

“Hollywood film and television history!”

Cooper nearly groans. Lucy perks up noticeably beside him, which can’t be a good sign.

“Answer me these questions three! First: the Mister Handy units share the voice of popular TV butler Bartholomew Codsworth. Who is the actor who portrayed this character?”

“Oh …” Lucy murmurs, pressing her fingers to her mouth as she thinks.

Cooper lets her. He needs a moment to ignore the unpleasant twist through his insides as it is.

There’s something perverse about the bot asking that question with the man’s own voice, and whether it actually knows the significance of the answer, or has just had it programmed.

“Sebastian Leslie,” Cooper says.

“Correct!”

Lucy claps in delight, a mix of surprise and pleasure on her face. Cooper tries to pretend he didn’t see, turning his attention back to the bot.

“Second: which of star Vera Keyes’ films produced the largest box office return?”

… Huh. Now that’s a little trickier.

“That counts as trivia?”

He can hear Lucy’s frown there in her voice, can just as easily picture the look on her face. He doesn’t need to look at her to know he’s right.

“It’s money, vaultie. For some, that’s the only thing that counts.”

“Shall I repeat the question?”

“Just – lemme think for a minute,” Cooper very carefully doesn’t snap.

He can visualise it, even if the name currently escapes him. He’d tried not to get too caught up in the business of Hollywood back then, leaving the obsessing over box office returns to those who were paid to care about such things. But there was still talk between those in the biz; a lot of them still cared about the art of filmmaking, and would make an effort to see the pictures made by their fellows.

And what he remembers about that picture, a memory vague but somehow still there, is that while it made a lot of money, it was absolutely ripped to shreds in its reviews.

He’d watched it for himself, hadn’t he? Had to know just how close to the mark those critics had hit.

But what was it called …?

“If you do not have an answer, I’m afraid I’ll have to mark this question as failed,” Mister Trivia advises, spinning its lower half.

Cooper snaps his fingers. “Love Sets Sail! Am I right?”

“Correct!”

He doesn’t pump his fist in victory, though it’s a near thing. From the corner of his eye he sees Lucy hunch in on herself, hands planted on her knees. Nor does he miss the heavy sigh she breathes out.

“And your third and final question: a two-parter! Name the director and star of the film The Man from Deadhorse!”

“Finally,” Lucy says. “I was starting to think I wouldn’t have anything to contribute. The star was Cooper Howard.” She manages to catch his eye then, despite every desire he has otherwise. “We used to watch him a lot, me and my –”

The smile that had been clear on her face suddenly freezes, then fades completely.

It’s not difficult to deduce who she’d been about to mention. Cooper’s glad for the shift in mood, if only for his own benefit.

It gives him something to think about other than the way his name had sounded coming out of her mouth, or the idea of her knowing what the him from before had looked like.

“And the director?”

Lucy bites her lip, frowning as she thinks. “Oh. Um …”

It probably still counts as letting her flounder even if she doesn’t know that’s what’s he’s doing. He could give the bot the answer right now and end this particular stretch of weirdness, but he’s enjoying watching her think more. He wants to see her struggle, see how that struggle resolves.

She doesn’t once look his way for help, which is something.

It isn’t long at all before she’s giving a nervous laugh.

“I don’t suppose half points count as a right answer?”

“No!” Mister Trivia happily informs them.

Only this time when it spins its lower section, its arms change as well, the simple metal apparatus transforming into a series of deadly instruments: a blowtorch, oversized shears, and some kind of laser cutter. Lucy very nearly jumps back when Trivia snaps those shears; Dogmeat’s growling, and the underlying threat of violence that has been hovering not unlike the bot seems ready to finally burst open.

“Emil Dale.”

Mister Trivia immediately stills, eyestalks swivelling to find him. Lucy, too, is looking at him almost like she’d forgotten he was there.

For a moment, everything is still and silent. And then:

“Correct!”

The instruments of death vanish so quickly it’s as though they’d never been drawn at all. Trivia’s spinning of its lower section seems more like excitement now: it hovers a little erratically, almost like it’s bouncing.

“Congratulations! Your impeccable knowledge of film and television speaks to your quality and worth as a human being! Here, take this!”

From a slot he hadn’t even noticed a slip of paper emerges. Cooper frowns, reaches for it –

Lucy’s already snatching the offering away, clutching it tightly in both hands.

“Thank you for participating, and safe travels!”

And just as it had appeared, the Mister Handy makes an arc over the nearest railing, disappearing into whatever space below the bridge it had first surfaced from.

Lucy leans over the railing, neck craned like she’s still trying to catch a glimpse of it. She wanders back over when it’s clear the bot is gone, her focus now on the little slip it had rewarded them with.

It’s a business card, Cooper realises. Though what sort of service a Mister Handy would distribute cards for, he has no idea –

“‘Keaton’s Society of Film and Television Appreciation’,” she reads. “‘Museum. Memorabilia. Enthusiasts only.’”

She flips the card around so he can see the words for himself.

It looks surprisingly professional, considering the circumstances. The text on the card seems to have been printed rather than written by hand. It even has a logo. There’s an address beneath the information Lucy read out, though it’s meaningless to Cooper, lacking any real familiarity with the area as he is.

Lucy’s watching him hopefully when he looks up from the card.

“Ain’t happening, vaultie.”

“Aww, really?” She holds the card like it’s something precious, gazing down at it reverently. “Who knows what kind of stuff they might have? I mean – items of historical significance, that is. Not stuff.”

“I don’t much fancy spendin’ time with whoever hacked a Mister Handy to play bridge keeper.”

He doesn’t wait around to watch her pout. Cooper heads off first again, leading the way across the bridge – and just like last time, it isn’t long at all before he hears Lucy fall in at his elbow.

If the both of them are far more vigilant as they cross the remainder, he doesn’t think that’s particularly wrong of them. Though the likelihood of them having another encounter to that degree of peculiar seems unlikely.

“So, that movie you guessed. ‘Love Sets Sail!’ Is it any good?”

“God no. One of the worst written things I’d ever seen.”

Lucy snickers, and Cooper doesn’t let himself dwell on just how easily he’d given up that little piece of himself.

And then they’ve got solid earth beneath their boots again, the bridge safely behind them. And it doesn’t matter now that they’re across – the entire trial could be forgotten if it doesn’t prove to hold some usefulness – but some part of him can’t help but be curious.

How many so-called contestants’ lives have been claimed by that one Mister Handy? How many others have actually made it through its challenge?

How many have heard a rumour about a bridge and the thing that guards it; that will happily take the life of any who attempt to cross –

… Huh.

… Still don’t count as a troll though.

It’s honestly some kind of miracle it takes as long as it does for them to truly butt heads.

It’s the first real hint they’ve had of her father in far too long. Not simply Cooper following his best guess, or hoping his tracking skills are guiding him the right direction – no, this is a lead.

The last settlement they’d passed through had been home to a man none too fond of strangers, and he’d had no qualms about making that known. He’d levelled glares their way from the moment he first saw them, muttering under his breath about intruders and malcontents.

Not quietly enough to go completely unheard, which is how Lucy had got to talking with him.

“Last thing we need – more fuckin’ weirdos in vault suits showing up,” he’d grumbled. “Least yours is taken care of, I s’pose. Not like that other guy’s. Don’t look nearly as roughed up as him, either. Face cut open like that, was half expectin’ to see bone.”

He couldn’t have blamed her for the way her interest had obviously and immediately spiked. Not when Cooper had found his own curiosity equally drawn.

Whether the man was more relieved to see them go or upset at the questions his comments provoked prior to that, it’s difficult to say. Probably doesn’t matter much, one way or the other.

What matters is that it leads them here, to the next town over, the direction the man had speculated the stranger to be heading.

Straight to the source of their disagreement.

“But he didn’t say anything about where he might be going? You didn’t ask?”

“Sugar,” the shopkeeper says, sighing, “a man comes in looking like that, I’m not asking him anything. I’m keeping one hand on my pistol and waiting to draw.”

“But this is him?” Lucy adjusts her Pip Boy as she speaks. “This is the man you saw?”

Not for the first time she holds up the display on her wrist, an image of her father when he was surely at his most idealised rendered on its screen. The shopkeeper purses her lips, casting an irritated glance Cooper’s way – but she indulges Lucy all the same, looking at the image again.

“That’s him. Like I said though, he looked a lot worse off than that.” The shopkeeper lays her hands on the counter, along with the aforementioned pistol. “Now you gonna buy something or not?”

Cooper trades some caps for another bag of Rad-Away and a tin of dog food, one of his rare attempts at actively placating a situation.

Lucy is a wound-tight bundle of energy very nearly pacing by the entrance of the shop when he steps outside.

“So he was here,” she bursts out, turning to him almost immediately. “Then all we have to do is figure out which way he went and track him down!”

“Oh, is that all.”

Lucy frowns at him. “Why the attitude all of a sudden? I thought you’d be happy.”

Cooper doesn’t think there are many scenarios in which he’d be happy to see Henry MacLean again, outside of having him on the business end of his gun one more time – and he can’t imagine that’s a scenario Lucy would be particularly supportive of.

He can feel the leash he has on his irritation starting to slip through his grasp. Cooper breathes in deep and tries to keep his cool.

“Explain to me how this is in any way different to what we’ve already been doing.”

“Well, now we know we’re actually on his tail. People have seen him. Plural,” she emphasises, “not just one person.”

“’Cause two is so much more than one, right. Thank you for the math lesson.”

Lucy looks at him then with what might be genuine hurt, mouth caught open and eyebrows all scrunched up in the surprise of it, and Cooper knows immediately he’s failed at reining himself in. It’s gone from her face so quickly he could almost convince himself he hadn’t seen it at all –

But he did. And he knows there’s no pretending otherwise, but even the idea that on some level he wants to is enough to have his nerves prickling hotly.

Why the fuck should he care if he hurt her feelings? Why the fuck is he even thinking about reining himself in?

He shouldn’t care. Doesn’t care. Now’s as good a time as any to remind himself of that fact, reinforce it right down to his core.

“Y’all know there’s a bunch of vault freaks not too far north of here?”

The shopkeeper’s voice interrupts them, and never before has he been so glad for a random nobody’s interference. They both turn to find her waving one arm vaguely ahead of her.

“Maybe he went that way.”

Lucy looks at him, her face something both vindicated and triumphant.

Cooper doesn’t quite manage to not roll his eyes. He pushes past her – only to start heading in the direct opposite direction.

“Wha – where are you going? She said that way!”

“She said ‘maybe’,” Cooper snaps, turning on his heel and stomping the few steps back to her. “Didn’t you now, darlin’?”

The two of them are staring each other down so intently it’s only thanks to his peripheral vision that he sees the shopkeeper nod. He can only assume that’s the case with Lucy, too.

He keeps his voice low, pleasant as anything, when he says, “Ain’t no chance he’s headed that way, vaultie.”

“So you know my dad now?”

“Probably better than you, considering.”

She really should stop offering him so many of her open wounds when there’s salt in his hands and he feels inclined to pour. Cooper knows in an instant he’s gotten under her skin, just like he thought he would. He knows that angry look on her face; he’s been responsible for it on more than one occasion. It’s familiar, and welcome, and safer than hurt, and if he has to push her into something at least he knows he’s capable at this one.

Just like last time, she recovers quickly, anger vanishing from her face. Only this time a smile takes its place, albeit one with too many teeth – and after a moment she turns it on the shopkeeper.

“’Scuse me, darlin’,” she mimics, voice sickly sweet. “Any chance you saw him head that way?”

She points sharply in the direction Cooper had aimed himself.

“Look, can you just forget I said anything? Please? I don’t wanna get involved –”

Hands on her hips, Lucy stares the shopkeeper down until the other woman finally gives a quiet ‘no’.

The look of surprise Lucy gives him them is so exaggerated it’d be perfectly at home on one of those Vault-Tec cartoon characters.

“Wow! What a shock! Looks like he mightn’t have gone that way either!”

Cooper can’t help the way he chuckles, or the crooked smile he gives her.

On anyone else it might actually look friendly.

“Guess we’ll both just have to make sure, then. See you ‘round, MacLean.”

Then he turns, and continues on the way he’d been heading.

She doesn’t call out, or coming running after him, and Cooper doesn’t look back to make sure it stays that way. He keeps his eyes firmly on the horizon, the town passing around him like a shade, and in what feels like only a few moments he’s left it behind entirely.

This – this is how it’s meant to be. Nothing but the open Wasteland ahead of him, no company but his own. Just the silence and the promise of a target at the end of his hunt.

… And fine, maybe he can’t say for sure that Henry MacLean will be at the end of this particular path he’s on. But he trusts his instincts better than he trusts her hope, and his instinct is telling him one thing: there’s no fucking chance her father is heading north.

And if she’s not gonna listen to good sense then she can go have fun wandering the wastes by herself for a while. If not forever.

Knowing the luck that girl has, she’d do just fine on her own anyway.

Cooper clenches his jaw. This isn’t the time to be getting distracted. He’s already given her more of his time and attention than she ever deserved.

He focuses on his pace instead, one foot in front of the other, over and over until he couldn’t hope to see the town behind him.

How much distance he’s willing to cover before he admits there’s no sign of his quarry is something he’s still working out.

It’s not as though he’s in a rush, at any rate. He can give this little diversion as much time as he finds satisfactory, and enjoy the solitude in the meanwhile.

It takes longer than it should for him to realise Dogmeat is trailing after him.

She hangs back just far enough he has to squint to make sure it’s her. She moves at an entirely unhurried pace, crossing the terrain with an ease he could only hope to strive for.

There’s a moment where he thinks she’s stopped; that she seems to be looking directly at him when this happens feels far too deliberate. They watch each other from across the open ground, and Cooper hates how he finds he’s reminding himself this is an animal.

If anyone knew he was ascribing this much intent to a dog he’d have an entirely different reputation to manage.

And then she’s moving again, just like that, Dogmeat slowly closing the gap between them until she comes to sit a little more than an arm’s length away.

Cooper tilts his head at her, considering.

“Ordinarily I’d be touched, but bein’ followed don’t quite feel like a victory this time.”

Dogmeat only looks at him in that way of hers that – once again – has him wondering when she’ll finally drop the act and start speaking properly.

Not today, at least.

Now this here is company he feels no urge to turn away – though he’s more than capable of making it on his own, of course. No list of questions about the state of the world, no reserve of curious observations. No dragging him into bullshit that could otherwise have been walked around. Just a quiet he hadn’t realised he’d missed so much.

It means, of course, that she’s out there dealing with whatever she finds completely on her own. Which, as a concept –

Whatever. It’s not his concern. She’s more than capable of handling herself.

Although, now that he thinks on it …

“She didn’t send you after me, did she?”

Dogmeat gives him exactly the look he’s expecting to get, which doesn’t help him at all.

Cooper shakes his head to himself and continues on.

The bitch of it is that they’ve gone this long without any hint of her wanting to know more. Even after laying the topic at her feet back there, in the ruins of the observatory, with the promise of all that knowledge in her grasp – she still hasn’t asked him.

He can understand the initial hesitation. Generally, a person is capable of handling only so much trauma in a certain period of time, and considering the revelations young Lucy found stacked upon her, it didn’t surprise him that she retreated into herself. A bit of evaluation was only natural in her circumstances.

The way that reluctance had continued even after her brooding had ended, though? Now that was a little more curious.

It’s not like he’s looking forward to the conversation. Whatever opportunity he gets to shit all over the image of her father is one he’ll take, but it does leave him open to some … uncomfortable questions as well.

His identity, for one. That he chose not to clue her in even after that little moment on the bridge likely won’t go appreciated.

But while he hasn’t gone out of his way to raise the subject, the fact still remains that she hasn’t, either.

Maybe she’s trying to work it out herself, solving a puzzle with half the pieces missing. Maybe she’s waiting for the exact moment when the answers would land most dramatically, or when their truth couldn’t possibly be denied.

Or maybe she just doesn’t want to know, and is holding it off until there’s simply no other choice.

He can’t say he’s unfamiliar with such a line of thought. And taking into account everything she’s already learned, it’s not entirely unreasonable she’d feel that way.

… And now here he is, getting distracted in precisely the manner he’d tried to avoid. Just how amused would Lucy be to learn that even when he tells himself to do otherwise, he still finds himself preoccupied thinking –

That’s about as far he’s gonna let that one go.

This time when he orders himself not to get distracted, he manages to follow through.

He makes it all the way to the following dawn before he considers turning around.

All his concentration has been for naught: there hasn’t been a hint of danger, be it from raiders, scavengers, or even the creatures of the wastes. It’s not as out of the ordinary as one might think – he’s spent more than his fair share of days out here to know – but it does feel suspiciously well-timed.

Another notable absence – or not so notable, all things considered – is even a single trace of Henry MacLean.

It was always a long shot. Cooper can admit that much. And even if he’d found him out here, what then? The chances of them both getting back to Lucy without either of them killing the other likely weren’t great.

Assuming he didn’t just toss her to the side, and force the elder MacLean on towards his destination with only his own interests in mind.

Whoever Henry MacLean is seeking out, wherever it is he’s going – it’s gonna be substantial. They won’t find it stumbling through some random backwater town.

And leaving Lucy out of it just doesn’t sit right, somehow.

The first rays of sunlight stretch out across the open space, and in that early light Cooper looks over the little alcove he made his camp in to find Dogmeat staring right at him.

Even before he’s decided what he’s going to do, he knows what’ll happen next.

“Guess she didn’t have to send you, huh, girl?”

Dogmeat just looks at him in that way of hers.

He doesn’t exactly rush his way back. Vaultie’s already shown she can take care of herself, and he’s relying on that to still be the case now. The Wasteland once again proves to be surprisingly cooperative, not a single distraction trying to sidetrack him, and were he one to trade in superstition he might think that significant. But he isn’t, so he doesn’t.

Night has well and truly fallen by the time he catches sight of the town where they’d parted. Cooper loops around widely, no interest in spending any more time there.

He doubts they’d be much help after that last visit.

It’s all new territory from here, and he tries to treat that with the gravity it deserves. He’s got no clue how far she’ll have gone, after all, no way of knowing if she even found this place. One might think a den of so-called ‘vault freaks’ would be easy to stumble across, but there are never any guarantees in the Wasteland.

Like tracking Lucy, for one. He’s done it before; hell, he’s hunted down individuals far more cunning, more vicious than she could ever be. It should be fair to reason that he could do it again.

And yet.

The amount of time that’s passed doesn’t work in his favour. Nor does the lack of light. But he trudges on in the direction that seems most right, and in those moments where his gut fails him, there’s Dogmeat.

A short rest and nearly a full day of walking later, he finds it.

To be fair, it’d be hard for anyone to miss. They’ve somehow repurposed an enormous Vault-Tec billboard, turning the vault door featured on its front into a seemingly functional entrance. Even with its faded colours and the weakening glow of sundown he can make out those false promises of salvation painted across its front –

But he isn’t here for that.

Cooper slides open the ‘door’, revealing what essentially amounts to a cave. There’s light coming from somewhere deeper within, and he can already hear a thudding noise coming from what he presumes is the same direction. And while all that is worth noting, what catches his attention most is everything else inside.

Tray tables and broken televisions, dead potted plants and old sofas. It’s chaotic and slapdash, but there’s still something resembling a system, and that system is a vault – or at least, somebody’s best imagining of one.

Even if he didn’t already have a grudge against all things Vault-Tec, he’d still think this place unsettling.

Cooper draws his rifle and starts heading deeper in.

The further he goes, the more rooms he finds splitting off the main path, each of them conforming to this strange theme. The place is very clearly occupied, and yet he hasn’t seen a hint of another person, nor any kind of struggle. Dogmeat seems unconcerned, alert but not growling or rushing on ahead; if she’s picking up on any signs that are beyond his senses, they can’t be too distressing.

The thudding gets louder and louder, until it sounds like it’s coming from right around the nearest corner. He can hear muffled shouting now too, and noises of exertion.

Weapon raised, Cooper eases around the corner –

And there’s Lucy, bracing a metal door with what looks like a bench, blood on her face and splattered up her arms.

It takes a moment for her to realise he’s standing there. She does a double-take when she finally notices him.

“Oh, good! You’re here!” She smiles, bright and only a little strained. “Maybe you can help me out with this?”

She jerks her head towards the door, which jolts with a force that actually shifts her forward a little.

Cooper takes in the entire scene, from the shouts and cursing coming from behind the door, to Lucy’s bloodied but uninjured form, to the severed human arm on the ground.

Then he strides forward, settling his rifle over his back in one smooth motion, and holds the bench against the door so Lucy can wedge it more firmly into place.

It should be enough to hold, but he stands there anyway as Lucy rushes back and forth grabbing things to shove against the door. Dogmeat watches the entire sequence of events with calm curiosity, keeping clear out of the way. It seems like a good idea, so Cooper follows suit as best he can.

That arm keeps pulling his attention back, though.

It looks to have been cleanly chopped off, and still has its sleeve attached. He’s hardly some fashion expert – it just looks like a regular shirt to him, albeit one dyed a very particular blue.

Lucy’s in the process of dragging a potted plant over to shove against the door, next in line to join the pipe she’s shoved through the handle and the dining chair she’s jammed against it. Cooper’s place by the door definitely feels more for show now, but he stays there just the same, leaning far more casually as he watches her work.

All they need is one of them foosball tables and some booze and they could have a real party.

“Y’know, when she said freaks, maybe we should have listened!”

“It’s ‘we’, now?”

Lucy stops what she’s doing and looks right at him.

“You’re here too,” she declares, “so yeah, we!”

Cooper scoffs at that, but doesn’t argue.

The shouting from behind the door has quieted. Whoever was thumping at the metal seems to have eased off as well. It’s come at a fortunate time: Lucy finally seems satisfied with her work, stepping back with her hands on her hips to give her barricade a once over. Cooper takes it as an invitation to join her, pushing off the door so he can stand opposite.

They’ll struggle to break it down, he’s sure of that much. Whether she intended to keep them locked in there permanently or just long enough for her to get clear, he can only guess. Knowing Lucy, it’s likely the latter. The way she’s looking at the door gives nothing away, though, an unusually reserved expression on her face considering the blood and dismemberment.

She looks at it a few moments longer – long enough for Cooper to start forming insults on his tongue – and then she nods, and turns towards the exit.

He lets her walk in silence until they’re nearly out of the cave. That’s reasonable enough.

“Not associates of your daddy, I take it?”

She smiles a little at that, though it’s not exactly happy.

“They were obsessed with the vault,” she says. “Or the idea of it, I guess. They were wandering around in there with schedules and roles but treating it like it was real.”

Cooper resists the urge to state the obvious – that to the people living there it was real. She’s smart enough to put that together herself.

Maybe she was right about the whole listening thing. This is both nothing close to what he would’ve expected and somehow oddly fitting.

Explains that particular blue sleeve, at least.

“They hadn’t seen my dad, of course. But they were so happy to meet someone from an actual vault. Wanted to hear everything about it. The only problem was when I said I couldn’t stay.”

She tosses her head, trying to dislodge a lock of hair stuck in the blood on her face. When that doesn’t work, she huffs, reaching up to peel it free.

Cooper chooses not to focus on the way she pulls at the stuck-together strands, and instead goes about getting the ‘vault’ door open.

The open air feels so much more refreshing after being in there, even though it was only for a short time. Lucy seems to agree, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. The sun has set since he stepped inside, but the chill only seems to reinforce his sense of returning freedom.

They should put some distance between them and this place. He doubts these people would be the sort to chase them down – assuming they could even make it past Lucy’s barricade – but that’s also exactly the sort of thought that would come back to bite him right in the ass.

This whole endeavour has already been enough of a pain. Inviting more doesn’t have a place on his to-do list.

“So … what made you come back?”

Her voice is just hesitant enough that he wants to look, see if her face matches the way she sounds. He can just about imagine the expression. It’s not a look anybody should be directing towards a man like him, especially her.

Knowing that only makes the temptation stronger, though, wakes something hungry and possessive in him, and it would be so easy to just look –

“Dog’s idea,” Cooper says, keeping his gaze firmly ahead of him.

There’s a lot of blood. More than he’s comfortable with, at least in this situation.

Lucy is flat on the ground, her jumpsuit unzipped down to her navel but not yet parted from her upper half. It’s open just enough to expose the tank top she wears underneath, and the growing red stain over her abdomen.

Not even her hands pressed over it can hide the spreading blood. Her skin is already red with it, fingers wet and shiny. The colour seems to stand out even more vibrantly between the white of the top and the fairness of her skin.

Cooper tries not to focus on it as he digs the medkit out of his saddlebag.

Lucy’s eyes are on him right up until the moment he starts easing her hands away. Then she’s looking at the wound like she ought to be.

Christ, was she stabbed with a machete? He’s seen plenty of knife wounds in the past – been responsible for his fair share, too – but he can’t remember the last time he saw someone with a cut that size.

Lucy catches his eye then. She smiles woozily. “You should see the other guy.”

He has, in fact, seen the other guy. She did a good job of caving the raider’s face in, though maybe if she’d kept a little more distance she wouldn’t have ended up stabbed.

He sets her hands back in place, pressing them down so firmly he hears her bite back a moan. She gets the idea though, keeping pressure on the wound as he goes back to the medkit.

This wouldn’t be an issue if they still had stimpaks, but someone went and traded their last one to a random settler with a sob story the last town back. She hadn’t even got anything worthwhile out of it – some Vault-Tec bobblehead thing that had gone immediately into her pack. What possible good was that to anybody?

He blames himself. It’s a failure of preparedness to go into the Wasteland without proper supplies, especially of the medical variety. Especially stimpaks. More than that, it’s a good example of why he should never trust Lucy with any of their belongings again.

Ever.

They’ll just have to do this painful, then.

He strips off his gloves, threads up a needle, and wipes the area as clear as he can of blood with a good chunk of gauze.

Then he gets to stitching.

Lucy lies as still as she can under his hands. He can track every spike of pain from the way she twitches, body flinching against her will.

“This is nothing,” Lucy says with a breathless laugh. “The guy I married stabbed me on my wedding night.”

That catches Cooper’s attention.

His hands still, and he can’t help but look at her. If they were both upright he thinks she would’ve shrugged then, but as things are all she can do is give a hesitant smile. She pokes a scar on her stomach, opposite to where he’s working.

It’s really not as interesting as the little piece of trivia she’s just offered.

“You’re married?”

“I am. Or, I guess I was. Are you still married after your spouse dies?”

He fights to not scoff, goes back to his task. “Askin’ the wrong person, sweetheart.”

“Guess it depends if you loved them. Which, seeing he did it as part of a ploy to sneak into our vault – probably doesn’t count.”

Cooper shakes his head. There’s one thing he can say for sure about Lucy MacLean: you never can predict what she’s about to come out with. Whether it’s a story like that or something she does in the course of their travels, she somehow always manages to surprise him.

It’s been a while since he met anyone like that. Someone who could do it in a good way, at least.

She’s honestly lucky the raider didn’t run her right through. Or that he didn’t get the chance to twist whatever blade he stabbed her with. Might’ve done more damage to her insides than even a stimpak could hope to fix. Hell, even having an exit wound on top of that might’ve been too much to deal with, though cauterisation is always an option, if an ugly one.

Shit, she’s stubborn enough to come through fine regardless –

“You have a family, right?”

His hands still again. Only for a moment this time, and then he’s forcing his fingers to move – but a moment should be enough for someone like Lucy to notice. He keeps his attention firmly on the work, jaw clenched.

Maybe – maybe she’ll have enough sense to leave it be –

“You must really care a lot about them if you’re still trying to find them.”

But this is Lucy. Of course she doesn’t have the sense.

That whole thing about her surprising him? Turns out she can still do it the bad way, too.

“I’m gonna assume, what with the blood loss and all, that you ain’t all there right now,” Cooper says, not even trying for friendly. “So I’m gonna go ahead and pretend I didn’t hear anythin’ on the subject.”

He closes off a suture with a little more force than necessary. She gives a little hiss of pain, and in the quiet of the moment it couldn’t possibly go unnoticed.

He takes it as confirmation she both heard and understood him. Sure would be a shame if that weren’t the case.

Things are blissfully silent after that. Despite the anger simmering in his gut Cooper doesn’t rush the rest of the stitches; one might argue he does the opposite, considering the aforementioned blood loss. He takes exactly the amount of time he needs regardless, doing just the sort of job he’d do for himself – or as close as he might get, in those circumstances.

It isn’t all that long before he’s closing up the final suture. And maybe she’s a little paler than when they started, maybe her shaking is a little more constant and less in response to the rhythm of needle and thread – but so long as she’s still conscious, still breathing, she can withstand a little suffering.

She can’t be too far gone yet, as that’s when she grabs his wrist.

“Promise you won’t let me end up like that?”

Cooper doesn’t yank himself free, though he’s tempted. He lets himself look at her instead, curious despite everything.

It takes her a moment to realise he’s waiting for her to continue.

“Back at the Observatory. That ghoul, she – she was –”

Lucy’s mouth catches on the words she’s trying to form. She tries, and tries, and then she finally gives in, swallowing hard and keeping her mouth tightly closed.

She’s looking past him now, not quite meeting his eyes. That grip on his wrist hasn’t loosened any, though. Cooper takes the moment to finish what he was doing – other-handed, sure, but the stitch was basically done anyway – and in the silence, he thinks.

He can’t say he’d paid any real mind to the ghoul at the time. Understandably, he’d argue. Evidently her presence held some importance, not only to Moldaver but to Lucy, too. The whole thing had an uncomfortably ceremonial vibe to it, staged in a way that all but demanded its audience pay it attention.

Like those ropes, for one. Just how much were they for show, and how much for precaution? A ghoul at that level of decay would likely do little damage – though he’s been wrong before. Lucy’s final act before leaving was similarly worth noting. The threat of danger wouldn’t have been enough reason for her to put her down.

Shooting her had been significant, and not only in the sense of taking a life unprovoked.

There’s a connection there, between the MacLeans, Moldaver, and that ghoul. He could probably guess at it, if he really cared to. Likely at some point in the future it’ll pay off, but he’s more interested in what’s happening right now.

“Moldaver must’ve cared quite a bit for her,” he muses.

That, or she hated Henry MacLean enough to torture him with her.

He can’t say he doesn’t understand the sentiment.

Lucy doesn’t seem to have heard him. She shakes her head.

“Why would she leave her like that?”

“You never loved somethin’ so much you’d do anything to hold onto it?”

Her eyes snap back to his. “That wasn’t love.”

Cooper smirks. Hadn’t realised there was a fish on the end of this line – hadn’t realised he’d started fishing at all – but now he knows it’s there, why not reel it in a little?

“World’s changed, vaultie. Shouldn’t need to tell you that. Gotta be a whole lotta new definitions for you to learn.”

Her grip on his wrist tightens. “That isn’t love.”

It isn’t possible for him to forget just how young she is, but goddamn it is she young. Even beyond the literal sense of the word. For as fast a crash course she no doubt had in the ways of the Wasteland – an education which he’s been happy to since expand upon – at her heart she still hasn’t lost that idealistic view of the world, of people. And while it certainly wouldn’t need to take as long as he’s been alive for someone to turn towards cynicism, he would have thought he’d have seen more of it in her by now.

What would someone like her know about love, anyway?

In his experience the only people to go walking around with such ideals are either fools or the supremely naïve, and for all the moments she has, Lucy’s no fool. Everything loses its shine with time. She’ll come around to that soon enough.

It’s so much easier to chalk her views up to her age than just … Lucy being Lucy.

Whatever she’s made of his reaction, she doesn’t seem impressed.

“Why are you even arguing with me about this?” she groans, words running together a little. “It’s not like you believe it either.”

Cooper cocks his head, frowning. “If you’re so sure you know what I think why’re you tryin’ so hard to convince me otherwise?”

“Please, just – promise me? Please.”

Her grip – which had actually begun to weaken – is suddenly like a red-hot band around his wrist. She looks right at him, holding his gaze even despite how she seems to be struggling to focus; despite how pale and shaky she’s gotten, and how unsteadily she’s breathing.

Anyone else, he’d take those as signs they were about to take the big sleep. But not her.

He’s held so in place by those eyes that it takes him a moment to recall what she’s asking of him.

Cooper heaves a massive sigh, drawing the moment out as long as possible.

“I promise.”

Lucy’s eyes go wide. “You – really? You do?”

“Cross my heart,” he says, and draws a bloodied finger over his chest, only a little mockingly. “Now if you would kindly shut your fuckin’ mouth before I shut it for you.”

She smiles, the crazy little shit. Smiles like he’s just delighted her, like she might break her face open with how pleased she is –

But only for a moment. Then she’s reining herself in, that smile becoming something smaller. Softer.

He finally goes to pull his hand away, and she lets it slip out of her grasp.

Cooper keeps an eye on her from afar for a little while. Long enough at least to make sure those little spells where she closes her eyes all end with her opening them again. The next time it happens he leaves Dogmeat to stand guard, and starts making his way back to the nearest town.

One of the vendors has to have a fresh blood pack up for sale, or know where he might find one. The sooner he can get her hooked up to one, the better.

He thinks about needles, hooks and thread and stitches in unblemished skin. He thinks about requests and promises made, and about fishing.

He’d been lying to himself before. Of course he’d known she’d bite at his comment about Moldaver. He’d been looking for a reaction, like he almost always is.

But maybe, with that hand on his wrist and those eyes cutting right into him, she’d known just how to reel him in, too.

Cooper eyes the wall and frowns.

It’s really not that uncommon a sight. Hell, generally it’s the opposite. Settlements have defences for good reason, no matter their population – they don’t tend to last as settlements otherwise – and when it comes to simplicity there ain’t much that beats a wall. He could probably count on both hands the number of freestanding towns he’s come across lacking some kind of outer defence in the time since the bombs dropped.

So it’s not so much the wall that’s troubling him. It’s that it’s surrounding a settlement they’ve heard absolutely nothing about, not a word of warning or a sliver of gossip – and for a town of its apparent size, that’s pretty much unprecedented.

If there’s one thing the inhabitants of the Wasteland love more than gratuitous bloody violence, it’s gossip. If even the next closest town has nothing to say about a place, that usually means something.

Lucy stands opposite him, hands on her hips. She looks from him to the settlement, then back again.

“But we are going in there. We need supplies,” she says.

“Assumin’ there are any in there to acquire. Or that whoever’s in there’s friendly enough to let us leave.”

Lucy huffs. “That was one time …”

He wasn’t even trying to give her shit for that particular incident, but he doesn’t bother to correct her. The fact of it is, she’s right. They need supplies, and while the next nearest town might be a safer bet, they’re here now.

Wouldn’t be the first time he’s walked knowingly towards a bad idea. Probably won’t be the last, either.

Good thing he’s ended up with a traveling partner who shares the proclivity.

Cooper braces himself all the same. “Right. Head on a swivel, MacLean.”

Lucy doesn’t have a chance to look surprised – or maybe she always knew it was coming. She keeps pace with him either way, the picture of focus as their little trio closes the distance to the settlement.

There’s nothing really notable about it: no names or slogans painted on the wall, nothing to identify the town or any affiliation they might have. The walls show little sign of damage beyond the usual wear of the Wasteland. He’s not even sure he can hear anything coming from behind it, no animals or sounds of conversation. It’s enough to have him wondering if the place is even occupied.

Which is, of course, when someone cranes their head over the wall to stare down at them.

“Hey! You’re from Bridgeworth, right?”

Cooper gives all credit to his hat for hiding his perplexed expression. Slowly, he glances over at Lucy, only to find her already looking his way, an equally confused look on her face.

“Uh …”

“Shit, took you guys long enough! Get in here!”

And then part of the wall angles inwards, a door that had previously gone unseen now suddenly open to them.

Lucy peers into the space, but if she can make out any more than he can her sight must truly be something special. She looks at him and shrugs, as prepared to walk in there as she was on the approach.

It’s some sort of miracle she hasn’t taken the lead already, gone charging blindly forward. Certainly it’s not out of any deference to him. Cooper can only imagine the reason for the pause.

“Come on already!”

He doesn’t need any extra encouragement. With Dogmeat trailing alongside him, he steps inside.

There’s a guard waiting at the other end. A ghoul, more specifically. He looks them all over, lingering the longest on Lucy’s jumpsuit, before he gestures them onward with his rifle.

“Joanie’s waiting for you,” he says, voice like gravel.

Lucy’s hands are hovering around her waist like she’s about to hold them up, as though the gun was more of a threat than an accessory. Cooper catches her eye, gives the slightest shake of his head. She frowns, but doesn’t raise them any further, instead brushing her hands down her front like she’d meant to do it from the start.

The settlement seems smaller than he would’ve guessed from the outside, though that might be due to how tightly packed everything is. Houses built almost on top of each other, stores and recreation buildings jutting out into what could only generously be called the streets. It’s easily one of the more chaotic townships he’s ever found himself in. There is a … certain charm to it: the place feels lived in, despite the general disorder. Still, not for him, outside of whatever opportunity it’d present to disappear into the crowd.

He thinks that right up until the town’s occupants start poking their heads out from doors and windows and around corners.

Almost all of them are ghouls.

Men and women, all in various states of decay. There are more of them in this single section of the town than he’s seen in one place before – alive and still sane, that is. But it’s not just the number of them. It’s the regular folk standing with them, arm in arm, some even with hands joined together.

Cooper’s seen a lot in his time. Something like this has never even registered as a possibility.

Lucy hasn’t come to a complete stop, but her pace has slowed noticeably. If she’s trying not to stare, she’s failing massively, eyes wide and flitting from one face to the next. Were this any other situation he has no doubt she’d find some way to go talk to them.

… It’s a low bar to set, but at least she doesn’t seem afraid.

“No starin’, vaultie,” he warns. Her head snaps around, surprise plain on her face – but then she recovers, no longer quite the stunned outsider she’d appeared.

It’s a relatively straight path through the town. The guard behind them is more than happy to point them back in the right direction, usually with his rifle. Otherwise they travel in silence, none of the civilians attempting to talk to them and both he and Lucy somehow resisting the urge to converse.

The building they end up in front of one of the larger ones, with all the markings of a town hall though nothing explicitly names it as such. Another guard stationed out the front – a regular human this time – straightens up on seeing them, before disappearing inside. Their escort clears his throat, and when they both look back he gestures for them to wait to the side.

… The place certainly doesn’t look like some kind of ghoul-run murder cult, but he’s been wrong before. There’s an easy way to find out, of course, one that’d involve picking through everyone’s belongings after shooting them all dead. Easier, though, to just wait and see what situation they’ve wandered into.

Doesn’t mean he’s not expecting it to all go to shit right in front of them.

Lucy’s aware of it too, to her credit, glancing between the building and the guard with a growing nervous energy.

“I’m sorry, there seems to have been a mista –”

The door opens, and they both turn towards the sound. The human guard nods.

“Alright. In you go,” the ghoul says.

So they go.

It’s the human’s turn to escort them this time. Inside, the building is made up of several smaller rooms sectioned off to each side, with one larger, closed off one at the opposite end. A few people mill around inside the rooms and the hall between, ghouls and humans both, sifting through desk drawers or picking through shelves. Some of them don’t even look up as they pass.

It feels so thoroughly normal, except for how it isn’t.

The guard opens the door for them when they reach that large room, and in any other situation that would be one of the more unusual things he’s experienced lately. Not many offering to hold open the door to a notorious ghoul mercenary these days.

It’s a struggle to imagine why.

Inside is just a single person, a tired-looking ghoul sorting through boxes piled on a desk. She sighs on seeing them, waving them in as she starts putting things away.

The door shuts behind them.

“If this is some way of charging a higher price, I hope it was your idea and not Bridgeworth’s,” the ghoul says.

From the corner of his eye Cooper catches Lucy glancing at him. She must be nearly crawling out of her skin to explain, especially after that earlier attempt. He doesn’t look away from the ghoul to find out though, not even for a second.

She looks between the pair of them, and briefly at Dogmeat, a frown deepening on her weathered face.

“You’re not from Bridgeworth, are you.”

“We tried to say something,” Lucy bursts out immediately, apologetic.

Slowly, the ghoul sighs again. She sits down heavily in the nearest chair.

“Don’t suppose you could’ve tried harder?” she asks. She holds up a hand a moment later when Lucy shifts in place. “No, that wasn’t fair. Our mistakes aren’t your problem. Desperation is no excuse.”

“What were you expectin’, exactly?”

Cooper knows he shouldn’t ask, but he finds he can’t quite help himself. It’s all but guaranteed the question would get asked anyway.

“We have a trade agreement with Bridgeworth, another town not far from here. They were meant to deliver their goods a few days ago, but whatever courier or mercenaries they hired never showed.”

“You can’t contact them?” Lucy asks.

“Not easily,” the ghoul says. She sounds about as tired as she looks. “I sent out a scout, but the only response they gave him was that the shipment had gone out as normal.”

Cooper frowns.

It’s not any of his business, of course. That fact does nothing to kill his curiosity. There are only ever a few possibilities in situations like these – assuming this ghoul is telling the truth.

Maybe Bridgeworth did send out their couriers. Maybe they were interrupted on the road, caught out by bad weather or vermin or bandits. There’s a decent chance they could still be alive in the first two cases, possibly even the third. Could be they returned to the town; could be they’re still on their way here.

Could be they’re dead, corpses and goods picked over, remains already swallowed by the Wasteland.

Or maybe Bridgeworth never sent anyone at all, and only claimed they did.

He casts a glance over at Lucy. She meets his gaze after a moment, and the look on her face says her thoughts are running in the same direction.

“How badly do you need those supplies?” Lucy asks.

It’s a question they all know the answer to. At least the ghoul has the decency not to judge over it.

“I’ll put it this way: if you came here specifically to trade, I’d have to turn you away. It’s not dire, but I have to put our people first.”

Well. This sure wound up being a fantastic use of their time. Another reason to add to the list why they should avoid random towns no one seems to talk about.

“Well, then,” Cooper says, feigning pleasantness, “if it’s all the same to you, we’ll be gettin’ out of your hair. Proverbial, of course. No sense in havin’ strangers around in the middle of your quandary.”

Lucy’s head snaps back to him. “Hey –”

The ghoul hasn’t taken her eyes off him, though, considering him openly even now.

“I don’t suppose you’d be open to taking on a job?”

If Cooper still had eyebrows he’d be raising them at her.

“You want to hire us?” Lucy can’t hide her surprise. “You don’t even know us.”

“One way to guarantee you get the supplies you want: you bring them back to us,” the ghoul says, shrugging a little. “You’re right that I don’t know you. But seeing you’re a vault dweller gives me a pretty good idea what you’re capable of. And as for your companion, I get the feeling I do know him, even if I can’t put a name to that face.”

Cooper is very nearly positive he’s never met this person before in his life, but that doesn’t mean his reputation hasn’t already beaten him out this far. Doesn’t mean she’s not speaking symbolically, either. She doesn’t have to know him to have an idea of exactly the kind of person he is.

And from the way she’s still looking at him, he has a feeling it’s not just talk.

If Lucy has noticed their silent staring contest, she doesn’t mention it. “You’d trust a pair of strangers to bring back your supplies? What makes you sure we won’t just run off with them?”

The ghoul finally turns back to her. “You might. It’s a risk I’d prefer not to take. But maybe the fact you’re standing here worrying about that instead of shooting me and taking what’s left tells me all I need to know.”

Lucy doesn’t look entirely convinced by the logic, mouth pursed like she’s trying to figure out what to say to prove it’s a bad idea. Cooper’s honestly a little tempted to let her continue. He can only imagine the sorts of tales she’d come up with.

None of them would be as effective as the truth.

She doesn’t wait long for Lucy to try again. “Well?”

“… Alright,” Cooper says.

The ghoul nods. “Good. Thank you. I’ll get you details of the ground my scout covered, as well as Bridgeworth’s location. You can head out at dawn; the two of you should have the chance to experience our town’s hospitality at least once.” She gets to her feet, offers out her hand for them to shake. “They’ll give you a room at the inn. Just tell them Joanie sent you.”

She shows them to the door, and then that’s that.

“So we’re actually doing this?”

“Don’t see why not,” Cooper replies, already heading for the exit. He can feel Lucy’s eyes on him as she keeps pace.

“It just doesn’t seem like something you’d volunteer for, that’s all. Kinda more my type of thing?”

“Well, you offered such a good suggestion why we should – how could I ignore that?”

He pushes open the door and she steps through before he can, eyes bright, a smile quirking her lips.

“I don’t believe you.”

He smirks. “Suit yourself.”

He’d like to imagine there’s at least a hint of uncertainty in her face after that, though he might just be trying to convince himself.

“Come on, since when do I get to be the cautious one? You don’t think it’s just a little strange she was willing to trust us so quickly?”

“Not once since we got here did any of ‘em try to take our weapons,” Cooper states plainly. He doesn’t wait to see if she’s keeping pace with him. “And seeing as we didn’t once reach for them, I’d wager that gave her enough of an idea of our character.”

Lucy doesn’t argue the point. He can just make her out at the edge of his vision, though, and if he’s reading her expression right, she still doesn’t look fully convinced.

It isn’t difficult to find the inn. The proprietor – a ghoul man – looks perplexed by their request.

“Well, yeah, you can have a room. Not exactly like we’re in the height of tourist season right now.”

He takes a key from the little board beside him and sets it on the counter.

A single key.

Several others remain hanging from their hooks.

“Not quite finished there, friend,” Cooper warns, nodding towards the counter.

The proprietor looks between them. “You mean you’re not …?”

Cooper stares the ghoul down, and very deliberately ignores the nervous, breathless laugh that Lucy gives.

“… My mistake.”

He sets down another key.

“Can I ask you something?”

Lucy sounds slightly more composed, though only slightly. A quick glance her way confirms she’s speaking to the proprietor, attention firmly on him.

“There are so many of you living here – ghouls, I mean. Where do you get all your medicine? You must go through so much!”

The proprietor narrows his eyes. “Medicine?”

“Yeah, the – the little vials?” Lucy raises one hand, thumb and forefinger spread a small distance apart, as though she were holding one.

The ghoul looks from her to Cooper.

“You need that stuff, huh?”

Cooper can only stare at him. At his side, he can just vaguely make out Lucy glancing between the two of them.

“Only a handful of us living here need to take it. Don’t ask me why,” he says sharply, holding up a hand in Lucy’s direction – her mouth already open to do just that. “Was as much a surprise to me when I first heard about it.”

“But that’s …” Lucy’s confusion is clear in her voice. She keeps trying to catch his eye. “Could it be an age thing?”

“Didn’t I just say not to ask?”

Cooper could laugh at the ghoul’s exasperation. There’s always a strange pleasure to be found in witnessing others experience Lucy MacLean’s particular brand of persistence.

Too bad he’s still caught on that first answer to properly appreciate it.

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you. We got someone here says she was around when the bombs fell, and she doesn’t need to use it. Came here from further out east. Don’t know why she’d lie about that –”

Cooper takes one of the keys and turns to leave.

“Wait, where are you –”

“Got business elsewhere,” he says, and doesn’t stop walking. “Entertain yourself a while.”

He doesn’t even give Dogmeat a chance to follow before he’s out the door and gone.

Had she come looking for him, Lucy would have found Cooper’s ‘business’ to largely be sitting at the bar drinking whatever was available to him.

He hadn’t made it his first stop. Whether it was a place that treated him with open hostility or welcomed him – more or less – Cooper always made sure one of the first things he did was familiarise himself with the town’s layout. Exits and entries, buildings with the best sightlines, stores and inns and the quickest paths between them all. Some were more immediately useful than others, but all held some level of importance.

He hadn’t anticipated just how strange it would be to walk through a place and not be the odd one out. The townspeople had still looked his way, though it was more out of unfamiliarity than mistrust, or disgust. Some had greeted him as he’d passed them; some had smiled.

Instead it had been Cooper looking at them like they were the unusual ones.

All those regular people, those smoothskins, talking with their ghoul neighbours like it was the most natural thing in the world. Standing around with them, walking hand in hand with them –

He’d taken as long as he’d needed to map out the town. Then he’d found his way to the bar.

It’s where he sits now, in the seat that gives him the best view of both room and entrance. The bartender has chosen mercifully to leave him alone, only crossing over to his side of the bar to supply Cooper with more of whatever passes as alcohol here.

Cooper isn’t sure if it’s his own expression that’s keeping him away, or if he’s found the one person in this whole town that isn’t friendly by default.

He doesn’t intend on getting drunk. But it’s nice to pretend sometimes.

Mostly he’d like to just not think for a while.

He can’t claim to be an expert on ghouls. They may be his best bet for lasting acquaintances nowadays, but outside of a select few he hasn’t really made a habit of befriending them. And out of those he’d kept in closer contact with, none of them had ever shown an ability to get by without their meds.

He thinks he’d remember something like that. They all tend to share the same problems, and all tend to end the same way. Roger was just the latest example of that fact.

And yet … If the proprietor had been telling the truth, clearly that’s no longer a constant he can rely on.

How many ghouls would look at him as the outlier? How many of them out there have never even needed to consider using something to keep from losing their minds?

Just another shitty roll of the dice he’s found himself stuck with.

Cooper knocks back the rest of his drink and gets to his feet.

He can’t stay here all night. He really should try to get some rest before tomorrow, whatever ends up happening. Always a good idea to take full advantage of a proper bed whenever the chance to occupy one arises.

Flickering strings of streetlights have been turned on through the town. There aren’t as many people outside as there’d been before, but he still passes a good number of couples and singletons alike enjoying the evening air. No one bothers him, just as it’s been his entire time here.

The proprietor gives him a nod as he walks in. Cooper returns it, albeit grudgingly.

His room is on the small side. Some people might call that ‘cosy’. Those people would be wrong. There’s a wardrobe, and a tiny ensuite containing little more than a toilet and a sink. A thin curtain hangs in front of the window, letting in most of the light from outside. The bed takes up most of the room’s space, but there’s also a desk shoved against one of the walls, and an armchair in one of the corners by the window.

Lucy looks over at him from her spot in the chair when he enters.

Cooper fights off the urge to close his eyes and sigh heavily.

“Tell me they’re not actually using the same keys for all the locks.”

“Joining rooms,” she says, pointing to a door he’d missed until now.

… That’s not much better. Bad enough that the proprietor had tried giving them a single key to begin with, but to somehow still end up with adjoining rooms?

At least the door blends in well with the wall, which soothes his ego a bit.

Lucy, though – Lucy looks entirely too comfortable sitting where she is.

Cooper takes a few deliberate steps further in. “And what gave you the impression being in here was the right play?”

“Dog’s idea.” She shrugs, looking down towards her feet. As if summoned, Dogmeat pokes her head around the edge of the bed, where she’d been hidden. “She wanted to check it out but wouldn’t come out after I let her in. I wasn’t gonna just leave her in here alone.”

“Well, I’m sure by now you’ve had your fill.”

He gestures to the adjoining door.

Lucy’s gaze flicks towards him, hovering right at centre mass before darting away again. She shifts in the chair a little, bringing up her Pip Boy and fiddling with its buttons.

But she doesn’t get up.

“Joanie sent over the coordinates. It’s actually not that far.”

Cooper stares at her, waiting for more, but she says nothing. He lets his arm fall back to his side.

“… Okay.”

“Did you get to check out the town after you were done with your business?” She doesn’t look at him as she asks. “It’s nice. Maybe it’s because they don’t know what’s going on, but the people are friendly. The place is clean. Everyone seems happy to be here.”

“Are you approaching a point, or should I keep myself in suspense?”

Lucy rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying. It’s nice. I didn’t walk around expecting a raider to stumble out of a building and decide he wants to eat my face. Just kinda … feels like home, a little.”

Cooper feels a little like he’s been struck.

She’s still not looking at him, so there’s no risk of her seeing whatever expression is on his face. He doesn’t even want to picture it on himself. He schools his features back to something neutral before she has the chance to catch him out, composing himself in the silence.

… This place reminds her of home?

“What, you thinkin’ of settin’ up shop here, vaultie? Gonna give up the search for your old man and start living up here with all us surface dwellers?”

She makes a derisive noise. “No. I just –”

She doesn’t finish her thought.

It’s the noise that does it, he recognises distantly, anger already blooming in his chest. That little snort, or huff, whatever it had been, as though the idea was so ridiculous, so out of place for someone like her –

“Or maybe you think this is where I belong. That it, MacLean? Think I should hang up my boots and my gun and settle down in the friendly little ghoul commune?”

He’s closed the distance between them almost without realising it. Only Dogmeat’s refusal to move keeps him from looming over her completely. His height does more than enough work for him, and with Lucy seated as she is she’s forced to look up at him.

And she does, and just for a moment he’s presented the image of her wide-eyed and startled, and it’s like they’ve gone back in time.

But only for a moment.

“I don’t think you’d be happy here,” Lucy says. “I’m not sure where you’d be happy.”

Her voice is so soft, and yet she’s looking at him with such absolute resolve it’s like he’s in the room with two different people. She looks up at him like she can see right through him, like she’s always been able to, and whatever she finds there – or doesn’t – holds little meaning to her.

He hadn’t meant his coming over here to be some kind of intimidation tactic, though it had clearly become one.

Now, though? Now he thinks whatever power he’d assumed he held in this situation lies solely in Lucy’s hands.

She looks at him for a few moments longer, that same steady expression on her face. Then she unfolds herself from the chair, slipping past him and Dogmeat without another word.

The joining door opens, and closes again with a soft click.

Cooper’s breath all but rattles out of him.

He barely takes the time to remove his hat before slumping back onto the bed. His equipment digs into him uncomfortably, but he finds absolutely no motivation to remove any of it.

He refuses to lie there staring at the ceiling. Cooper stubbornly closes his eyes and waits for sleep to come.

He wakes to the feeling of nails against his face.

The sensation yanks him forcibly into consciousness, the primitive part of his brain screaming warnings of feral and danger and escape. He’s shoving himself across the bed before his eyes have properly adjusted, heart hammering in his chest –

A whine cuts through the rush of blood in his ears, just loud enough to make him hesitate.

Cooper blinks, his vision gradually clearing.

Dogmeat is watching him from the edge of the bed, up on her hind legs, front paws propped on the mattress. She tilts her head at him and whines again.

The realisation that she was the one who woke him is followed swiftly by another:

There’s smoke in the air, and an orange glow filtering through the curtain.

“Good girl,” he croaks, blindly reaching for his hat and jamming it on his head.

His body chooses then to remind him of exactly how long it’s been around, stiff and slow to start even when the adrenalin should be fuelling him. He pushes through regardless, arm pressed over his face to ward off the smoke.

It’s not that thick now, but it won’t stay that way for long.

Lucy’s still asleep in bed. At least, he hopes that’s sleep. He strides across the room, no thought but to wake her.

There’s no time for delicacy.

Grabbing her by both shoulders, Cooper jerks her sharply and says, “MacLean.”

She jolts awake, shock giving way to confusion far quicker than he’s expecting. She squints up at him, and he can see the gears in her head turning as she tries to place where and when.

“Wha –”

“Something’s happening,” he says. “Get up.”

The frown on her face clears, eyes going wide as her eyes snap to the window. She nods, throwing off the blanket and moving for the chair.

She’s only in her underwear, vault suit draped over the back of the seat. Even when he’d had her naked shoulders beneath his hands he’d barely noticed.

There’s no time. She’s already zipping her suit up and jamming on her boots when he grabs her bag, Dogmeat pawing at her room’s door.

The halls are empty, the other doors already thrown open. Cooper crouches as the smoke thickens, checking over his shoulder to see that Lucy’s done the same. Dogmeat leads the way out, snout pointed confidently towards what must be fresh air, and Cooper doesn’t think twice, just follows after her.

The proprietor is half-dragging one of his guests outside when they reach the front, his arm around the ghoul’s middle, their sides pressed together tightly. A look of relief passes over his face when he sees them.

“Fuck, you’re alright. You were the last ones I had to come back for.”

“What happened?” Lucy shouts, coughing with the smoke.

Cooper only half-hears whatever comes next. His attention is firmly stuck on the vision that greets them.

The town is on fire. Flames are crawling along the roof of the next building over, so bright and so hot it’s like he’s standing right beside it. Great pillars of smoke rise into the air, so much of it that it’s impossible to tell their source; the sky might as well not exist, the haze is so thick. The glow of the flames seems like they’re coming from everywhere –

Cooper blindly grabs for Lucy’s arm, ignoring her squawk of surprise and the coughs that follow.

“Hey!”

“We’re leaving.”

“No, we – we have to help …!”

But Cooper’s already dragging her forward, watery eyes locked on the path he knows will get them to the gate. Dogmeat darts along at his side, nimbly avoiding obstacles and barking at things he can’t make out through the smoke.

Even over the collapsing buildings and the snapping of burning wood he can hear screams, the desperate cries of the townspeople. Some are still trying to save whatever they can; some are running from the devastation; and some are standing in the middle of it, faces utterly vacant.

The smoke is getting worse. There should be a path just ahead –

He doesn’t realise his arm is stretched to full extension until there’s suddenly resistance at the end of it, and then with a single tug his grip on Lucy is gone. Cooper whirls around immediately, one hand already reaching for his revolver.

But she hasn’t been grabbed by someone wanting to stop her. She’s stopped herself, and is standing beside a ghoul woman he hadn’t even noticed, tucked in against an undamaged corner of a nearby building. Lucy’s hands are on her shoulders, and she’s leaning in close, trying to hold her attention.

“You know how to get to the gate?”

The ghoul nods, but doesn’t move.

“Okay, come on. Come with us.”

Lucy guides her away from the wall, shooting Cooper a look that even through the smoke and chaos dares him to argue with her choice.

Maybe at some other time he would have. He still needs to get them out of here, though.

He can give her a dressing down when they’re not choking on ash.

Lucy manages to keep pace despite all but dragging the woman along. They’re getting closer to the gate now, but the fire is spreading fast. Entire buildings are going up; any effort the townspeople might have been making to combat it are surely failing.

Lucy stops again, this time for a terrified child. Cooper ushers the ghoul woman onward as Lucy tries to soothe the kid, pointing out the path to the gate. He watches her nod, staggering forward and disappearing into the smoke.

He has no idea whether she’ll make it.

Lucy’s carrying the kid on her back when he faces her again, her pack awkwardly strapped to her chest. He pushes her ahead of him, close enough that he can still point directions over her shoulder while keeping her moving.

He doesn’t know how she’s still going, never mind with the kid now on her back. Cooper’s chest already feels like it’s collapsing in on itself; his mouth is coated with ash while his throat feels scraped raw. The urge to cough is constant and overwhelming, and all but impossible to resist – but the moment he starts he knows he won’t be able to stop.

They need to get out of here.

Lucy’s already passed the little alleyway to their right when Cooper notices the shape moving within.

Cooper hesitates, despite every instinct telling him to keep moving. They’re upright and mobile at least, which is a promising start. If he has to help them out of here they can at least move under their own power –

The figure steps closer, enough to notice him in turn. He’s wearing some kind of cobbled together armour, and there’s a mask covering the lower half of his face.

“Fuckin’ ghouls,” the stranger spits. “Just don’t know when to die, do you?”

He reaches for the holster at his hip.

Cooper puts a bullet through his skull before the man can get a hand on his gun.

Not even the constant rush of the flames can mute the sound of the gunshot. Lucy stops where she is ahead of him, half turning to look back his way.

She still somehow manages to look concerned. Cooper just jerks his chin forward, urging her to keep moving.

He knows they’re getting closer to the gate by the number of people they pass. Sure enough, only a couple more turns and there it is, the open space in front of the entrance crammed with townsfolk. Most of them are fleeing beyond the walls, either on their own or helping others do the same. Some are running back in, either just past the gate or further into the inferno, desperation driving out all rational thought.

And some are just standing there, staring helplessly at the devastation.

Joanie is one of them. She startles when Cooper takes her shoulder, wide eyes staring at him.

“You … you made it out,” she says, voice ruined by the smoke.

“You need to get your people out of here,” Cooper says. “You did everything you could, but there’s no salvagin’ this.”

She just keeps staring. “Bridgeworth … why would Bridgeworth do this?”

Lucy pops up at Joanie’s other side. At some point in the last few moments she’s removed the child from her back. “What? Bridgeworth?”

“We caught some of their people setting the fires,” she says, looking back towards the flames like she can’t stop herself. “Why would they do this? We’ve traded with them for years …”

Cooper thinks of the man he shot, and just how readily the stranger had reached for his gun.

It’s hard to imagine someone like that being a willing trading partner, let alone a town’s worth of them.

Joanie no longer seems like she’s listening, even when Lucy grabs her by both arms and tries to draw her back. Cooper doesn’t know that he’s ever seen her look so distraught, not even on that day at the observatory. Her hands fall back to her sides, and she stares into the fire like it’s something she can’t begin to comprehend.

There’s something else to that look on her face, and Cooper recognises enough of it to know it’s trouble.

He takes hold of her arm again and starts heading for the gate.

“Wha – hey! No! We can’t just walk away!”

She actively pulls against him this time, hits at his shoulders and back, very nearly manages to kick one of his legs out from under him – but he doesn’t let go of her. He doesn’t stop either, not until they’re through the gate and past the crowd of townsfolk. Then he swings her forward the way one would a dance partner, letting her go after he’s propelled her ahead of him – enough that he can place himself directly between her and the town.

She staggers, but doesn’t fall, whirling around furiously to face him.

At another point in time he would’ve deliberately tried throwing her to the ground. He doesn’t know what it says about either of them that it plays out this way instead.

Dogmeat whines at them from a spot nearby, sensing the oncoming storm. Cooper doubts he would have noticed her if she hadn’t made a noise.

Lucy marches up to him. “Get out of my way –”

Cooper catches her arm again and hauls her back.

“What are you gonna do, huh? You gonna go in there and put the fire out yourself? Gonna drag anyone that’s not already a corpse out of harm’s way?”

“Just because you don’t care enough to do something …!”

She wrenches herself out of his grasp and tries to rush past him. Cooper grabs her before she can, holding her a little tighter as he pulls her back this time –

She punches him right in the mouth.

To say it’s solely that she caught him off-guard would be doing her a disservice. She’s managed to pack a hell of a lot of strength into a short wind-up, enough to make his jaw snap shut and his teeth rattle, his head thrown back a little. It’s quick and unexpected, and along with the burst of pain enough to leave him stunned for a few moments.

When he blinks himself back into the present she’s slipped out of his grasp and is running towards the town.

Cooper snarls and chases after her.

She’s fast, and young, but she didn’t get as much of a head start this time, and they’ve already done this dance before. Cooper closes the distance quickly, reaching for her before she can slip into the crowd of townspeople –

One final lunge and he gets both arms around her middle, digging his heels in immediately and lifting her off her feet.

“Put me down, you – let me go!”

She thrashes against him, kicking and elbowing whatever parts of him she can reach. Cooper just grits his teeth against it and holds her tighter.

“You forget the world we live in, MacLean? Or maybe you only look like the person I’ve been travellin’ with all this time? ‘Cause let me tell you, that one – she knows how the Wasteland works.”

He brings her down with enough force that he feels her legs buckle a little. He can’t overlook the opportunity it presents – and so he leans forward, all but draping himself over her, holding her in place with his weight.

“Be easier if it was that simple, huh? If you could just run in there and save everyone just because you want to? Well, since I got this uncaring reputation to uphold, let me remind you it don’t work that way.” He reaches up, grabbing her by the jaw with one hand. “Look at it. Look, Lucy!”

She goes still in his grasp. It’s not the reaction he’s expecting, but he keeps hold of her regardless, angling her face towards the fire.

He doesn’t know long they stand there together like that. Likely not all that long; it’s only the strangeness of the situation that draws the moment out, him holding her the way he is while they watch the town burn. Everything is amplified – the distant roar of the fire and the sobs of the townspeople, the cold of the Wasteland at his back and the warmth of Lucy against his chest. Even the flames seem brighter against the backdrop of night.

When the moment comes for her to try to extricate herself, he doesn’t fight it. She peels his fingers from her face, far more gently than he deserves, then practically steps forward out of his grasp. She doesn’t go far, stopping just a couple arm’s lengths away, and though he can’t see it, he knows her gaze is locked on the blaze.

The fire burns away, and the townsfolk mourn their loss, both unaware and uncaring of their presence.

There’s a hollow look in her eyes when she turns back to him again. Without a word she begins to walk, passing by him and carrying on into the dark, Dogmeat following close on her heels.

Cooper takes one last look at the flames before trailing along after her.

The town’s spectre follows them even after they’ve left it behind.

Lucy goes quiet again, in a way that he hasn’t seen since the early days of their partnership. She keeps from falling into distraction, at least while they’re travelling, but the moment they stop for any significant period she retreats inside herself, face closed off as she stares into nothingness.

He doesn’t expect her to get over it immediately. He’s spent enough time around Lucy by now to know that if she wants to brood, she’ll brood – but also that she’s rarely excessive in how long she spends in a funk. Trying to push her a particular way out of it likely won’t go how he wants.

If he’s feeling generous, he can admit – if only to himself – that his own thoughts keep returning to the town. It’s been little more than a day since they left it behind, barely any time at all; it would be only natural for one’s mind to linger. Even more so, considering the circumstances.

And yet – there’s a part of him that demands he move past it already. There can be no stopping in the Wasteland. Unless you’re using it as fuel, the moment you start reflecting on the terrible things you’ve done or seen done to others, you’re putting yourself on the back foot. There’s no sense in lingering on what can’t be changed.

He’s lived by that philosophy for almost as long as he can remember now. He wants to keep living by it.

And yet.

He wonders how long his clothes will smell of smoke.

They’ve settled for the night beneath some outcrop, the rock wall providing an odd, natural little hollow for them to keep at their back. They’re far enough off the path that they shouldn’t be stumbled over; not even the small fire he sets should put out enough light to draw anyone.

Lucy eyes it like she’s lost all faith in the concept. She sits far enough away that the heat likely doesn’t reach her, facing out towards the Wasteland.

Cooper leaves her be.

It’s a quiet night; the crackling of the wood is present in a way he can’t ignore. But it doesn’t unsettle him the way he half expects. Nor has he built it so high he can’t still see the open sky above, all those stars that still remain there twinkling away. Dogmeat lies somewhere near the edge of the fire’s glow, her eyes closed but her ears twitching with every sound.

“Was it us, do you think?”

He doesn’t know how long they’ve been there before she speaks. Cooper pokes the brim of his hat up from where he sits against the rock, legs stretched out before him.

Lucy hasn’t moved. She isn’t even facing him, the light from the fire just barely tracing her silhouette. When he doesn’t respond she turns her head just enough for him to see the side of her face, and he knows she wasn’t just talking to herself.

“Our being there – do you think it’s what made Bridgeworth attack?”

“I think we arrived late to a situation we can’t hope to understand now,” Cooper says. “Could be any number of details we ain’t privy to complicating matters.”

“But there’s no way of knowing for sure.”

He doesn’t think he’s imagining the tremor in Lucy’s voice.

“It’s done, MacLean. No changin’ things now. Don’t be so quick to claim responsibility for shit you had no direct hand in.”

She looks away. Cooper finds himself leaning forward ever so slightly, as though that might help him see her face better. The impulse throws him a little, as does the curiosity itself. He forces himself to sit back against the rock, forcefully enough that he feels it dig into his back.

“You killed someone that night, didn’t you. Someone from Bridgeworth?”

“I didn’t ask his place of origin,” Cooper says.

“But not from the town?”

Cooper thinks of the man’s crude armour, and the way he’d emerged from the burning alleyway. Thinks about how easily he’d reached for the weapon at his side, and his voice saying just don’t know when to die, do you?

No, Cooper thinks privately. Not from the town.

“What part of ‘it’s done’ do you not understand?” he growls. “Exactly what are you hoping to get out of this?”

“I don’t –”

Lucy cuts herself off, heaving a sigh. She digs the fingers of both hands into her hair, catching at the base of her ponytail. Just when he thinks she’s about to pull it free she’s suddenly on her feet, restless energy practically radiating off her as she paces sharply. Those hands are now before her, and she wrings them together as she treads back and forth.

Cooper watches her, utterly perplexed.

“I asked you a question, MacLean.”

“Don’t – just, forget it,” she mutters.

And then she stops, as quickly as she’d started, sitting down heavily at the edge of the light and dropping onto her side, back to him.

He’s not sure she looked at him at any point during this little incident.

Cooper can only shake his head, tipping his hat back down over his eyes.

He doesn’t know what noise wakes him, only that he comes to with a shape leaning over him.

His hand snaps forward on instinct, grabbing blindly for whatever he can get a hold of –

“Hey, it’s okay.”

Cooper blinks, and slowly the shape resolves into Lucy. The outline of her is just barely visible in the dying light of the embers. It’s enough for him to tell she’s kneeling beside him, and that his hand found her arm, just above her elbow.

He doesn’t remember lying down. That throws him almost more than anything else.

“MacLean? What …?”

He lets her go, starts to push himself up –

She puts her hand on his shoulder. “Everything’s fine. It’s all okay.”

There’s not quite enough strength there to stop him completely, but Cooper finds himself held in place regardless.

Lucy’s breathing a little fast. Her eyes dart from her hand to his face, and even in the low light he can see how wide they are.

He’s about to ask what’s going on when she suddenly moves, throwing one leg over him and settling her weight on his thighs.

That wakes him up fast.

“What the fuck, MacLean?”

“Lucy,” she says, a bit breathlessly, “call me Lucy again.”

Cooper stares at her in disbelief. Pretty quickly that turns to something else.

“I’m givin’ you one good chance,” he says through gritted teeth, “to pretend like this never happened, MacLean –”

“I’m not an idiot like you seem to want to think,” she says. “I’m not blind, either. I’ve seen the way you look at me sometimes.”

He very carefully doesn’t react, though maybe that in and of itself is reaction enough. She holds his gaze the whole time, like she’s daring him to argue otherwise, and Cooper is entirely too old for this.

“Right.”

He knocks her hand away and starts to push himself up, fully intending to shove her off him with as much insult as he can muster.

She plants her hands on both his shoulders this time and pushes him back down.

Just for a moment he’s stunned enough to lie there. Then he recovers, snapping out his hand to grab her by the throat.

“Doin’ a damn good impression of a fucking idiot for someone claiming not to be,” he snarls. “You are treading a mighty fine line here, girl.”

He doesn’t start squeezing. Not yet, anyway. Not when just having his hand there is enough to make Lucy’s eyes widen further. He imagines he can feel the flutter of her pulse through his glove – knows he feels the shift of her throat as she swallows nervously.

But she doesn’t try to pull away. Doesn’t take her eyes off him.

“So tell me I’m wrong,” she says, and shifts her body forward until she’s positioned almost directly over his crotch.

And Cooper has been alive long enough that he should be able to control his dick –

His hips give a little jerk, his hand twitching at her throat.

Cooper clenches his jaw, a refrain of obscenities running through his head.

Lucy’s eyebrows shoot all the way up.

“Holy shit,” she breathes, “you actually –”

Now he shoves her, pushing himself up in the same motion to try to throw her off him. Lucy yelps, reeling with the sudden motion – but rather than falling off she tightens her legs around him, grabbing wildly at his chest and arms.

He doesn’t know how it turns into the wrestling match it becomes. He’s not even trying to get her under him; he just wants to hold her in place a few moments, keep her from acting on any more of her bright ideas. But she’s a slippery thing, even more than he’s anticipating, and before he can really pin her down she’s wriggling out from under him, using the change in balance to flip him over.

And then he’s on his back with her poised over him again, and even though he lived every moment of it, he’s still not entirely sure how it happened.

Lucy just sits there for a moment, seemingly catching her breath.

“Look, I’m not messing with you, I swear.”

“This ain’t a conversation we’re having,” Cooper growls.

She frowns at him. “Why n –”

“Because it’s fucking ridiculous.”

“… Which part? Since I thought we established you were into the idea, and I know I am, so …”

“You don’t know what you want.”

She looks at him a little harder. “Is this about the ghoul thing?”

Cooper drags one hand down his face, groaning. Then he tries to throw her off again.

Lucy rolls with the movement this time, not coming close to being bucked off. In the space of seconds she’s bearing her weight down again, legs locked around him.

“Because look,” she says, like she’d never been interrupted, “I won’t pretend like it’s a completely foreign concern. And it’s not like we’ve run into that many ghouls that I could ask – provided any of them felt like sharing. Or … demonstrating.” She scrunches her nose, as though disagreeing with her own thoughts. “But it can’t be that different, right? You’re still … human.”

Cooper can only stare at her.

Never mind the completely off the wall comment about talking – more than talking? – to other ghouls about this. The look on her face is something worse than the images those thoughts conjure up. She’s trying to hide it as best she can, there amidst the caution and curiosity, but he’s spent enough time around her to know hope when he sees it.

He doesn’t know which part of it he hates most.

“Christ, do you even hear yourself? Why d’you have to be such a … a fuckin’ vault dweller about it?” he spits.

Lucy actually looks stunned, and even in the low light he thinks he sees something like shame colouring her cheeks.

“This isn’t some experiment,” she says. “I already told you, I’m not fucking with you.”

“And I told you, you don’t know what you want.”

She folds her arms across her chest. “Well, since you apparently know so much, why don’t you tell me what that is?”

He bares his teeth. “Where should I start?”

The list is already running through his head. They’re all just variations of a form: an escape from her recent trauma, or a return to a ‘safer’ danger. A way to take control over the chaos of surviving, either through her body or through his. The firmest possible rejection of the person she’d be expected to be, the dutiful daughter of her dear old daddy.

Not that she seems to know exactly who she’s propositioning.

… He doesn’t want to think about Henry MacLean right now, actually.

Cooper’s not opposed to a bit of transactional sex, whether it’s in the pursuit of money or goods or information. It’s rare enough to find someone not opposed to the idea of sex with a ghoul as it is. But he has no interest in having it with her.

Lucy is undoing the zip of her jumpsuit, as far down as it’ll go.

“Or maybe I can just show you what I want?”

She takes his nearest hand and strips it of its glove, raising herself up a little higher on her knees as she guides his hand inside her suit and down between her thighs.

And Cooper could just pull his hand away – shouldn’t have let her just take it to begin with – but just like that she’s right there, against his fingers. He can feel the heat of her through her underwear, the tiny shudder that’s started to run through her with merely the suggestion of his fingers.

There’s a familiar pressure building inside Cooper’s chest, a pleasant heat trickling through his veins. It’s exactly the sort of feeling he should avoid listening to.

Cooper curls his fingers instead, dragging slowly along the line of her. With a bit of dexterity he gets her underwear enough to the side that he can touch her properly –

She’s wet, there’s no pretending otherwise. Wet for him, somehow.

The thought sends something hungry, something possessive, coiling through him.

He traces a finger between her folds almost idly before slipping it inside her. Lucy squirms a little but otherwise holds herself in place, a shaky breath escaping her.

It’s that noise that draws his attention from where his hand disappears inside her suit up to her face instead. Lucy’s head is tilted down, her own gaze seemingly locked on the place his hand vanishes from sight. Her mouth is slightly open, and it’s clear she’s trying not to make any noise though her breathing is coming faster.

He can’t not take that as a challenge, bizarre as this whole situation is.

“You get off on the arguin’ or somethin’?”

She laughs. Cooper feels a grin pull at one corner of his mouth despite himself.

He crooks his finger and that laugh stutters.

Her eyes flick up to meet his then, half-lidded and dark. Her hand is still loosely curled around his arm, just above his wrist, though Cooper is long past the point of needing encouragement. It’s not an image of her he would’ve ever expected to see – and yet here he is, living it.

“So you believe me now?”

Cooper brings his other hand up, carefully holding the curve of her knee. “It’s still a bad idea,” he says, quietly.

She sighs, gently easing his hand back and out of her suit. She settles herself back on his legs.

“I’m not going to force it if you don’t want to,” she relents.

She doesn’t move from where she is, though. Nor does Cooper lift his hand from her knee, or try to shift her off him.

The seconds drag out in silence, every moment it goes unbroken feeling increasingly obvious. It evidently hasn’t gone unnoticed by Lucy, if the way she’s watching him is any indication: like she’s just barely keeping herself from speaking, that same damn look in her eyes.

Fucking hope.

The urge to just blindly follow his own desire is right there, next to impossible to ignore. It’d be so easy, the best and most chaotic choice he could make just for the sheer fucking entertainment when the shit inevitably hits the fan. But he hasn’t survived as long as he has by being impulsive – or by not being aware of the consequences of said impulsiveness.

There’s something precious now resting in his hands, and no matter what he says or does next it’s sure to break in some way.

But maybe … maybe if she’s willing to put herself there, she’s willing to take the risk.

Tugging at the leg of her vault suit, he murmurs, “Take this off.”

Lucy just stares at first. Then all at once she’s whirling into motion, very nearly yanking at the arms of her suit, peeling it back over her shoulders and away from her torso. If she’d ever been going for seductive, the image has been completely shattered; he almost wants to tell her to slow down and enjoy the moment, but he’s too amused by her haste to do so.

She hasn’t been wearing her Pip Boy this entire time, and a swell of heat pools in his groin as he realises holy shit, she put planning into this?

She has to stand to get her boots off, and she basically flings them off behind them somewhere. With a little more room to move Cooper gets to work on his own clothes, getting his arms out of his coat and letting it fall to the ground. He pulls at his shirt, starts undoing some of the buttons –

Then he thinks better of it, switching to his belts instead.

Girl never said she wanted the full experience. No need to spoil whatever mood they might actually achieve.

He’d much rather focus on Lucy anyway, now that she’s in the process of slipping that suit down her body. The white tank top is no longer a unique sight, but everything beyond that? She’s a feast before a starving man, miles and miles of unblemished flesh to devour. But not just a pretty picture, oh no – he knows the scars that are beneath that top, and all the strength and resilience she carries around in that small frame of hers.

Seeing her standing above him as she is, wearing basically nothing, makes him wonder why he held out as long as he did.

She looks him over, clearly noting his state of dress. He sits up to meet her as she sinks back down, pulling off his remaining glove before he reaches for her.

Cooper very deliberately doesn’t meet her eyes as he trails his hands down her arms. He skims his fingers over her sides, leaving his left hand holding just above her hip while sliding his other across her stomach, dipping his fingers beneath the hem of her top.

It’s something else entirely, to feel the way her skin twitches and jumps at his touch. It’s nearly enough to put a smirk on his face.

Lucy’s been keeping herself busy, fingers eagerly working at the buttons of the shirt he’d abandoned. She doesn’t try to pull it off him, just shoves it back enough to expose his chest before starting on his pants.

Cooper’s got his hand under her top and is busy discovering the shape and feel of her breast, learning just how easily her nipple responds to his attentions when she finishes with the fastenings. It’s impossible to ignore how close her hand is to his dick, no pretending he’s not hard as fuck for her. She only has to shift her hand down a little –

Lucy leans in instead, pressing her mouth to the corner of his.

Cooper freezes in place.

She doesn’t linger there long, but rather curls one hand around the back of his neck, holding him steady as she kisses the underside of his jaw, then down to the joint of his neck and shoulder.

Right, he thinks distantly. Kissing is usually a significant part of this. Somehow he hadn’t expected her to initiate such a thing. Not with a man like him.

Now the option is on the table, Cooper feels an immediate urge to put his mouth on her. Wants to taste her skin on his tongue; wants to sink his teeth in and find out what kind of noise she makes –

She palms him through his pants with her other hand, and Cooper’s hips jerk.

“How do you want to do this?” She tilts her head just enough for him to know she’s looking at him.

Cooper swallows. “Your call,” he says.

Lucy pulls back enough that she can look at him properly, eyes flitting over his face. Then she nods, looking for all the world like she’s been granted some sacred task.

Cooper would think about how ridiculous the reaction was if she didn’t choose then to stick her hand down his pants and short circuit his brain.

He’s not leaving it any longer. Cooper drags her tank top up and over her head, taking the loss of her hand for a few seconds in exchange for the sight of her naked breasts. Her chest rises and falls so prettily with her quickened breathing, her skin already flush with their activities. He gives into temptation then, leaning down to bring his mouth to her left breast, massaging the other with his right hand.

It’s not about interrupting her, or making it some competition – not when he’s just as invested in her pleasure as his own – though he does enjoy the way her breath noticeably stutters, body at once leaning into and pulling back from his touch. He does want to see just how far that particular response goes, however, and so he slips his other hand into her underwear, tracing his way to her entrance.

As he sinks a digit inside her a stray thought occurs to him, picture shockingly clear in his mind: he could be touching her with her own finger if only he switched to his other hand.

It’s an especially tantalising idea. Cooper drags his teeth across her breast, biting at the soft flesh just enough to leave a mark.

Lucy’s gasp cuts through the silence. Blunt nails scrabble against his neck, along his back.

“Pants,” she breathes, tugging his face away from her chest, “pants, now.”

What sort of man could refuse a request like that?

He watches her wriggle her underwear down her thighs as he yanks both his trousers and underwear down, just enough to expose what’s necessary. Anything more feels like overkill when she’s already settling back atop his thighs.

His cock is about as pretty as the rest of him, but at least it’s still functional. Functional enough for this, at any rate. Lucy doesn’t seem put off by the sight, at least. She reaches for him without hesitation, spitting into her hand before wrapping it around him. Cooper’s a little sceptical of the effectiveness, but there’s nothing in his bags that would even pass as lube, so it’s not like he can offer anything better.

Not that any of it really matters when she’s got her hand on his dick.

She strokes him a few more times, confident drags of her hand from base to head. Before Cooper can even think about where he should put his hands she’s positioning herself over him –

And then she sinks down in one steady motion, guiding him inside herself.

Cooper lets out a shaky breath. “Fuck …”

“Still with me?” Lucy asks, laughter in her voice.

Cooper glares at her. Settling his hands at her hips, he gives an experimental thrust.

Lucy’s body jerks with the motion, a cut off gasp escaping her.

He can’t help but smirk at the look she gives him then.

She sets the pace, hands curling over his shoulders as she lifts and rocks herself in his lap. Cooper does his best to match her, rolling his hips with each thrust, trying to find that perfect angle. He can’t help but lean forward as he does, bringing his face down to her neck. He kisses down the length of it, feeling the thrum of her blood beneath his lips. Then he switches to the other side, tracing the same path upward instead.

And Lucy, she actually tilts her head back for him, giving him easier access, fuck –

She speeds up, riding him a little harder. He meets her at every step, moving one hand to splay across her lower back, holding her steady. Her own grip on him has shifted, her arms now wrapped his shoulders, linked behind his neck. It draws her even closer, her breasts brushing against his chest with nearly every thrust.

He wants to pull her flush against him, so close they’re breathing the same air; so close they’re the same person. Wants her to lay him down and crush him into the dirt; wants to keep her pinned beneath him so thoroughly she’ll never get out from under him. He wants to taste every part of her, open her up as slowly as possible and learn every sound she’s capable of making.

He’s reaching up with his other hand before he can think twice, his fingers finding the back of her head. One quick pull and her ponytail is no more, her hair spilling over her shoulders. Cooper tangles his fingers in what he can reach of it, and on his next thrust leans forward enough to bury his face in it, breathing in deep.

“Oh,” she says, breathlessly, “okay, yeah.”

His nose is barely above functional these days, but he’s sure of this much: she smells of smoke.

Cooper knows he’s getting close, and he tries not to take over the pace making. It’d be easy enough to shift them, bear her down on her back instead; they’d both be getting what they want out of it, so it’s not like she’d have reason to complain. He’s shown more restraint than most would expect out of him. Why not just give in, this close to the end?

Something about the idea is enough to sour the pleasure he feels building, though. So he ignores the urge, his only concession to it in the way he snaps his hips up a little harder, the way he urges her to grind into their rhythm a little more intensely.

She’s panting against his ear, hot little bursts of air against his skin. Her legs are clamped around him so tightly he’s not sure she’ll ever let him go again, and for the second time Cooper doesn’t know what to do with his hands, caught between touching her all over and holding her against him.

All he can do keep moving, urging her on.

“Fuck, Lucy, c’mon –”

She shudders suddenly, whole body seeming to lock in place –

And then her hands are moving, and she’s grabbing both sides of his face, lips pressing against his own.

Cooper nearly freezes.

She’s short circuited his brain again, and in a way he wouldn’t have expected. It’s reflex alone that keeps his hips pumping, even as the rhythm they’d set has entirely gone to pieces.

He’s so close, stopping isn’t even a concept any more –

It’s a different sort of reflex that sees him lean into the kiss, tilting his head so their faces fit together better, opening his mouth so it’s not just a simple brushing of lips.

He’s still kissing her when he comes a few moments later, groaning from deep in his chest, and if he weren’t busy riding the high he’d tear himself a new one for being so completely fucking cliché.

She sighs when they break apart, body turned languid. She doesn’t quite look at him as she eases herself off his lap, pulling her underwear back up her thighs. As she goes grasping for her tank top Cooper tucks himself into his pants before flopping onto his back, a pleasant weight sinking into his limbs. It’s not a particularly elegant or intimidating sight, but right at this moment he doesn’t much give a shit.

Doesn’t much matter what Lucy’s doing, either. They might not have agreed to any terms, but he’s under no illusions as to the nature of this. He’s not gonna lie there and act surprised if she’s deciding she’s had second thoughts.

Which is precisely the moment Lucy returns to slump over him, resting her head against his chest.

Cooper doesn’t move for a few long moments. Then he carefully tugs his coat out from under them, throwing it over them both as far as it’ll reach.

Lucy gives a little hum, settling her weight against him. It’s not long after he hears her breathing even out, the steady rise and fall of her chest in his peripheral vision.

And if Cooper winds an arm around her there’s no one around to witness it, let alone believe it happened.

The first time he wakes, Lucy is still lying against him. She’s actually curled in closer somehow, one leg thrown over his own, and a hand resting lightly against his stomach. Whatever woke him hasn’t disturbed her at all, the soft, even rhythm of her exhales reaching his ears.

Cooper lies there for a little while, half listening to the sound of her breathing, half trying to work out if it was an actual threat that woke him. Dogmeat is surely still nearby somewhere; it’s fair to assume she’d wake them if that were the case.

The stillness continues on, and Cooper decides to trust it, closing his eyes again.

The next time he wakes is closer to dawn. The sun hasn’t yet crested the horizon, but the hint of it is there, light building in the distance slowly but undeniably.

Lucy is no longer lying on him. His coat has been carefully placed back over him, but Cooper hardly notices, already pushing himself up –

She’s sitting not too far away, out from under the curve of the outcrop. She’s facing towards the impending sunrise, most of her side to him, her legs crossed under her. At some point she’s pulled her vault suit back on, only the smallest hint of her tank top visible from where he is; her boots, too, have been collected from wherever she tossed them, now securely back on her feet.

Cooper eyes her as he makes himself presentable again, doing up the buttons of his shirt and fixing his belts back in place. She doesn’t seem to have noticed he’s awake. Instead, her head is tilted downwards, all her focus towards her lap.

Quietly, he gets to his feet.

She’s fiddling with her Pip Boy, he realises as he gets closer. Whatever it is must be important, what with the way she’s engrossed by it. Even when he’s only a few steps away he can make out little more than lines and dots, the screen partly obscured by both the angle and her twisting of dials.

“You good?”

She only jumps a little. He’s not sure what he’s expecting when she looks up at him –

But she actually meets his eyes, holding his gaze without a hint of nervousness. There’s a tiny smile on her face.

They’re neither of them saints in this. She knows he has a family, even if she’s unaware of the specifics, and he’s still keeping the truth of his identity from her. It’s almost certainly going to blow up in their faces at some point, whether they want it to or not. The thought of how he might yet use this against her father is still boiling away at the back of his mind, too, if he’s feeling especially destructive.

The fact that she doesn’t look like she regrets it, though … that’s something of an upside, at least.

Her hair is still down, he realises. It frames her face nicely, unkempt as it largely is.

Lucy turns back to her Pip Boy. She makes no effort to hide what she’s doing from him, and it’s easy enough to look over her shoulder, standing where he is. It feels far too conspicuous, but not even that can get in the way of pragmatism.

It’s a map. Nothing he can make out looks particularly familiar, but he has to assume it’s their general surrounds. Among the shapes of terrain and the open spaces between he notices a few spots marked, close enough to be in walking distance of each other.

Cooper frowns, considering.

… Joanie had given her the location of the other town, hadn’t she?

She’s not really thinking of heading out there …?

Cooper doesn’t give any more consideration to the thought. This is Lucy, after all.

Maybe she’ll choose to pursue this, or maybe she won’t. Whatever happens, he’s sure she’ll find some way to surprise him.

“You know where we’re headin’?” he asks.

Lucy shuts off her Pip Boy and nods. She gets to her feet, smoothly tying her hair up in the same motion.

She’s more than half done getting her pack on when she stops.

“So, you’re okay with me taking the lead?”

Cooper unhurriedly collects his own things, setting his hat back in place and giving Dogmeat a pat as he passes.

“What can I say,” Cooper drawls, “I’m in a good mood. Take advantage of it while it lasts.”

Lucy smiles, something that might be a flush colouring her face. It’s impossible to know for sure with the light the way it is, and she turns away before he can attempt a closer look.

The Wasteland opens up before them, waiting to draw them in, and he walks into that unknown alongside her.