Chapter Text
Lucy doesn’t know what to do.
She was on a mission before, a goal to keep her focused. Go through the horrors of the wasteland, find her father, and bring him home. Of course, that goal changed when she figured out who he was and what he’d done. But it was a goal nonetheless. Get to Vegas, find him, bring him to justice.
And she did it!
…Sort of. She got to Vegas, she found him. But then everything went all off the rails.
Well, maybe it went off the rails before that. At that hospital, with all the radscorpions and those people from the Legion. It was an easy decision for her, hearing those cries for help, to go in and risk her own safety for theirs. All she wanted to do was help! How was she supposed to know they were gonna lead her to a camp of Roman Empire impersonators? Or was a better term ‘revivalist?’ Semantics weren’t really that important in this case.
He, the Ghoul, told her that, that they weren’t worth her time. That them being part of the Legion meant they were basically wasted air. But he said that about everything! And he just, just killed one of them right there in front of her! Not to mention what he did to her in Freeside. The sting of his betrayal still sat in her chest like a wound that didn’t want to scab over. He was a ruthless, borderline cruel man.
Except…except he wasn’t. Not all the time, at least.
He saved her, when the Legion strung her up to die of crucifixion. He brought her to those kind NCR people in the hills, sat by and waited for her to recover. When she thought for sure that those deathclaws were going to kill her when she came short, sliding under the door, he pulled her through to safety.
When her own father tried to turn her into a mind-controlled slave, he saved her. He could’ve just shot her father in the head and been done with it, since clearly he had some kind of vendetta against him. But he didn’t.
Instead, he passed her a gun and gave her a choice. After an entire lifetime of people telling her what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to act, who she was supposed to be. He, of all people, put the decision in her hands. What did she want?
And right now, she doesn’t have a clue. In more ways than one. The only thing that comes to her mind now is one word: lost.
Lucy holds the small gun in her hand now, sitting on the edge of a rickety bed in the Atomic Wrangler in Freeside, just a couple of rooms over from where they’d stayed only two weeks ago. It’s quite pretty, actually, with its little filigree etched into the brushed bronze of the small grip and trigger. Lightweight, minimal frills, with a simple purpose: to be concealed and revealed exactly when it was needed. Her greyed finger, his finger, fit the trigger perfectly. And for some reason, it fills her with a strange sense, a sense of…longing.
Someone knocks on her door, and it startles her. The gun is tucked quickly into her boot as she gets up to open it, putting on a smile when it’s the last thing she wants to wear right now. But it feels easier when she sees Max on the other side.
“Hi.”
“Hey. Are you busy? Cause the Rangers want to discuss plans for troop movement, I thought you’d want to be included,” he says. So thoughtful, as always. She really liked that about him.
“Oh, sure! Thorough tactical planning is crucial to success, I’d like to be a part of it,” she replies.
As they walk down the hall, towards the stairs, she can’t help but pause at the ajar door of the room she’d shared with him. The window is still shattered, and a dry breeze lifts the curtains as it drifts towards her. The sting returns, sharp and jagged.
But Max calls her name from the top of the stairs, and she blinks, putting her smile back on and joining him, taking his hand and following him down.
The NCR Rangers and their captain are all good people. Lucy decided that the first day she met them. They organized the chaos of Freeside after the death claws, set up guards, and reinforced the town’s defenses in preparation for the Legion’s assault. Which they were still waiting for on pins and needles. The only sign of their arrival in New Vegas was billowing smoke from their fires and the occasional sound of Latin war chants. At least she thinks they’re war chants; her Latin was a little rusty.
They’d set up a kind of headquarters on the first floor of the Atomic Wrangler. Tables were pushed together in the center of the room, where Captain Rodriguez stands now, leaning forward on her hands as she studies an old map. Two other captains stand by her, while the rest of the occupants either sit in the few chairs available or find any standing room they can.
One of the captains, Captain…Montgomery, she thinks, makes a sweeping gesture with his gloved hand across one side of the map.
“This isn’t a small area, though. I think it’s safer to just cut our losses and consider it taken.”
“And what about the people who live there?” Captain Rodriguez asks. When she catches sight of Max and Lucy, she gives them a nod of acknowledgment, and they both make themselves comfortable on the edge of the crowd.
“How many people actually live over here these days? Most of the population is inside our current holdings.”
“So what, all those people are just collateral?” The other captain, Captain Emerson, a woman that Lucy learned quickly was about as lenient as a steel beam, says to Montgomery with crossed arms. “We came here to help the people of New Vegas, not leave them to the wolves.”
“And what good can we do if we lose more men? We’re already thin as it is, any more soldiers down and we don’t stand a chance,” Montgomery says.
“How much blood do you want on your hands?” Emerson asks him coldly.
“How much do you want on yours?” He snaps back. “There’s three hundred people in our safety zone. Three hundred being protected by less than half that. The Legion will slaughter us without every soldier being ready to fight.”
Lucy’s stomach twists as she listens. She remembers her father, what he said about his devices, that he could stop this war with them. He could’ve prevented all of this. She could’ve prevented all of this. Her fists clench at her side, digging her nails into her palms, the sharp sting barely registering.
“Enough,” Rodriguez says firmly. “Corporal Hanes, what were the estimated numbers?”
“For the unclaimed zone, we’ve gathered somewhere between 110 and 150 civilians,” a man calls out from the inner circle of soldiers. A murmur rises in the crowd, people shaking their heads or leaning over to whisper between each other.
“Shit, that’s not nothing,” Max whispers to her.
“They have to go in and get them, don’t they?” Lucy asks.
He crosses his arms and sighs. “In an ideal case, yes, they’d send in a unit to get as many people as they can to safety. But, when we’re this thin already, against a highly aggressive organized assailant who most likely outnumbers us…” He shakes his head. “I don’t envy Captain Rodriguez making this call.”
Her stomach twisting turns to nausea.
“In this case, I think it’s appropriate to call a vote,” Rodriguez says, pushing up off the table. “It’s not just us putting our lives on the line, it’s our troops, our unit leaders and officers alike.”
Okay, good! If she lets the people decide, they’ll definitely agree to saving those people. Democracy is always the best solution in a situation like this. Lucy stands up on her toes a little to see better across the room.
“All in favor of sending troops in?” Rodriguez calls. Emerson raises her hand instantly, followed by one, two, three, four…
And Lucy’s heart sinks. Four. Four officers raise their hands. And only eight troops.
Rodriguez’s shoulders slump a little. “All opposed?”
The rest of the hands in the room go up almost simultaneously. Rodriguez sighs, but nods her head. “Alright, then, let’s move on.”
Lucy doesn’t listen to the rest of the meeting. She stands silently next to Max, arms crossed, with a storm raging inside her. They aren’t going to save them. They won’t save them. Those people are going to die.
And it’s all her fault.
After the people clear out, the owner of the Atomic Wrangler, Jeff, reopens the bar. He keeps it closed most of the day when NCR folk are working, out of respect for them coming in to ‘save their sorry asses.’ But, once they’re done with their business, it’s free range. Max and Rodriguez are discussing some kind of plan, something Lucy isn’t interested in, not because she doesn’t care, but because she’s too focused on watching Jeff pour drinks for Emerson and a few other officers. Who, by the grim looks on their faces and the way they sigh before downing their drinks, must be the other people who voted yes.
She silently walks over, sitting herself down one stool over from where Emerson sits.
“And what’ll people think?” One of the officers says, a woman, probably only five or six years older than Lucy.
“That we’re what everyone says we are. All bark and no bite,” another officer replies, downing a shot of golden liquor with his eyes clenched shut, and Lucy catches a scar that runs across his jaw. “Fuck me, that’s gnarly.”
“It’s cheap and strong,” the other says. “All you need to get fucked up.”
He’d said that, she remembered. The Ghoul. Before…before. Why did she remember that?
“What’re you having, love?” Jeff asks Lucy, throwing a towel on his shoulder.
“Um…” she trails, looking at the wall of bottles. In the vault, they only had champagne and wine for festivities. Her father owned a bottle of whiskey, which she’d taken one sip of and almost spat back out. But then she recognizes one, written in blocky letters on a duct-tape label.
“Vodka,” she says finally.
“Shot or glass?”
“Uh, glass?” He pours a hefty amount into what looks like half of an old Nuka-Cola bottle and slides it over to her. She sniffs, finding it relatively odorless apart from a faint hint of antiseptic, and takes a sip. It has no discernable taste, and burns her mouth and throat as it goes down. Not like whiskey, though. This was…almost pleasant in a way. She takes a bigger sip next.
“You’re quiet, Cap,” the woman says as she swirls her drink. “Suffering amongst friends usually means outloud.”
“I’m not suffering,” Emerson replies. “I’m thinking.”
“Might as well be the same right now,” Jaw-scar says.
“What’re you thinking about?” The other man says.
“Things,” she takes a long sip from her glass. “Choices.”
“Care to share?”
Emerson stares into her glass for a moment, moving it this way and that, watching the light catching in the amber liquid. She shakes her head. “No.”
“Well then I will,” Jaw-scar says, taking a drink. Lucy follows suit, trying to look like she isn’t paying attention.
“Oh fuck, here we go,” the woman grumbles.
“I think that all of these other officers and troops are a bunch of selfish, insensitive, lackadaisical asses,” he spits the last word.
“Lack-a-what?” The other man says. “You find a fuckin’ dictionary out here or something?”
“Shut your ass up, Clint! Some of us read in our free-time instead of wasting it on trying to make Jet.”
“What’s that even mean?” The woman asks.
“It means lazy, or unconcerned,” Lucy replies without thinking, taking another drink before realizing they’ve turned their attention to her.
“Yeah, like you,” Jaw-scar says, bumping the man, Clint, on the shoulder with his elbow.
“I ain’t unconcerned!”
“Notice how he’s okay with ‘lazy,’ though,” the woman says with a smirk, and Lucy smiles a little.
“You’re that Vault-dweller, aren’t you? The one Rodriguez helped out?” Emerson asks her.
“Yeah, she helped me out a lot actually. Although, I did end up addicted to drugs after that, but I know she was just doing what was best at the time. I’m not addicted to drugs anymore, though.”
“The one who was with that ghoul?” Clint asks.
That piercing sting jabs Lucy in her chest again, bitter and metallic. “Oh…yeah, I was, but he’s gone now.”
“Probably for the best. Aren’t always the most trustworthy, those ghouls,” the woman says.
“Don’t think like that, Carr. They’re just people,” Jaw-scar scolds lightly.
Carr shrugs. “I’ve heard too many bad stories is all. You never know what they’ll do to you.”
“You wanna tell Captain Grier from 9th Platoon that? He’s a ghoul,” Emerson remarks.
“Bad example. He’s an ass,” Carr replies.
“Not because he’s a ghoul, though,” Clint says. “He was like that before, apparently.”
Lucy just takes a drink. She doesn’t approve of prejudice, but she can’t say she’s too fond of The Ghoul right now. She…she doesn’t want to think about him. At all.
“Probably been a hell of a ride since leaving your vault,” Emerson says, turning her body towards Lucy now. “Seen some shit you never thought you’d see?”
Lucy laughs a little. “That’s an understatement.”
“The power-armor guy said you ran into the deathclaws on the Strip before him,” Jaw-scar downs his glass. “And that you made it out without a scratch.”
“Damn, for real?” Clint asks.
“That was just luck. We ran out of there as soon as we saw them,” Lucy replies.
“Still, not a lot of vault-dwellers who’d be able to handle that without pissing themselves,” Jaw-scar says. “And I’ve seen you out in the yard with him, training together on the shootin’ ranges. You’re better with a gun than some of our troops.”
“Better than most of them, since they’re too scared to even take on the Legion,” Carr says.
“Is there nothing we can do? To try and help, I mean?” Lucy asks.
“Probably not,” Carr replies. “Except hope that maybe some’ll live and be able to get to us here safely.”
Lucy swirls her drink like she saw Carr do. “That’s not right.”
“Preachin’ to the choir,” Jaw-scar says. “NCR does a lot of good, but letting people die like this is some bullshit.”
And an idea pops into Lucy’s head, one she wouldn’t normally consider sharing, since this was usually something she was taught to view as an ‘inside thought.’ But she remembers her father used to say that alcohol can be liquid courage, so maybe that’s why it tumbles out of her mouth before she can give it a second thought.
“Why don’t we just do it anyways?”
All four stare back at her blankly for a moment, but Carr is the first one to speak.
“What? Go help them?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Because it’s suicide,” Clint says.
“But we could help people! We could save them, at least some of them. That’s what we’re all wanting, right?”
“Not much good we could do on our own,” Jaw-scar says, almost gently, and for some reason it ignites a flame in Lucy’s stomach.
“I thought you wanted to help them? Isn’t that what the NCR is about?”
“We do, but without full approval or assistance…” Clint trails, and the others just sort of nod along.
The flame flares. She downs the rest of her drink in one go, slamming the glass back on the bar.
“What’s the point of all this structure and organization if you can’t do anything,” she says lowly. Jeff, silently, raises the vodka bottle in a silent question. She waves him over, but takes the bottle from his hand instead, pouring almost to the rim of her glass.
“Baby steps,” Emerson replies. “Keeping order within is crucial. Without it, everything falls apart, which usually leads to people killing each other. Can’t do a lot of good if you’re dead.”
Lucy scoffs. “Tell that to the people who’re dying out there right now.” She gulps down her entire glass, the burning liquor like fuel to her fire.
No one says anything back to her. She doesn’t care. Each trickle away as she keeps drinking, slumping more and more against the bartop, until Emerson is the only one left. They sit in silence with only the chatter of others in the bar and the low music playing from an old jukebox filling the air.
“I get it,” Emerson says.
“What?” Lucy asks, draining the last drop of the bottle into her glass.
“Why you’re angry. You see what’s wrong with the world and want to fix it, however you can. I was like that when I first joined too.”
“I’m not joining anything,” Lucy responds quickly.
“No? What’re you gonna do, then?”
Lucy looks at the other woman, at her dark tanned skin and black hair that’s been cut close to her head, old enough to be her mother. If she was alive.
“I don’t know,” she says after a moment, taking a sip of liquor. “I’ve got no fucking clue.” She’s surprised her mouth listens to her brain at that moment, to actually curse instead of holding it back. She rubs the back of her neck, feeling for…nothing. There’s nothing there. Just her.
Emerson puts a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve been through some shit, kid, I can tell. It’s rough up here in the wastes. Just…don’t do anything stupid.”
“Why does everyone keep doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Everyone keeps telling me what to do. Take this to someone, go back home, ‘shoot them,’ ‘kill them,’ ‘kill me!’” Her voice gets louder with each word until she yells. “I’m so sick of it!”
Emerson looks at her with something resembling pity, and it just makes Lucy angrier. She shrugs off her hand, not wanting to be touched. It isn’t comforting right now. It’s patronizing. And Emerson takes the hint. She stands, leaving a handful of caps on the bartop.
“The wasteland chews people up and spits them out the other side, hun. But it’s up to you what you make of it.”
Lucy doesn’t respond. She just sips her drink again, staring at herself in the mirror behind the bar. Skin tanned, eyes are tired, cheeks howling just slightly from the lower nutrition, and probably some radiation poisoning as well.
She isn’t quite sure she fully recognizes who’s looking back.
She doesn’t know how long she sits there, staring. But soon, she sees Max walk up next to her.
“Hey,” he says gently, and places a hand on her shoulder. She flinches away a little, which seems to surprise him. She thinks. To be fair, she can’t think very straight right now.
“Captain Emerson said I might need to come get you,” he says, still keeping his gentle tone.
“I’m fine,” Lucy replies, raising her glass to drink only to find it empty. So she lets her hand fall back to the bartop. Max clocks the empty bottle where it sits just touching her knuckles, moving it away a little from her hand.
“Come on, let’s get you back to your room.” She doesn’t respond. “Lucy?”
When he puts a little pressure on her arm, she lets him coax her off the stool, lets him help her stumble back upstairs and into her room. She flops onto her bed, not bothering to change her clothes or get under the covers, and falls into a dreamless and deep sleep.
---
The Ghoul didn’t really think his plan all the way through.
Now, to be fair, he was flying by the seat of his pants for the past century or so. The vague plan of “investigate every vault for my family” required a little bit of improvised thinking. Sometimes that meant dealing with whatever shit was left behind in the vaults he went into, and sometimes it put his ass in Appalachia. At least it wasn’t boring.
But as he leaned against a boulder under a scrubby tree, staring ahead at where desert began to turn into mountains, he realized this time he really didn’t have a plan.
Where was he going? Apart from the vague direction of ‘Colorado,’ he didn’t have much else to work on. He remembered hearing before that there were some vaults in Colorado, nothing more than a few snippets here and there though. Plus, to get there he was gonna have to go through the Rockies, which was no small feat. On his eastward trek, and the return trip, he went through New Mexico to go around them. Sure, he could do that again, but fuck, New Mexico was so unpleasant these days. The Mojave had its hellholes and its monsters, but New Mexico had all of that and was controlled one-hundred-percent by the Legion.
Or at least it was last time he heard. Given the state the Legion was in now, he didn’t know, but the threat was enough that he wasn’t a fan of that option.
He jumped head first into this, he knew that. It was fueled purely by hope, that he finally would find them, after all these years. He practically sprinted out the gates of the Strip, into the desert looking only east, not a second thought about it. He was going to find his family, whatever it took, caution thrown to the wind.
Now, in the stark light of day, realizing what was ahead of him…maybe that second thought was finally coming around.
Maybe he should’ve stayed in Vegas longer.
But he knew the other reason why he’d left. Why he high-tailed it out of that Vault-Tec lair and didn’t look back.
Because he was scared.
Well, The Ghoul wasn’t scared, not really. The Ghoul wasn’t scared of anything, not for 200 years. He shot first, asked questions rarely, and didn’t care about anything but himself. Everything was an obstacle to his goal. Monsters were killed, people usually were too, unless they were more useful to him alive. It was a means to an end, always, no matter what.
And then came Lucy MacLean.
He didn’t think much of her at first when he met her in Filly, spouting Vault-Tec sponsored brainwashing and dressed in the company standard uniform. She definitely got more interesting as things went, he’d admit it. He quite literally carried the proof on his hand.
But the more and more he listened to her, the more annoyed he became. Every word out of her mouth made him angry, and that wasn’t an understatement. It was a deep, bubbling anger that broiled under his skin. He knew why almost immediately, of course.
Because every word was something he would’ve said. Well, what Cooper Howard would’ve said.
Her optimism was overwhelming and pure. She saw the best in everyone, no matter the circumstance, not because she was dumb but because she was kind. She wanted to always do the right thing, to be helpful no matter what, to try and talk it out before resorting to violence. All the things he was before, a cruel mirror held up by the universe to remind him of what he’d lost, of what he turned into.
But he dealt with it anyways. Because she was a means to an end. She was Hank MacLean’s daughter, for fuck’s sake. A perfect bargaining chip that fell directly into his hands. Her trust was her biggest fault, because she gave it so blindly. He didn’t lose any sleep over the fact that he was going to use her. If anything, he slept better.
And then she got kidnapped by the Legion. That’s when everything went to shit.
After he was finished cutting his own leg open to survive the goddamn radscorpions, he considered not bothering. Going toe to toe with the Legion was a fucking death wish, was she even worth the effort?
Yes, he decided almost instantly.
Not The Ghoul.
Cooper Howard.
Underneath the mask he’d worn for so long, Cooper Howard was still there. He didn’t bother taking the mask off, because there wasn’t a reason to. He wasn’t made for the wasteland. He was a dead man, a relic of the old world that destroyed him. Every second since he heard Barb in that meeting was punctuated by a fracturing of who he once was, a thread of his being snapped in half one by one. It all became too much too quickly. He buried himself underneath the visage that he’d worn before, for work, for fun. A person can only handle so much at once, and he surpassed it, maybe even before the bombs fell.
So The Ghoul took the reins. It was easier this way. To pretend. To change. To forget. Even a good man can be driven too far.
But god fucking dammit, did she make him remember.
It’d been so long since he walked side by side with someone. Since he considered anyone other than himself and his family. And even though he tried to keep that anger boiling, tried to hate her, he just…couldn’t. Her constant yapping became less and less of an annoyance, in fact he even started to like it. To have someone to listen to, someone who’d listen to him, even if he didn’t talk much.
When he brought her from the Legion to the NCR outpost, she passed out halfway there. He carried her the rest of the way. Sat by and watched her through the night while the IV dripped slowly into her, and realized that he was concerned. Over a vaultie, over Hank MacLean’s fucking daughter. His bargaining chip, his ticket to ensuring he’d find something out from that bastard.
Every step towards Vegas made a knot form in his stomach. Despite it being amusing to watch her tweaking on Buffout killing ferals, all it did was prove to him that he wasn’t just concerned, he was fond of her. Too fond, actually, to the point where he had to sit back and question himself.
And yeah, maybe getting drunk to figure that out wasn’t the best solution. Old habits died hard, he supposed. But when he stared back at himself in the mirror of that bar, seeing who he’d become, what he’d become, all for his one singular goal…
That suit showed up, told him he could have what he wanted, what he’d wanted for centuries. It was supposed to be an easy call. It should’ve been an easy call. But the agony it brought him, to speak those words to her, to watch her trust in him shatter. She didn’t deserve it, and he’ll never be able to repent for that. Not even if he stayed on that pole until he turned feral. The guilt will walk with him for as long as he lives.
When he heard her struggling, saw her own father trying to hurt her, he didn’t think twice about acting. It was the least he could do, the bare minimum, barely even a fraction of enough. He could’ve killed Hank, he definitely wanted to, but he couldn’t. Because he owed her that. Well, actually, he owed her a lot more after the shit he put her through. But that was at least something he could give back. To show her in some way he was sorry. To show her in some way that he cared.
After all, she gave him something he didn’t think anyone could. She reminded him that he was human. No matter the cynical voice in his head that played back the times she didn’t treat him as one (especially since once again, he kinda deserved it), she woke that part of him up again. So when she looked back at him like she wanted to speak, like she wanted to go to him, he turned away.
Because of his family, he told himself, because he was so close to his goal. That’s why he didn’t give her the chance, he told himself.
But he knew why.
The Ghoul tilts his head back to look up at the sun, which looks to be only two hours past its peak. He’s still got plenty of daylight left, and if he’s really gonna start making his way all the way to Colorado, he’s got to keep moving. He pushes himself up off the ground and starts his long walk again. Dogmeat walks right beside him, looking up at him every now and then with her tongue lolling out happily. He scratches her head.
“You’re a good girl. Starting to really like having you around, actually. You make for pretty good company,” he says as she nuzzles into his hand. “Didn’t think I’d ever have a dog again, that’s for sure. Kinda nice.”
Dogmeat shakes herself when he stops scratching her, sprinting ahead in a burst of post-scratch energy.
“Don’t go gettin’ yourself into trouble,” he calls to her. “Ain’t exactly many places to get help out here. Ain’t much of anything. ” He pauses, realizing for a moment what he’s doing. “Jesus fuck, I’m talking to the dog now.”
Back a long time ago, when he first started traveling, he used to whistle songs, sing them sometimes too. He’d see how many of his scripts he still had memorized, or what other movies and TV shows were still bouncing around in his head. As time went on and the years became longer and longer, he found silence as his most trusted companion. Silence meant there was peace, and that you could hear when something was coming at you. It was simple, almost meditative in a way.
Now he was almost itching for it to be broken. The wind rustled bony bushes, his feet crunched on pebbles and sticks, his spurs clinking to the rhythm of his steps. Normal, simple sounds of walking in the desert. Every now and then Dogmeat would run a lap around him, circling away to test her own limit of how far she’d get, only to come back by his side for a while before going off again.
But it wasn’t enough for him. Not now. Had Lucy really undone that for him too? Taken away the solace he found in silence?
These MacLeans really knew how to get under his skin. Must be a genetic thing.
The sun starts sinking below the horizon behind him, casting the mountains ahead in pink and orange light. At one time he would’ve stopped to enjoy the beauty, but it wasn’t something he bothered with anymore. Now all he did was start scanning the stretch of land ahead for a place to hunker down for the night. The desert was always cold at night, but as he’d started to gain elevation, it got colder and colder. He didn’t feel the cold the same way as he once did, probably on the account of his ghoulish biology, or maybe the chunk of uranium sitting in his chest now, but he was starting to consider leaving a fire burning through the night.
Dogmeat’s ears prick up out of nowhere, eyes dead set on something off to their right. She barks once before sprinting away, over a boulder and down a low slope. Nothing too out of the ordinary. She loved chasing radroaches and rats, usually snacking on one or two every now and then, so he doesn’t think about it twice.
She barks again, and again, pitch high and uncertain enough to grab his attention.
“Whatchu getting into?” The Ghoul calls out, pausing for a moment before another bark rings out. He lets out a whistle. “Come on back now, girl!”
And she does, even though he’s never tried that on her before. That wacko doctor had her trained well, apparently. But as she trots up to him, he sees what she’s carrying in her mouth. He leans down as she drops a single tennis shoe at his feet, tail wagging the entire time.
“Where’d you even find this?” He asks, picking it up. It’s weathered but not too badly, meaning someone probably was taking care of it. And it’s small. Too small to be an adult. A kid. At the end of a shoelace is a small, rolled piece of paper. He sighs.
“I’m gonna regret opening this, aren’t I?” He says, looking at Dogmeat like she can understand. She sits, which he takes as an answer. “Alright, fine.” He pulls it off the string.
Help. Kidnapped. Legion. Northridge. Levi = Dad. Very scared. Please.
The Ghoul groans. “Son of a bitch…Didn’t I tell you to stay out of trouble?” Dogmeat licks her chops and whines a little before going back to panting. He should drop it right now. Leave it behind for someone else. Legion is exactly the opposite of what he wants right now, he doesn’t need to be helping nobody. People been screaming for 200 years.
But a kid…he thinks of Janey. Thinks of her being in the Legion’s hands. Of what he’d be feeling, as a father, what this Levi must be thinking.
He looks back at the shaky handwriting. Help.
‘Did you ever think if you did anything that they’d stop?’
Damn you, Lucy MacLean.