Chapter Text
Deacon rocked back on two of his rickety chair’s legs and idly flipped through his well worn copy of The Prisoner as he enjoyed the late October sunshine. Soon winter would come and being outside, where he did the bulk of his work, would be akin to wandering through a frozen tundra hellscape, but right now? Right now was golden. The sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the breeze blowing in from the west was cool but not icy. Yet.
This was one of his favorite spots to pretend to work at. He never actually took vacations. Didn’t ask for them and even if he had, they just weren’t a thing in the Railroad. But he did occasionally need a break of some kind and when that happened, more often than not, he found himself camped out here. Perched in a slapdash recon nest high over Vault 111. Easily one of the most boring places in the Commonwealth. Rarely saw more action than an errant bloatfly. There was a feisty Mr. Handy in the nearby, once picturesque, suburb of Sanctuary Hills, but other than that, he was all by his lonesome.
Which is just how he liked it.
Free to space out. Free to catch up on some recreational reading. Free to relax, which was as rare as finding a pristine box of Sugar Bombs nowadays.
Vault 111 was ground zero for nothing. Nada. Zip. Nothing ever happened there, aside from a blip of activity sixty some odd years back, before he’d even been born. Allegedly, the Institute had once taken an interest in the place. No idea why. They’d never returned. Probably just came to steal some Vault-Tec junk and bounced, which was typical for them. He couldn’t crack the vault himself, though he had tried, so there was no telling.
When he’d found that old, corrupted file detailing that incident as a young man, he’d really thought he’d stumbled onto something big there. Became convinced for a time that Vault 111 might be the answer to everything. The magic one-shot solution that would suddenly explain every inexplicable thing the Institute had ever done.
But it wasn’t. It was just another hole in the ground. A big, deep, sealed with concrete hole. The mystery of it kept him coming back, even as he acknowledged that it probably wasn’t that much of a mystery really. It was just a hypothetical mystery. Schrödinger's vault. As long as it stayed closed, it would always be full of possibilities.
He was pretty sure if it ever opened, he’d be disappointed with how dull it really was, but since it was never going to open in the first place, it was a source of low-key diversion for him. The perfect thing for him to daydream about when the hustle bustle of his life as the Railroad’s spymaster became too much.
And ever since Switchboard, everything seemed a little too much.
When the change occurred, he felt it before he heard it. A quiet rumble in the earth that traveled through his chair legs and set his teeth on edge. Then that signature scrape of concrete on vault steel. It was unique. Rang like a clarion call through the air. He’d visited Vault-Tec HQ a few times and had read all about how proud they were of their lead, steel and tungsten alloy. How it was not only rad proof, but basically impenetrable and impervious to wear and tear or rusting. They’d kind of oversold that last bit, in his opinion, but the shit was solid. He’d give them that, at least.
Deacon leaned forward so all four legs of his chair were back on solid ground and squinted through his sunglasses at the scene unfolding below. The massive dome door helipad thing that had stymied him for so long swiftly sank in an obviously controlled drop. He could hear the gears whirring and the screech of the industrial strength pulleys. It went on for ages and he realized this vault was deep. Far deeper than he’d assumed. Maybe even below the water table. That was nuts.
Then a loud humming filled the air as it reversed itself, like an elevator on steroids. A bit of steam or fog or something was rolling out of the hole now. It sparkled in the bright sunshine and he smiled a little. It was kind of showy when all was said and done. Especially with the alarm lights flashing, warning absolutely nobody to watch their step lest they somehow fall in.
His eyebrows rose the moment it brought up its sole passenger. A woman in that ubiquitous Vault-Tec blue and gold. Her suit’s trim shimmered and he shook his head a little at how terrible the design really was. It was almost like they wanted the dwellers to get shot the second they stepped out of their apocalyptic cocoons.
It was hard to make out details from here so he pulled out his binoculars. Fluffy, silvery white hair fell down her back like a cloud. From that alone, he’d have put her age at near sixty plus, but her face was young. Very young. Maybe early twenties. Large dark eyes of some unknowable color. Her skin was, even at this distance, dewy and gorgeous. Pale brown with loads of freckles. Some odd, dark blue, geometric markings on her face. Makeup, maybe. Shapely, statuesque, beautiful. Perfectly balanced symmetrical features like a model from a magazine. She looked downright Scandinavian, actually.
He frowned thoughtfully. This particular vault’s experiment was unknown to him. All he’d gotten from the regional office was that it had been shipped large quantities of liquid nitrogen. Now that he was thinking about it though, you would need liquid nitrogen if you were, oh, say, stockpiling impeccable DNA.
So was that it? Had Vault-Tec perfected humanity somehow? Because if they had, bravo Vault-Tec. They’d finally gotten something right. Damn.
He felt a little pang of sympathy in his heart as her eyes finally adjusted to the light and she stared at their bleak surroundings in horror. He even nodded a bit as the tears started pouring down her face. Yes, sweetheart, it's all very sad. The world was in a terrible state. He couldn’t imagine how scary it must be to be abruptly thrust into it the way she’d been. All alone, too. That wasn’t very smart. Maybe she was a scout of some kind, but you’d think they’d have sent a pair or something.
A sharp wind suddenly tossed her hair around. He watched her fall to her knees. Watched the way she hugged herself. Had just enough time to feel puzzled about the circle of light that seemed to form on the ground beneath her when she suddenly keened and a huge shockwave sent him flying backward.
Flying. Not just knocked out of his chair. Thrown ten feet ass over teakettle out of his chair. The dead trees all around him shuddered and shed branches like crazy. The air was filled with the sound of them hitting the ground and he used that as cover while he scrambled on his hands and knees to huddle behind his barricade with his arms covering his head.
When no further explosions occurred, he put his mind to work trying to come up with a logical explanation for what had just happened. Spontaneous decompression, maybe? Fuck, if that were the case, the woman had probably been annihilated. At ground zero, she’d be nothing but paste. Goddammit. He was pretty used to the wasteland destroying anything of beauty but goddamnit. Usually you got to enjoy it for a little bit at least. It took a few minutes, but he finally worked up the nerve to rise up enough to peek at the vault.
She was fine. Intact, anyway. Sobbing still, of course. His brain took this in and processed it happily while deliberately ignoring the extremely bizarre and absolutely ludicrous other thing he was seeing. When he blinked though, and the image remained, he was forced to contend with two possibilities.
Option one: He had officially lost his mind. Finally.
Option two: Angels, actual angels, were a thing that existed.
Deacon watched with his mouth gaped open at the second equally beautiful, extremely naked, woman who was now holding the first woman. Arms wrapped around her from behind while the as impressive as they were insane shimmering white wings sprouting from her back curved to gently shield them both.
Impressive wingspan, too. Easily twenty-four feet, at least. The tips of them brushed against the ground and fluttered slightly in the wind.
It had long hair, too, that fell up instead of down but that made sense in a super bonkers kind of way. Why would gravity matter to an angel, right? Not white like her counterpart. Blonde. It practically glittered gold. Glowing eyes the blue-white color of a shooting star. It had some kind of gauzy white fabric loosely wound around it but not enough that he couldn’t see it was clearly female. Or, at least, it had breasts. Immaculate breasts and the fact that he’d noticed that probably meant he had a one way ticket down.
Not that he hadn’t already known that, but he felt like he now had confirmation on that fact.
He watched it gracefully flit around to wipe the woman’s tears away. Watched it gently smile at her and felt tears start to pour down his own cheeks at the beautiful, eternal, selfless love that shone from its face. It didn’t speak. Didn’t open its mouth once, but he knew it was comforting her. Speaking on some level he couldn’t discern. It pressed its forehead against hers and their fingers threaded together as they held hands tightly. Just breathing together in sync.
A girl and her guardian angel. It was the single most miraculous thing he’d ever seen in his whole life. He couldn’t look away if he tried. Then the angel lifted its head and those blazing neon eyes were suddenly focused on him.
The world went dark.
When Deacon woke up, it was still dark. Actual dark this time. Stars glittered above him in the sky. The inside of his mouth tasted like the floor of a bar and he sat up, rubbing his temples. A headache the size of the Atlantic was trying to crush his brain out through his ears and his hand landed on a half empty bottle of whiskey when he went to brace himself.
He picked it up and frowned. It was the same bottle of whiskey he always carried whenever he wore his wasteland scavver disguise. He must’ve bought the damn thing nearly fifteen years ago at Bunker Hill. Just a prop. He’d never actually taken more than a sip from it and even that was pushing it as Joe Savoldi used the same brew to wipe down his bar rail.
Everything ached as he stood and stretched. He felt hungover and dehydrated in a way he hadn’t since his hoodlum years. His sunglasses were smudged and he wiped them down before rubbing the gunk out of his eyes.
The vault was silent, like always. Zero indication that it had opened at all. Not a sign of a supernaturally beautiful woman or her pet angel anywhere. Because of course there wasn’t. That was crazy. He wasn’t sure what the hell had happened, or why he’d ever uncapped that damnable bottle, but wow, he was really slipping here lately.
Might be time to think about retirement if he wasn’t pretty sure he and the entire Railroad were about to bite it anyway.
Meanwhile, down in Sanctuary Hills, Laila sat at her little kitchen table in her dreary ruined house with her head pressed against the cold formica top. Codsworth wordlessly hovered nearby. He might be a mechanical wonder, but she could still feel the anxiety pouring off of him.
She wasn’t being normal. It wasn’t right for his mistress to sit for hours in complete and total silence. His increasing distress finally chipped through her fog of grief and she raised her head.
“Codsworth.”
“Mum?”
“Do we have any Nuka?”
“Yes, mum! I’ll fetch it straight away!”
“Thank you.”
There. She’d given him something to do and the Nuka should refresh her enough to at least kind of function.
Everything was ruined. Her life. The world. Her marriage. The baby. Everything.
She could feel Joyful Glow inside her, fretful and despondent. Restless in her desire to set the world to rights. They couldn’t though. If that had been what the Almighty wanted, it would have been done already. They’d had two hundred years for Heaven’s army to show up and reset everything. It had been done before. Just after the dinosaurs. A few other times, too. They’d been a little more hands off once humans had risen to rule the Earth, but still. Stepping in wasn’t completely unheard of.
But they hadn’t. She had to respect that. It wasn’t her place to question the decisions of those above her.
“Here we are!” He set an opened Nuka in front of her.
“Thank you, Codsworth.”
“Of course! If there’s anything else?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Hmm. Um… Miss Laila?”
“Yes?”
“You will... fix things, won’t you?”
She took a sip and frowned, “What?”
“The house, I mean.” He sounded timid, almost like she’d be mad at him for asking for such a selfish thing.
She smiled at him, “I’m just recharging now.”
“Oh. Oh! Of course. I’d nearly forgotten. Um… is there anything I can do to help with that?”
“Hmm.”
She closed her eyes and loosened the tight rein she usually kept on her field of influence, allowing it naturally spread in a perfect circle around her for nearly a mile. The man from before was awake. Awake and furious with himself for his perceived weakness. That made her feel bad but what else could she have done? He’d been watching the vault for some reason and she hadn’t noticed him until it was too late. Making him believe that he’d overindulged on a beautiful autumn afternoon had seemed harmless enough at the time. She listened to his grousing for as long as she could stand it, torturing herself with the guilt before she pulled back.
“Yes. There’s someone nearby. A stranger. He’s going to come this way. He can’t know I’m here.”
“Understood.”
“Please don’t harm him.” He was already so full of pain, he didn’t need any more.
“Yes, mum.”
“Also, I might need assistance returning to the house.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“The oak tree. If I’m not back in… an hour or so, you have my permission to carry me home.”
“Yes, mum.”
She watched him float out the side door, downed the rest of her cola and sighed. “This is going to hurt.”
Restoration spells weren’t exactly a great strength of hers. Laila hadn't been made for that. She'd been born to read the stars. That is, to read their lives. Not for fortune-telling purposes. She had nothing to do with that.
No, her job had been to monitor the skies for any novas or supernovas that might produce pulsars that could potentially harm the earth or any of the other planets under her purview that might be damaged beyond repair by a super concentrated blast of electromagnetic radiation. Space was vast and mostly empty, so it was extremely rare that these things might happen, but still. Someone had to watch and be ready to tweak trajectories, so that’s what she’d done and since the work was light at best, she’d also been assigned to the Goddess Relief Office as a part timer.
Her direct supervisor, Belldandy, had an unique understanding of humans, having once been married to one. Keiichi Morisato had been something of an oddity in Heaven. A human with a heart strong and pure enough to pass through the Judgment Gate at the side of the goddess he’d fallen in love with. It nearly never happened. In fact, he'd been the first to pass Heaven's test. A truly remarkable feat.
She’d been there for the wedding that eventually followed. Everyone had been invited. At the time, she hadn’t understood anything about their relationship. Keiichi was nice and gentle but kind of… boring to her. Also he seemed prone to freaking out over the silliest things, which seemed to be a thing most humans had in common. She’d been happy for them, of course, and the demi-children they’d eventually produced had been both impressive and interesting to know, but she’d never got it.
Not until she met Nate.
Laila decided to head out before she got too morose to pull this off. Tears threatened to overwhelm her again as she thought of him and from where she was standing right now, she was pretty sure they always would. Her dear, brave, wonderful husband. They’d met when he’d ‘accidentally’ called the Office. Not that there were accidents in the universe, of course.
They’d learned a few things about goddess-human relations since Belldandy had met Keiichi. Goddesses were to appear before mortals as mortals themselves. Listen carefully to their wishes and then grant them without making a scene or a fuss.
She’d portaled through a mirror in an empty bathroom at the Portland VA Medical Center in Oregon and quickly changed her appearance to resemble any other nurse on the ward. They were hard halls to walk. So much agony and sadness everywhere. She passed room after room filled with the disabled veterans of humanity’s latest war and it took everything she had to stay focused on that one heart who’d been deemed worthy of intervention.
Natán Ramirez. Corporal. Severely injured while saving a large group of children from encroaching soldiers in Anchorage. He’d used his power armor to hold several tons of rubble from crushing them after their school was bombed while his men worked quickly to carry them out. Then, just as the last child was removed, the core in his suit had died and he’d been crushed himself. His unit was forced to leave him behind.
He’d stayed there, frozen and helpless for nearly a week before the parents of those children had come back and dug him out themselves.
Surely, a worthy soul. Laila, or Nurse Odinson as she’d introduced herself, had sat next to him and helped him write a letter to his sister, Camila, in Boston. A farewell letter. He was dying and he knew it. There was just too much damage. All the stimpaks in the world had only delayed the inevitable.
When she was finished with his letter, she’d carefully taken his bruised hand and said the words, “My name is Laila. If you had just one wish in the whole wide world, what would it be?”
Nate had smiled at her and whispered, “I wish there was someone I could trust to take care of Cami. I’ve tried to hold on for her, but I just can’t. She’s only sixteen and she’s going to be all alone in the world. What's going to happen to her when I'm gone?”
He hadn’t even thought to make a wish for himself. The Ramirez kids had been orphans since their father had died the year before in a warehouse fire on the waterfront. As the big brother of the two, his whole world had revolved around making sure his little sister was happy and well taken care of in the aftermath. That had been the reason he’d joined the army, before they could draft him. The sign-on bonus he’d gotten had been enough to get her into a good boarding school while he served. Once he was gone, she’d inherit whatever he had, but not until she turned eighteen. There’d be two years where she’d just be stuck in foster care. Probably in a group home given her age.
Laila had the wish submitted and approved in the time it took her to blink. “You’re a good man, Nate. I’m sure it’ll all work out. Rest now.”
That should have been it. She’d healed his body because it was the simplest, most obvious solution. Who better to look after young Cami than her own brother? It was hailed as a medical miracle in the local newspapers. He’d still been given a medical discharge for his PTSD and sent straight home after. Laila should have gone straight home herself.
But she hadn’t. She'd been compelled to follow him across the country instead. Fascinated and astonished at a human selfless enough to think and behave like a divinity. Watched over the little family. Became as attached to the girl as she was to her own sisters in Heaven. Felt a whole new kind of power rush over her as a new kind of love filled her heart. Started bending the rules a bit by actually shadowing him from time to time. Finally got caught (by Nate, not by Heaven) at a diner. He recognized her. He shouldn’t have even remembered her at all, but he did. She’d blushed and stammered her way through what she now knew was a hilariously obvious cover story and he’d offered to buy her a slice of pie.
Two years later, they faced the Gate themselves and the rest was history.
Laila finally made it to the old oak tree that had once shaded half of her community. Its skeletal limbs reached into the night sky and reminded her of arms. She set her head against the flaking bark and chuckled quietly to herself as the mystery man’s startled indignation at being hurried out of Sanctuary Hills flared brightly in the distance.
He’d be alright. There was strength there, and intelligence. A longing for something better. Noble purpose spurred by guilt and remorse.
She’d pray for him.
What mattered for right now was, he was gone.
She let her power soak into the tree. Felt its hibernating spirit, still slumbering at its core, pull as much from her well as it could as it awakened. Oaks had deep roots. This one had stood here for a long, long time before man came and put in their own roots around it. Even after the bombs, it had somehow managed to continue growing underground until it touched nearly every part of the island. It was a perfect conduit.
And she was grateful for that perfection, because she hadn’t been created for things like this. No. She’d been created to read those cold, cruel stars. She hadn’t been made to love one human above all others. Nor had she been made to be a wife or a mother, but somehow she was. Or she had been, anyway, before a broken, corrupted soul had taken it all away. And now, somehow, she was the only one around to do this.
Laila took a deep breath and spoke the spell Belldandy had created over two centuries ago to salvage a different sacred place on the other side of the world. “Retrace and spin the thread of memory.”
All around her, small golden strands appeared suspended in the air. They moved faster than light and sang in harmony as they traveled. She placed both hands on the tree and poured as much love as she could muster into it. Everything she’d felt for Nate and their precious family. The sweet baby they’d made together and dear Cami.
“Even if a thousand men forget the beauty that you once were, you and I must not let it leave our hearts.” She felt the tree resonate and reflect her song. Joyful Glow manifested behind her and amplified the call until the entire community was sparkling. “Cast off your withered body and be reborn. You who were once so beautiful. Your time has now returned.”
Unceremonious booting from Sanctuary Hills or not, Deacon had this feeling like he just wasn’t done there yet. Couldn’t explain it. The stupid Mr. Handy ran him off just like he’d done countless others. Shouting about pre-war trespassing and loitering laws while brandishing that flamethrower at him. So he should definitely be done with the whole fucking place, but he just wasn’t.
He’d barely passed the Red Rocket out of town when he stopped jogging and tsked irritably at his own nonsense.
It was not a time to get imaginative. She didn’t exist. Neither of them existed. He knew this. He knew it like he knew the sun would rise in the east tomorrow. The whole thing had been some crazy, alcohol fueled dream fantasy thing brought on by working too hard and drinking furniture polish.
Come on. Just the symbolism of it was proof enough. Huge and heavy-handed. Written in letters thirty feet high. A beautiful innocent, good and pure enough to attract an angel? Obvious reference to his late wife. His mere presence angering said angel? Again. Super obvious. Barbara had died for his sins. He’d known he wasn’t meant to get anywhere near someone so sweet and wholesome from the jump and he’d done it anyway and been punished by the universe for the hubris of it all. Yes, thank you, brain. He was well aware.
He took his hat off to scratch his head as he argued with himself. “This is stupid. There’s nothing there. There’s never been anything there. It’s a ghost town with a population of one crazy robot. This is…” Bright golden light shone from over the hill and he lifted his shades to stare at it in disbelief. “Nope. Not real. That wasn’t real.”
Okay, but if it wasn’t real and it was just a hallucination, then why was the light still there? Different now. Kind of pale white instead of gold and nowhere near as bright. Almost like a streetlamp. Or maybe a whole town of working street lamps.
“It’s not real. It’s not. This is nuts.”
He decided to not stick to the road this time. The road just led to the homicidal robot. Instead he cut through the countryside, jogging parallel with the creek, even if he couldn’t see it. Once he was satisfied that he was far enough away to not be picked up by the Mr. Handy’s sensors, he headed left until he crested the hill.
And there, across the creek, was a sparkling, brand-spanking new Sanctuary Hills. Plush green grass in the lawns. Bright and cheerful playground at the heart of town. Pristine white picket fences. Fully intact candy colored houses with real windows glistening in the bright streetlamps that lined the entire place. A strange noise caught his attention and he narrowed his eyes. Almost sounded like leaves rustling but he hadn’t heard a thing like that since Oasis back in the Capital Wasteland.
He finally saw it. Towering over the houses in the cul-de-sac. A massive, healthy oak tree with flashy ochre leaves that danced on the wind.
Deacon stared at everything for nearly ten solid minutes before he shook his head and resolutely stomped away. “Not. Real.”
Laila woke up around noon the next day. Carefully nestled into the bed she’d once shared with Nate. She felt hollowed out and dead inside. A Nuka sat on the headboard directly above her and she pulled herself upright to guzzle it down. It helped the physical exhaustion, but that awful feeling didn’t go away.
She put a hand over her heart and turned inward, listening carefully. It was quiet. Exceptionally quiet. The kind of quiet she’d only ever known while floating in the vastness of deep space. Even more than that, really, because she couldn’t even hear herself.
“Joyful Glow? Come out.”
She waited, but there was nothing. No answer from the angel that lived inside her soul. Nothing. She set her bottle aside, held her hands out like she was reaching for her and really concentrated. “Joyful Glow. Attend.”
The faintest of flutterings from deep inside herself. Nothing strong enough to appear on the material plane though.
“Shit.”
Goddesses were powered by two things. One, their birthright. The love the Almighty felt for them had brought them into existence and allowed them to remain in existence. It was steady and ever present and always would be. The other source, however, could be a bit mercurial depending on the goddess and the circumstances.
It was the love they felt for the Almighty’s many myriad creations.
Animals and plants were easy to love but because they were, the power created by that love couldn’t do much more than power a lightbulb, let alone a celestial being.
The love inspired by truly sentient creatures though? Nuclear level stuff. The more you loved your fellow divinities, and humans and even the demons who were ruled by Hel, the more power you had at your disposal to protect those individuals.
She should have known better. She’d been crashing since Nate’s death and Shaun’s abduction. Almost destroyed by the decay and wrongness she had felt once she’d made it topside. Having to feel every selfish, violent or otherwise horrific act that had gone on in Sanctuary during her absence and scrubbing that all away all at once through magic had drained her dry.
Laila went to the bathroom and put her hand on the mirror to confirm what she already knew. No matter how hard she tried, it was just a mirror. No portal. She wasn’t even strong enough to perform a function most toddlers could manage.
The phone rang in the kitchen.
“Good afternoon! You have reached the Ramirez residence, this is Codsworth speaking. How may I help you?” A long pause, “Oh! Miss Peorth!”
She groaned and shuffled out of the bathroom.
“Goodness, it’s been ages! I’m so glad to hear your voice! Yes. Yes, she’s right here! However did you know? Would you like to speak with her? Yes, madame, at once.” He held the receiver out. “It’s dear Miss Peorth calling from Yggdrasil for you, mum.”
“Thanks.” Of course she could charm a robot from a whole other dimension. Of course she could. Laila took the phone and braced herself, “Hello, Peorth.”
“Darling!”
She winced anyway and rubbed her ear, “Could you please take it down several notches? I’m very tired right now.” Codsworth tutted behind her and she stepped out of his way while he floated over to the stove.
“Oh, I bet you are! A full restoration of nearly one thousand acres of land can do that to a goddess.”
“How much trouble am I in?”
“Stars, Laila, why on earth would you be in trouble?”
“Because I used my power in a reckless fashion without prior approval?”
“Oh, la. I nearly forgot. You’ve been out for so long.” She hummed. “Things are a little… different now. The rules are a bit more relaxed.”
“Why?”
“Well, several reasons but one of which is that mortals aren’t nearly as prevalent as they once were, so you don’t have to tiptoe around quite as much.”
She swallowed hard, “How… how many did we lose?”
Peorth sighed, “All at once or in the beginning?”
“Total.”
“Ninety percent.”
“Ninety percent?”
“Across all species that remain.”
Laila’s mouth dropped open, “And how many species remain?”
“You really don’t want to know.”
The emptiness inside her grew.
“You’re not the only one, darling.”
“What?”
“More than half of our working staff was forced into retirement when the bombs fell. There are a lot of disillusioned gods and goddesses up here. Not many are capable of feeling good things when it comes to humans anymore. Those that can stay very busy down on the surface. Trying to answer calls and prayers. Keeping those they can safe. Doing whatever’s necessary to bolster humanity while they attempt to recover from this… catastrophe they caused.”
“Oh.”
“We’ve lost others, too, over the years. Eira. Do you remember her?”
“Valkyrie. Water magic.”
“Right. She went to Earth intending to help mankind by showing them how to use their science to purify the water. She thought it was a good place to start.”
“So what happened?”
“She fell in love with a very noble human named James Pierce. They married. She unfortunately died while bringing their baby into the world.”
“Died?!”
“She did not give birth in Heaven and unfortunately, radiation hurts goddesses just like it hurts mortals. She couldn’t use magic to heal herself while she was pregnant and with the added stress of having the baby and attempting to shield it as much as she could, her heart just gave out.”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut at the idea of it. The last time she’d seen Eira, she’d been laughing. Teaching younglings how to manipulate elements by making raindrops dance in the sunlight. Rainbows had filled the air all around her. To think someone so sublime was just gone was… “What happened to the baby?”
“Her daughter, Astrid, currently lives in what used to be called Washington DC but is now referred to as the Capital Wasteland. She helps mortals when she can and is in love with a very nice human boy. Man. Sort of.” Exasperation filled her voice, “He’s a bit of a handful, actually. First mortal in the history of the species to attempt to woo an angel.”
“He… wait, what?” She laughed a little, “He did what?”
“He was… confused, I suppose. At first he assumed she was akin to being Astrid’s child, but she tried to explain that her angel was an extension of herself and according to her, he took that as meaning he had two girlfriends for a time.”
“Stars, that’s… Nate thought Joy was beautiful but he was never attracted to her.”
“I know. It was unprecedented! Men aren’t supposed to be able to feel that way toward angels, but somehow this boy did.”
“Wow.”
“M’hmm. He’s handsome though. I’ll give him that. Quite handsome, actually. Rather charming in a rough sort of way.”
“You actually met him?”
“No, but I’ve kept an eye on things. I am her godmother, after all.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, I’m sorry we were unable to retrieve you. That strange steel makes it impossible to portal in and out of vaults. Astrid actually grew up in Vault 101 and she said she could portal within it, but there was never any way out. She didn’t even realize she should be able to portal into Heaven until she was in the outside world and we spoke.”
“It’s alright. It’s… happened.” She sighed, “I knew it was a bad idea to sign up for the vault. I knew I’d be trapped. I just couldn’t stand not being with Nate and Cami. Shaun could have come with me to Heaven, but they were fully mortal, so --”
“I know. That’s… the Almighty has expressed His regret at not bending that particular rule. Perhaps more of humanity could have been spared had we been able to pull worthy souls into our realm to wait out the initial destruction. But it is what it is. There’s no saving the past, only the future.”
“Right.”
“So… what are your intentions?”
“Well, I can feel Shaun. Or I could, before I exhausted myself. I know he’s still alive. I can’t open the gate though, so I guess I’m stuck finding him the old fashioned way.”
“Even if you could, he’s surrounded by that same steel. You wouldn’t be able to get to him.”
“He’s in a vault?”
“I don’t think so. The structure is different from what Vault-Tec usually does. All I know for certain is he’s under the ruins of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology.”
“CIT was destroyed?”
“Most of Boston was, in some way or another.”
Laila sighed, “Alright… and you said goddesses aren’t impervious to radiation?”
“Correct. Mankind still has no idea they’ve cracked elemental magic, and they’re terrible at using it, of course, but that’s what all of that nuclear stuff is. It’s extremely corrosive. There are ways to cleanse your body of it that the humans have invented, but I don’t know that it would work on a full goddess. They work for Astrid, sort of, but as a demi things are different for her. If you were to get sick from the radiation out there, I’m not sure anything there could help you… and you can’t come to Heaven if you’re irradiated. It spreads like wildfire up here.”
“Great.”
“Your best bet is to avoid it as much as you possibly can. Take precautions. Your system isn’t as weak as a human’s, so you can take more exposure than they can, but I wouldn’t try to test your limits out there.”
“There’s no spell for expelling it? How are the goddesses who still work with man dealing with it?”
“Poorly, actually. Some travel in hazmat suits. A few have found ways to use their own elemental magic to pull it out of themselves, though I’m told it’s quite painful.”
“Hmm.”
“Happily! As a star specialist, you are better equipped than most to deal with this. You can handle fairly large bursts of celestial radiation, after all, it’s just… I’m not sure what constant low-level exposure to this particular kind will do in the long run. You may get sick and not notice until it’s too late. Or you might be perfectly fine and we’re worrying over nothing. Who’s to say?”
“Right.”
“I’d keep an eye on Joyful Glow. Check her over every night for signs of corruption.”
“I can’t access her right now.”
“Oh… it’s already that bad?”
She bristled a bit at her tone. “It’s hard to love a creature that wrecked the world, Peorth. It’s just a little too… sudden and raw for me right now. Maybe after I get to know some people, I’ll feel differently, but right now all I feel is… anger. Cold, cold anger and disappointment.”
“Oh, darling, I know.”
“Earth was so beautiful.”
“I know it was.”
“They have no idea how rare a planet like this truly is.”
“M’hmm.”
“They’re ungrateful brats.”
“Yes, well, children often are. They’re not even a million years old yet. They’re just babies.”
“Dangerous babies.”
“True.” She paused and Laila could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke, “It’s a good thing they’ve got such a strong, dedicated mother on their side now, isn’t it?”