Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

CHARACTERS

Amarli Lorenzen

Curie

Chapter Text

PART I

From outside looking in, Amarli Lorenzen’s bedroom probably looked about as worse for wear as all the others did: there were cold, bare floorboards that she’d laid and nailed down herself, exposed wooden beams in the walls, streaks of rust marking the ceiling, and none of the windows had glass panes anymore (she’d taken out the glass after assessing the smoggy, fractured state of it). The longer one looked in, however, the more they might see to set this room – this house, even – apart from the rest of them.

The pane-less windows could easily be covered with colourful drapes Amarli had made herself, stitched from all the curtains she’d salvaged from other houses. They were oddly garish and patchy, but they did their job of giving her privacy when she needed it. When she wanted to work, all she had to do was draw them across the windows and the outside world was immediately put at a distance. Despite the rust stains, all four walls were scrubbed clean; all the surfaces were brushed free of dust and sanded down. Even the Nuka-Cola clock on the wall above her bed had been polished so often that it now gleamed in the morning sunlight. She also had great big posters and pictures plastered over the walls. There was an advertisement for the Museum of Technology; a little framed poster of Mr. Pebbles, the first cat in space; a movie poster of Night of the Fish Men’s Revenge, starring Carl Dickson and Synthia Marsh; and, finally, a large portrait of Jack Cabot – he was a genius scientist whom she’d met months ago and instantly admired, though he was long dead now. She had once made the mistake of freeing his father.  

Amarli had taken care to neatly make her bed every single morning and fluff the pillows. She did laundry twice a week, and prided herself in having no stains in any of the clothes she owned. Everything was folded away neatly in the dresser beside her bed, nestled in the little alcove where her wardrobe had once been. She kept spare weapons and ammunition in a toolbox tucked beneath it, and all her hats – diverse types of hats that she had collected over days spent exploring the Commonwealth – were kept in a trunk beneath her bed. All of this, all of the domestic cleanliness that Amarli took pride in, mattered little in comparison to the real focus of the room. Her bed and her dresser took up little space; in fact, they were pushed almost carelessly to the side in order to make room for the rest of it.

The focus for Amarli was her own little laboratory. A mechanic’s studio. A tech garage. The long desk that stretched from one wall to the other was covered in a jumble of curious items: a microscope, an arc welder, circuit boards, a lightbulb dangling on a wire, a set of imperial scales, a rack of boiling tubes, steel cylinders of harmful chemicals, rolls of copper and steel, a tray of assorted microchips…

And that was only an eighth of what she’d written down in her inventory.

Her most recent build – an oversized nixie tube which had taken weeks to assemble – was placed right at the end of the table by the window, glowing with an orange number 8. During cold nights she would put it on top of her dresser and it would warm her while she slept. The materials she’d needed to build it with were pasted across the wall by her terminal, where she posted most of her “recipes” for various inventions. There was always something new to work on; she was busy from the moment she woke up to when she went back to sleep. Now that the Institute was gone, and when she wasn’t being called for some Minutemen duty, she had her hands free anyway – so why not spend her days being productive?

Whenever her friends came in to visit her, they all looked at the wall of recipes with the same look of overwhelmed confusion. Amarli didn’t expect any of them to understand her work. Shaun was able to understand, and she was glad that it was something only they shared. His own inventive streak was partly derived from the fact that he was a synth, of course, but Amarli liked to think it was also because he’d ‘inherited’ her interest in mechanics and science. Father, after all, had created the boy to be exactly like himself when he was a child. Shaun was everything Amarli had hoped him to be and more.

She knew, of course, that he would never age. She knew that he would eternally have his slight figure and open, innocent face. As much as she’d tried playing the scientist, looking through all of the files she had salvaged from the Institute before it burned down, she still hadn’t come up with a breakthrough yet to change this. Even Doctor Li, who had been in charge of the production of synth Shaun, hadn’t come up with a way to make him age like a real boy. Amarli was determined not to give up hope. Maybe one day she’d discover something to make him human the way he deserved to be. For now, she was glad enough to have him living at home with her, whether he be playing with Dogmeat in the backyard, swimming in the creek that bordered Sanctuary Hills, eating the dinners that Codsworth cooked for him, or tinkering away on his own little inventions. He was a delightful boy, and everyone told her so.

Shaun liked to sit and keep Mama Murphy company during the afternoons while she was watching television in her sitting room; he sometimes watched Sturges work; he even helped harvest the fruit and vegetables that were grown in the Longs’ backyard when they came in season. Marcy Long had taken a liking to him, even though she appeared to hate almost everyone else.

Amarli was happy to see him getting along so well, as she’d feared that living here would be boring for him. But it was the safest place she knew, and she couldn’t imagine living anywhere other than her old house – their old house, she should say. She had Codsworth here, and Nate’s body had been buried just up the hill. Vault 111 was boarded up with a metal gate she’d erected herself and she liked to go there sometimes when she felt sad about the past she’d lost. Everything was as she wanted it. Once Shaun was more used to the Commonwealth, she could take him down to Diamond City or to Goodneighbor for a little vacation (though the latter probably wasn’t a good idea, even if Mayor Hancock would be flattered). For now, he would make do with the quiet Minutemen neighbourhood of Sanctuary Hills.

Currently, Amarli was lying in bed and gazing around the room fondly. She had an arm flung beneath her head and there was a half-smoked cigarette held daintily between two soot-stained fingertips. She lifted it to her lips and took a long draw, letting the smoke filter out through her nostrils, and then let loose a deep sigh. This was a rare morning of relaxation – a Sunday morning. Everyone else in the neighbourhood would be getting up, ready to carry out their morning chores, but Amarli knew that Codsworth would be in charge of her breakfast this morning. He knew what to do. She could already hear the faint roaring of his thrusters as he busied himself in the kitchen and the lounge, whistling an old jazz tune. Was Shaun awake? Amarli narrowed her eyes and strained to listen to the room that lay just next door to her own. She heard only silence.

Amarli smoked the cigarette until it was burned down to her fingertips and then discarded it in the ashtray beside her bed. She’d never used to smoke, and was sure she could even do without it, but there was something calming about the feel of nicotine in her veins. She had no reason to stop.

She drew the covers off her, swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and reached for her clothes. For two months now, Amarli had grown used to dressing casually; today was a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. The armour she’d always wore before the collapse of the Institute was gathering dust in her dresser. Her three sets of power armour were standing motionless in the garage of the house opposite.

Now that the Minutemen had a better handle on things, she saw no reason to put herself through so tedious a chore as dressing for battle every single day. Every settlement that she had helped recover and rebuild was stocked with a high-level defence and warning system, so she rarely had to get into trouble trying to help them. Amarli had also made sure to connect all of the settlements by radio so she could keep track of what was happening everywhere. As the General of the Minutemen, there was always something to be monitoring. At least twice a week she was forced to run errands, be it meeting up with Preston Garvey or consulting with a line of traders to discuss their stock. She took all of it in stride. The living was easy, a routine she could enjoy without feeling too stressed. It had taken a while, especially since the fall of the Institute, but she now felt happy with her new life in the Commonwealth. It would never match with her old one before the war, but she didn’t expect it to. She had made do with what she had.  

Amarli drew open the curtains once she was dressed and smiled out at the sunny day beyond. The house opposite was already starting to look much better since Sturges had begun proper work on it; he’d boarded up most of the holes and windows and was halfway through repairing the roof. She saw him up there now, taking a break with a mug of coffee in his hand. She waved at him and he waved back with a distant, “Mornin’, General!”

Amarli made her bed and then re-stacked the holotapes on the shelf below her terminal (ranging from Courser chip codes to audio confessions). She straightened out the files on the edge of her desk along with an old Unstoppables comic she’d been reading, and then backed away and opened the door of her room. When she stepped out into the hallway, she could smell eggs and cooking meat. The sounds coming from the kitchen were louder now – Codsworth was whistling Ella Fitzgerald, she realized. Perhaps he’d just heard her on the radio.

Her feet padded softly against the recently-swept floor as she entered the bathroom just to her right and began to properly get ready. There was a bathtub and a shower in here, both fully functional, and the mirror had been replaced so it was reflective and shiny again. Even the toilet was now polished porcelain. Amarli had enough reason to be proud of the work she’d done here; every time she saw the improvements she’d made, she felt childishly delighted. She washed her face, brushed her hair, applied some light makeup, checked her appearance in the mirror, and then sauntered out into the kitchen to say good morning to Codsworth.

He spun around the moment he sensed her presence, displaying his great gangle of robotic limbs and attachments. “Good morning, mum!” he called cheerfully.

“Morning, Codsworth.” She sat down at one of the bar stools as he put a plate of powdered eggs and radstag meat in front of her. A few seconds later, he delivered a steaming cup of coffee as well. “Thanks,” she said, her mouth full.

Her fingers sought out a folded bundle of paper off to her left. “Is this Publick Occurences?” she asked, a little surprised. “I thought the newest issue was being delivered next Friday.”

“Traders brought it in last night, mum,” Codsworth clarified. “I suppose Miss Piper jumped the gun a little.”

Amarli chuckled slightly at that and then rolled it open, intrigued at the headline. “Huh. So Diamond City’s finally got a new mayor, huh?”

“I didn’t realize,” Codsworth said, sounding genuinely surprised. “Who is it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“No one I would’ve voted for, but she’ll make do. Geneva – McDonough’s old secretary. Remember her?”

Codsworth spun back to the cooking meat on the stove. “I always thought Miss Piper would run for mayor. What a disappointment!”

“Agreed.” Amarli closed the paper again. She remembered telling Piper something like that the last time she’d been in Diamond City, but the reporter had modestly waved her suggestion away, saying something along the lines of, I don’t want to be tied down…

More fool her. She was probably the only person who’d have been able to make proper changes for the people of Diamond City. Now they had a snarky, well-manicured secretary as their leader. Not that Amarli had anything particularly personal against her…

“Mom?”

Amarli turned the moment she heard Shaun’s sleepy voice. “Hey, kiddo,” she greeted him. “Come get your breakfast.”

Shaun’s face was screwed up against the sunlight, but he was smiling as he walked over and took a stool beside her. Sometimes Amarli was taken aback by how much he looked like her; he had the same smooth, cocoa-coloured skin, a prominent jawline, wide cheekbones, and hair that sat close to his scalp in tiny black curls. While Amarli had jade green eyes, however, his were as dark as his father’s had been. But she could see her own ancestry in him, just as she’d seen it in her real son, the bitter old Institute director who had died many months before. Her own mother had been African-American, and her father had been German. If Amarli ever had the chance to cross the Atlantic, she thought she might want to go to Europe and see if the Lorenzen family line had survived the war.

“So,” Amarli said, pushing her plate away from her and turning her full attention towards her son. “What’re you gonna do today?”

Shaun shrugged. “Sturges said he needed help laying the roof shingles.”

“You’re not getting up on that roof, Shaun.” She said it automatically, already imagining the worst-case scenario. What if he fell? Stimpacks couldn’t heal everything, and no one here was an experienced healthcare expert. The best-suited surgeon lived in Diamond City, which was miles away…

“I won’t,” he said quickly. “I’ll just pass his tools to him and tell him how it looks from down below.”

“Good.”

“We’ve got a new cat, by the way,” Shaun said absent-mindedly, poking at some of the eggs with his fork. “I called her Natasha.”

Amarli had grown used to the arrival of new animals around their house. Shaun had begun constructing traps of all kinds using her leftover building materials; they’d even had a few junkyard dogs wander up. Already, they had three cats, but she didn’t mind making room for a fourth.

“A cat called Natasha?” She snorted with laughter.

He shrugged, flushing slightly. “She looked like a Natasha to me.”

Amarli laughed again, this time more openly, and reached out to affectionately touch his hair. It was sticking up at the back, and she could hardly resist the urge to flatten it out. Curls were hard enough to keep neat in the Commonwealth, but now that it was summer, the job for both of them had gotten even harder. She kept her own hair in up-dos most of the time, knowing that it would only grow into a frizzy mess if she let it go untamed. Her hair wasn’t quite as curly as Shaun’s was, but it had enough curl in it that she found it a nuisance.

“What are you doing today, Mom?” Shaun asked, turning to her with his usual mature, open look. “Anything new you’re working on?”

“Not yet.” Amarli tapped the rim of her coffee cup quite anxiously. “It’s weird… I’ve had this sort of block recently. I can’t think of anything I’d like to start building.”

Shaun nodded, but he didn’t really seem to understand. “Maybe you should take a few days off,” he decided. “Or you could help Sturges and me with the roof?”

“Actually…” Amarli sighed, thinking of the long hours she had ahead. “I’ll stick by the radio today. Preston warned me there might be some news about a settlement. I could work on all that power armour…” She trailed off, deep in thought. “I don’t think I finished up the Winterized coating on my T-60.”

“Cool!” Shaun’s eyes sparkled. “Hey, do you think I could try on your power armour? When I’m older?”

Amarli shifted on her stool, suddenly uncomfortable. “I don’t know, kid. Maybe. I guess we’ll see.”

“Cool!” he said again.

It turned out he’d taken her words for a definite ‘yes’, because for the rest of the day, he continued to check in on her as she sat beside her T-60 suit and painted it with a half-full jar of Winterized coating. He’d rap his knuckles against the metal and grin, or tell her what modifications he’d make, or ask her how comfortable it was to wear. Amarli entertained him, if only because he didn’t yet know everything about himself. He knew he was a synth and that he’d been made in the Institute, but he didn’t know what that entailed. Amarli would tell him at some point, but… not now. Not while she had him so happy and carefree.

For lunch, Codsworth had made them some gourd soup with hard razorgrain bread. They ate in silence.

During the afternoon, Amarli watched Sturges finish one whole side of the roof and then pop open a bottle of beer. She had a short conversation with him about the weather and how the Minutemen were doing down at the Castle, but was quick to move on so as not to distract him.

Mamma Murphy was in the house that Amarli had made up for her, reading an old magazine in her favourite chair. Amarli stopped by while she was searching for Shaun to call him in for dinner. As usual, the old woman asked about chems – did Amarli have any Jet on her? Had the traders come by already? – and Amarli gently put her down. The drugs weren’t good for her, even if they gave her oddly truthful premonitions about the future. All of them in Sanctuary Hills had been doing their best to wean her off them.

There wasn’t much news on Radio Freedom, as Preston had falsely warned her the night before, but Amarli heard plenty about how Finch Farm was doing and how there had recently been a super mutant raid on Greentop Nursery. Nothing that needed the General’s help, unfortunately. The Minutemen had grown too large now to need her to do all the work for them. Every little issue could be dealt with by the soldiers at the Castle; she was only needed if there was above-grade trouble, or if they needed her to straighten somebody out. The trip to the Castle took three days at most, so Amarli tried to hold back from doing it too often for Shaun’s sake, even though she liked meeting up with Preston.

Perhaps it was she who was bored, after all. Not Shaun. It was Amarli who was suddenly aware of how quiet and boring this neighbourhood was. Strangely, she missed the action and bustle of the city, and she missed the pumping of adrenaline through her veins. It had once tired and scared her to constantly find herself in danger, but now she looked back on those times with a sense of nostalgia. Would she ever reach that level of excitement again?

It was stupid to miss it, but she did.

That night, Amarli ate her roast dinner of grilled Brahmin, tatos and carrots, quickly followed by a mutfruit pie Mama Murphy had made several days ago. It was spoiling in their fridge, but still tasted as divine as usual. She said goodnight to Codsworth and Shaun and retired to her bedroom, where she sat for about an hour in front of her terminal trying to make herself work. But there was nothing – no spark of inspiration. Her creative powers had dried up.

It was while she was in her pyjamas and climbing into bed that she had the epiphany out of the blue: she should go on another adventure! There was still plenty of the Commonwealth left unexplored – why not spend a week or two uncovering lost tech and information? Shaun wouldn’t miss her too much; he had Codsworth to take care of him. And she could put her armour back on for a change, riddle a few monsters with bullets…

But where would she go?

She resolved to check with Piper the next morning, if she could get ahold of her by radio – if anyone knew a dirty hidden secret about the Commonwealth, she would. She’d have a place for Amarli to explore, she was sure of it.

With a slight smile on her face, Amarli switched off the lamp by her bed and curled against her pillow. Yes, it sounded wonderful. Just one more adventure before she surrendered to the quiet life of Sanctuary Hills.

 ---

Piper was not accessible by radio the next morning. Neither was Valentine or Ellie. She tried Goodneighbor as well, but to no effect. Amarli tried several times to send messages through but was answered only with static. It was late in the morning when she finally gave up, sighing, and decided to continue her day as she usually did; with barely disguised boredom. She told herself that it was over, that none of her friends answering her had been a sign.

But the longer she thought about it, the more frustrated she felt about this new, safer life she had set up for herself. Since the bombs had fallen and her life had changed forever, she was hardwired to want survival. To yearn for it, almost. She used to enjoy fighting Raiders and Gunners in the city. Even super mutants gave her a special sort of thrill. She’d liked to walk the seedy, shadowed streets of Goodneighbor and buy weapons and chems from crooked dealers. Even one-night stands still held their fancy, as Amarli sure didn’t have anyone to satisfy her here in the middle of nowhere. She missed the simple nights spent with women like Magnolia, no strings attached.

Would she experience the excitement of that sort of life ever again?

After a lunch that she only picked at broodingly, she returned hastily to her room and shut the curtains, sitting before her desk in darkness. But the more she tried to make herself feel inventive, the more she found herself looking over at the dresser and thinking about the armour that was kept inside. She glanced at the weapon racks on the walls and thought about actually needing to use the guns that she’d taken such care to polish and maintain.

She was trapped in a cage of her own making, wasn’t she? After the Institute was gone, she’d told herself that returning to her old life – or something close to it – was all she’d wanted. Had she really been so naive?

It was night-time, after dinner, when she finally came to a decision. She knew that if she stayed in Sanctuary Hills and ignored her urge to return to the excitement of the Commonwealth she would only drive herself crazy. If her friends were unable to give her information over radio, she would simply head down to central Boston herself and do some exploring, and maybe drop by Diamond City to catch Piper or Valentine in person. Even if her journey took only a week, or two weeks, she was sure that it’d make her feel much better. And then she could come back and settle down for good, start on another invention or project. It would all be over then.

Her conversation the next morning with Codsworth and Shaun went down better than expected. Codsworth, as usual, was barely bothered by the idea that she would be absent for a little while, though he was gracious enough to offer to come with her and watch her back. She turned him down, just as she quickly turned down Shaun’s excited suggestion that he come along with her to the city.

“I need you both here,” she said firmly. “Codsworth, you watch over Shaun. And… vice versa.”

Codsworth’s three eyes swivelled to Shaun, and the boy stared back at him. They exchanged an almost challenging look, Amarli thought, but she knew that they would get along fine. Codsworth was at Shaun’s beck and call; he idolized him. And Shaun didn’t the mind the robot as long as he didn’t pester him too much.

“And Dogmeat stays here, too,” Amarli said, catching sight of the German Shepard in their garden, chasing after one of the cats. “I’ll try and keep in touch, I promise.”

“How long?” Shaun asked.

“I don’t know. A couple weeks, maybe. I might even head over to the Castle.”

Amarli was cleaning up her work table in the lounge as she said this. It was an old wooden surface covered in papers, files, holotapes, and odd pieces of equipment. Before the Castle had been discovered and this was the original Minutemen base, Amarli had made this into her own roundtable of sorts. She and Preston had met in here and gone over their plans. Even Sturges had come along once, when she needed him to help her build the molecular relay to get inside the Institute. Just the sight of the table brought back many memories of the danger and excitement left behind.

She straightened up and turned to meet her son’s eyes. “I’ll be fine,” she said with a winning smile. “You know me. I can’t be killed.”

“I just… I like it when you’re here,” Shaun said. He looked truly distressed by the idea of her leaving him again, and Amarli’s heart could barely take it. Quickly, she crouched before him and took his slender little hands in her own.

“Look, Shaun, there’s nothing that could take me away from you. Understand? Ever. I won’t be gone for very long. Maybe I could bring you back something to tinker with?” She looked at him hopefully. “A biometric scanner, maybe?”

He still looked upset, but he finally nodded. “If you can find one,” he said reluctantly.

“I’ll find one just for you.” She ruffled his hair and stood up again. Already, her mind was reverting back to her musings about the short adventure ahead. She’d search for new locations near Diamond City first before heading in to find Piper or Valentine, and then she’d proceed straight to Goodneighbor to see if she could get more information from her allies there. Maybe Macready would even be hanging around The Third Rail again – he’d been one of her closest friends since she’d helped him find a cure for his sick son a while back and he in turn had gone traipsing around the Commonwealth with her. She hadn’t spoken to him for a long time, but she was sure he’d want to help her in any way he could. And then there were people like Hancock, too, who were always up for a good time. And Magnolia, and Irma…

Come to think of it, she might stay in Goodneighbor for a little while before moving on.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?” She turned to look at Shaun again, seeing he’d returned to his breakfast.

“Could you get me an old telephone? They’ve got all sorts of neat parts in them. I want to try and make something for you.”

“For me?” Amarli beamed. “What’re you planning on building?”

He stopped stirring his bowl of Sugar Bombs to look at up her enthusiastically. “I don’t know. Whatever I can come up with. I bet it’ll be neat, though. So… will you look for one?”

“Sure thing, Shaun.”

“Thanks, Mom!” He smiled, the sadness of the past few moments apparently forgotten. Amarli touched his dark hair again fondly and then left to go to her room, already thinking about what to pack.

She began to collect clothes from drawers: spare jeans, shirts and jackets, as well as underwear and a few thick socks. She laid her armour out on the bed and examined it. Originally, these had been combat armour plates that she’d scavenged from a Gunner corpse, but she had continuously been improving them since then. Now, they were leaded with high-grade polymer to prevent ballistic damage and increase energy resistance. She’d polished and painted the metal so that it shone a glossy white, and the leather straps holding the plates together had been replaced with tanned Brahmin leather that she’d cured and dried herself. Each piece of armour was custom fitted for her curves, tailored so snugly that she felt as if she was wearing a second skin; she could move as silently and as smoothly as a ghost.

She got out all her hats, too. Amarli had always been a bit of a geek; before the war, she’d used to collect coins and comics. Now, she’d made a game out of collecting hats. For her journey, she selected a worn Coast Guard’s cap and pulled it down over her head, grinning at her reflection in her computer screen. She packed ten other hats for her journey, tucking them inside each other. It was unreasonable, she knew, to waste so much space in her bag with headgear, but she’d never been one to rationalise about that sort of thing. The hats were an important part of the character she’d turned herself into. It was what people expected of her.

She also took her weapons down from the wall supports, laying them across the mattress. They were polished twice a week, but they could do with a good clean before she left this afternoon. There was a combat shotgun which she had modified to shoot two incendiary shells instead of one (nicknamed Justice); a laser sniper rifle with a recon scope and night vision; a 10mm pistol with a suppressor which she had gotten upon joining the Railroad (Deliverer); and, for if she found herself in close combat, a mahogany baseball bat installed with rusty spikes which she had bought from Moe Cronin in Diamond City. Most of the weapons would go in her bag, as she preferred to carry only her shotgun on her person.

There was also an old switchblade that she’d had since her first few days in the Commonwealth that she kept in her pocket, along with a flip-lighter, some cigarettes, a handful of caps, and a silver pocket watch.

Once she had packed everything away and strapped and buckled up her armour, Amarli studied her desk and began to tidy some of the items laid out on top of it. She gave up after a few minutes, realizing it was futile. She took the rest of the caps out of her safe and put them in a pouch in her bag, went into the bathroom to collect her toothbrush and some soap, and then took off her hat so she could quickly braid her hair.

By this time, it was already midday, and Codsworth was working tirelessly on yet another meal. She could hear Shaun laughing as he played with Dogmeat in the yard, tossing the baseball down the hill into the creek for him to fetch. She straightened her cap on her head again, examined her face in the mirror, and then went out into the living room.

“Hello there, mum!” Codsworth called cheerly. “Everything is in order, I hope?”

“Yep.” Amarli heaved her bag onto the couch and then switched on the radio, pleased to hear Skeeter Davis’ soothing voice coming through the speakers. “You’ll take good care of things around here, won’t you?” she asked the robot prudently, glancing back at him over her shoulder.

“Of course, mum!”

“And you can go to Sturges if you need help with anything.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, mum!”

She sat down and began lacing up her boots. Shaun came in while she was examining the soles, ensuring they were in good shape for the long hike ahead. He stood and watched her for a minute, more curious than anything else. Finally, he sat down on the couch beside her.

“Can I read some of your comics while you’re gone?” he asked.

“’Course,” she replied, finally setting her feet down. “As long as you put them back where you found them.”

He nodded quickly, smiling. “I will.”

“Good.” She looked at him for a long moment, unsure of what to say. There was still an underlying disappointment somewhere beneath his smile, but she had no idea how to comfort him. This was something she needed to do for herself, and she couldn’t expect him to understand.

Suddenly uncomfortable beneath his oddly mature gaze, she clapped her hands and said, “Let’s have lunch, shall we?”

They sat eating their sandwiches at the kitchen counter, making bland conversation. Shaun told her about some bloatflies he’d seen across the water the other day; he’d sent Dogmeat off to kill them. He also asked her about Preston Garvey and speculated on how he was doing. Hopefully, by the time she returned, she’d be able to give him a legitimate answer on that.

Once the meal was done and she’d second-checked everything, she gave Shaun a kiss on the head, tapped Codsworth’s metal torso, and said her goodbyes. They watched her go from the doorstep, waiting hardly a few seconds before disappearing back inside and closing the door. Amarli stood and gazed at the shapes of her power armour for a couple moments, itching to walk over and set one up for her journey. But she knew the armour would only slow her down – if she needed it, she could come back and get it. For now, she was better off being able to sneak around.

Amarli set off from Sanctuary Hills with a bounce in her step.

Chapter Text

After Concord, Amarli felt as if she was walking on and on endlessly; it was the same journey she’d taken the first time she arrived in the Commonwealth, heading towards Diamond City for answers. The road now struck westwards and left Sanctuary Hills behind, and the great shadows of the collapsed motorway drew ever nearer. At length, Amarli reached a hill path that she knew would provide her with a shortcut. It scrambled steeply up, and she plodded slowly with her shotgun in her hands, till at last in the late afternoon she came to the top of the ridge and saw the summer sun going down. It was at this point that she could see the city looming out of the mist, far in the distance. It would take another half-day to reach the outskirts, and she’d be close to Diamond City by this time tomorrow.

At the thought of being out in the Commonwealth alone and meeting up with her friends again, Amarli found herself smiling. How odd it was to look back on the hell of the past few months and only feel eagerness to return. She knew she should be grieving, or still reeling from having lost her son, but… truthfully, Father had been too old and too changed for her to find much resemblance of herself or Nate in him. And she’d only felt grimly satisfied when the Institute went down in flames. They had made her life hell and she’d gotten her revenge; that was that.

Amarli let her eyes rest on the trees surrounding her, their bark scarred by the nuclear blasts from long ago, branches withered from the radiation. Each of them was soft brown, their injuries mahogany and deep even where the light reached them. She felt like she could relate to them, in a way. Amarli was just as stunted as any of these trees were, and yet she was still left standing after two hundred years. She wanted to yell it from the top of her lungs: “I’m still here!”

Amarli didn’t yell anything. She just kept on walking, passing under the remains of the old motorway and continuing into the Commonwealth beyond. She knew that Codsworth and Shaun would be sitting down to a nice cooked meal right now, and felt a pang of hunger in her stomach. She ignored it, knowing she’d need to set up camp later anyway; she’d eat once she had a fire going.

The sky became bruised and hollow above her until eventually the inky black night swallowed the day whole. The road that was black in the day time just melted into the darkness of the night, and as she passed along it, the glowing green light of her Pip-Boy was reflected in the water that lay over the surface. It was still rather hot, but the wind made Amarli shiver. She stopped momentarily to put on her leather jacket, and then trudged on without changing her pace. There was no one out here; she was avoiding the main roads for good reason. She was completely alone in the wasteland, which was how she liked it.

Eventually, even through the darkness, she could see the twisted metal of skyscrapers break the skyline like charred trees. It was, as always, a depressing sight. She could still faintly remember the shiny colours that the buildings had reflected before the war; they had resembled a utopia. Now, they were a graveyard.

She took this as her cue to stop and set up camp. She was in the middle of nowhere, but she was fairly confident that no one and nothing would stumble upon her while she was sleeping. The fire, when she lit it, was gentle and flickering at first but quickly wound itself around the pile of leaves and sticks like a serpent. She watched it for a moment, calmed by the heat and the light. And then she unpacked her sleeping bag, straightened it out with one side unzipped, and tucked her legs inside. She keyed open a can of spam for dinner, suddenly having lost her appetite out here in the open. The meat was wet and chewy but she gulped it down without tasting it, tossing the can aside once she was done. She then placed her hiking rucksack at the top of her sleeping bag to use as a pillow and laid down facing the fire, feeling the heat licking at her through her clothes.

This was a good idea, wasn’t it? She hadn’t been crazy to leave Sanctuary Hills alone and come out here searching for excitement? Amarli suddenly wasn’t so sure. Perhaps she was just being naïve again, underestimating the danger of the Commonwealth after she’d been away for so long.

She fell asleep hoping she wouldn’t learn her lesson the hard way.

 ---

The next morning, she was up at the sound of the alarm on her Pip-Boy. This was exactly the same time she woke up in Sanctuary Hills every morning, but when she remembered that she was out in the emptiness of the wasteland, the half-light of the morning sent her nerves jumping into a frenzy. She scrambled to switch the alarm off and then lay there for a second, the grey sky dizzyingly coming into focus. Her back was aching from the lack of padding in her sleeping bag, but she knew she’d get used to it after a while. And it would make her feel even more inclined to return to Sanctuary Hills later on.

The noises of the day were in full swing already; she could now hear the squawking of birds sitting on telephone wires along the road, and the odd ambient creaking of the motorway behind her, all of it underset by the hum of the wind. She began to get up, slowly enough to make no sound, fast enough to waste little of the morning’s low temperatures. After so many years of being hunted and playing the hunter, every action was automatic, reflexive, efficient. She felt significantly different this morning to how she’d felt leaving Sanctuary Hills behind the afternoon before. Her survival instincts were returning to her like movement to a well-oiled machine; she was grinding off the rust and re-establishing her place in the Commonwealth.

The drowsiness in her limbs leaked away the more the sky brightened, and she hurried it along by kicking in the fire and doing a few stretches. Being drowsy got people killed out in the Commonwealth. Amarli was aware that tiredness only gave way to mistakes.

For her journey, she’d packed a couple of the Longs’ homegrown mutfruit, and she ate them for breakfast while she walked. She knew they were common enough that she could get them from a passing trader so she didn’t bother to ration. Her cap collection was much larger than it had ever been, and she was secure in knowing that it would help her survive. Money still made the world go round, even after a nuclear apocalypse.

Amarli walked without too much haste, preserving her stamina as the city ahead grew closer and closer. As she’d expected, she managed to reach the outskirts by the time it was late morning. The sun was mercilessly hot, thrumming through her skin and making her clothes stick to her with sweat. She’d passed a pond infested with bloodbugs on the way and had found it troublesome to fight them off when her arms kept on sticking to her sides. But she’d managed anyway, muscle memory carrying her along when her mind caused her to hesitate. As with everything else, she found herself getting into the hang of using weapons again and watching her own back. It was all returning to her at a leisurely pace.

The streets that once thronged with life stood empty. Amarli didn’t pause as she entered the city, walking on past the cracked sidewalks overgrown with weeds, and the hunks of rusting metal that had once used to resemble cars. Gone were the stores with their windows of fine clothing or delicacies. Gone were the crowds of lovers and families, and the soldiers who would patrol the roads among them. All that was left here was empty gun shells, and broken store fronts laid waste by desperate looters. Amarli examined it all with a faint sense of misery, as she always did, remembering the bustle of life before all of this. But the Commonwealth was beautiful in its own way, even if it looked nothing like it had before.

She could hear bullets rattling off in the distance and strained to hear desperate shouts, but the conflict was too far away for her to tell who was the enemy and who was the victim. Perhaps it was Raiders or scavengers. Neither of those were worthy of her attention or her bullets.

She passed through College Square, encountering a few feral ghouls as she did, and ended up stopping there for a short rest. The last ghoul she had killed was lying at her feet with half its jaw blown off, leaking a gooey blackish liquid onto the pavement. The yellow teeth and grey-and-pink mottled skin hardly improved the sight at all. Amarli gazed down at the corpse in distaste, lighting a cigarette before drawing it to her lips. It was still very hot, and getting hotter. To the west was Cambridge Police Station, which Amarli knew was one of the Brotherhood’s in-city bases. She was careful to steer clear. Once upon a time, she’d enlisted as an initiate, but that had blown over quickly once she’d officially joined the Minutemen. They would probably see her as a deserter.

Up ahead, southwards to where she was currently standing, was the road that led across the river to Beantown Brewery. She’d never quite worked up the courage to go in there and see what was left of it, but considering she was here looking for excitement, she thought it might be a good idea.

Once she’d finished her cigarette, she took out a box of Sugar Bombs from her bag and began her walk down to the bridge, eating careful handfuls at a time. If anyone came across her right now, reserved and thoughtful, they might think of her as a remainder of the blissful people living here before the war. She had none of the fear and jitteriness of the usual wastelander. Certainly, no one would recognize her as the General of the Minutemen, or the destroyer of the Institute.

The water glimmered and rippled beneath the bridge, capturing her eye as she started across it. The sky was a similar shade of cerulean blue, shockingly, and Amarli was a little irritated to see that it was such a wonderful day again. She could do with less sweat and sunburn. With a huff, she pulled the brim of her Coast Guard cap lower over her head, finally reaching the big corrugated doors of the brewery. She packed away what was left of the Sugar Bombs in her bag and gave the building a cautious once-over. There was a thick, rusted chain barring the door shut, but that hardly spoke for what she might find inside. Commonwealth creatures were very good at getting into dark places.

Un-shouldering her bag, Amarli collected two fragmentation grenades from it and clipped them onto the belt of her armour, feeling them swing against her every time she moved. It was an oddly satisfying sensation. She took a packet of chewing gum out of the front pocket of her bag and put two sticks in her mouth, working on them until minty sweetness flooded her mouth. With a sigh, she put her bag on again, buckling it tight around her shoulders, and lifted her shotgun from where she’d set it against the wall.

In smooth, calculated movements, she shot the chain twice so it fell apart, used one hand to lever open the door, and slunk inside.

 ---

Amarli ended up arriving in the main part of the city much later than she’d expected. The brewery had been full of Raiders, which she probably should have expected. They liked alcohol and chems just as much as they liked caps; they were probably sitting on one of the biggest beer stashes in Boston.

Though she could easily have escaped before entering combat, Amarli didn’t make a move to leave the brewery until every single one of them was dead. She’d reasoned that if she didn’t kill them, somebody else would. And if they didn’t, those Raiders would end up terrorizing one of her settlements and it would come back to her anyway. So she worked her way through the brewery, using up both grenades and all of her shotgun shells – she’d recently switched to her silenced pistol, feeling it would be more efficient to carry – and making sure to put down their leader, who called himself “Tower Tom”. That tower went falling down… into a pit of fermenting broth, never to be seen again.

Unfortunately, she ended up nursing multiple burns, shrapnel buried in her arm and cheek, and a bullet that had skimmed her thigh. Once she’d left the brewery, she made sure to deal with her wounds as best she could with some alcohol and stimpacks. As if to celebrate, she also cracked open a bottle of Gwinnett Pilsner that she’d taken from the main room of the factory and drank it all. She tossed the empty bottle into the river and watched it float away. It would wash up somewhere downstream and perhaps become part of a mirelurk nest.

Now, after a quick walk, night was looming again and she was still a couple miles away from Diamond City. She was heading continuously southwards, using her Pip-Boy to guide her, and had reached a large bit of countryside in between cityscapes. She was definitely south of where she knew Oberland Station to be, and west of Chestnut Hillock Reservoir. She’d been following the train tracks this far, hoping to see something else interesting she could check out. So far, there was nothing. In half an hour, she would need to set up camp out here, find somewhere safe to sleep. Could she risk sleeping out in the open again? Perhaps not. She didn’t know this area very well.

Amarli strayed away from the train tracks, moving closer to the reservoir, finding herself climbing over several rocky hills. Grass and stones were crunching under her feet, as she had momentarily forgotten about being quiet. The Commonwealth often made her feel as if she was completely alone. As she passed down the side of one of the hills, she heard the warning growl of something large and dangerous behind her. She stopped and turned very deliberately, the 10mm pistol already in her palm.

The Yao Guai’s teeth were exposed in an angry fashion. They were sharp, white daggers, hanging inside a dark moist cave ready to slice her body until she bled to death. Its paws were rooted to the ground, but no doubt ready to clobber her if she made any sudden movements. She’d seen plenty mutant bears like this one before, but she had never needed to face one off with a flimsy pistol before.

Keeping her eyes on the beast to ensure it didn’t come any closer, she carefully unbuckled her bag and took it off, placing it by her feet. When she unzipped it, there was another angry growl; the beast only clawed at the ground, however, apparently not sure what to make of her. Amarli drew out her laser sniper rifle and powered it up, the humming noise startling both her and the bear.

With a sudden, deafening roar, it tore at the soil and charged at her. Amarli drew up her weapon and aimed, her eyes at the scope. She drew in a careful breath, careful not to let her nerves interfere, and drew back the trigger.

The laser penetrated its skull point blank, right between its fevered eyes. The Yao Guai was already in momentum, however, and was still moving towards Amarli as it died; she was forced to throw herself out of the way as it came rolling. Breathing heavily, she lifted her rifle again and aimed, expecting it to get back up.

The beast had already stopped moving.

With a pleased sigh, she lowered the rifle and slung it over her shoulder. But when she saw that her bag was crushed under its weight, she let out a cry of surprise and ran over.

Her food was all smashed up, and her cans of purified water had been ruptured, soaking the inside of the bag. All her clothes were soaked, and so was her sleeping bag. Even the few extra cartons of cigarettes had not been spared; they were soggy when she drew them out. With a loud curse, she took everything out and tried to use her shirt to dry the essentials: her bathroom things, her ammunition, her caps, her meds. She rolled all of her wet clothes and hats up and put them in a separate plastic bag, grumbling under her breath.

What unfair turn of fate was this? She’d been doing so well, and now she had soggy food, no water, and wet clothes. Amarli knew what she should be thinking.

Oh God. I shouldn’t have left, after all.

But she only saw this as a challenge. All she needed to do tonight was find somewhere safe to sleep, and then she’d head straight to Diamond City to replace her things in the morning. It was simple.

Amarli slung the bag over one shoulder, gave the great bear’s body a kick, and then continued down the side of the rocky hill. She had more awareness of her surroundings now, realizing night was properly falling, and so it came as a complete shock when she found that the rocky hill she was standing on happened to shelter a cave. She could see the gaping cavern down below. Perhaps it had been the Yao Guai’s den?

But that couldn’t be right. There were also buildings outside the cave, empty but recently-built. They were abandoned settlers’ huts. And there was a Brahmin trough half-filled with water, and an old van which had been set up as a small bedroom. Amarli approached the site with distinct curiosity, wondering where all the people had gone. Perhaps they were inside the cave?

Her luck was turning already.

And then her gaze fell upon a cube-shaped structure, a chill spontaneously rattling through her. It was painted baby blue, with a white platform extending to the ground below. Inside, she could see a desk and an old terminal. Cautiously, she approached, and her eyes picked out the faded yellow emblem on the side; a Vault-Tec logo. This… this place was a vault, then? There couldn’t be any other explanation.

Amarli lifted her gun, already heading straight for the cave. It looked incredibly dark and damp inside, but she moved without hesitance, already knowing what she was likely to find on the other end. She walked for what seemed like minutes, finally seeing soft glowing light ahead. With her rifle still raised, she stepped into a large chamber and looked around. The walls were cavernous, and the lights braced to them looked like mining lamps. But Amarli recognized the platform that rose beneath her, clanging beneath her boots, painted blue and yellow, just like Vault-Tec’s logo.

She walked until she could see the rest: the control panel with the special switch, and a key hole that only her Pip-Boy could fit. On the other side of the cave was a gigantic metal structure, built into the opening and looking surprisingly well-polished. Amarli’s eyes immediately picked out the lamps flashing above it, and the offline turrets which were pinned to the ceiling on either side. Perhaps less expected than the actual vault itself was the idea that it was being maintained, that people lived in it. None of the vaults she had come across so far were self-sustaining; none of them had survived the sorts of experiments that Vault-Tec conducted. What was up with this place?

Amarli approached the control panel, unhooking the remote link from her Pip-Boy so she could plug it in. There was a resounding beep, and then the plastic cover over the switch was thrown open. Amarli slammed it with her fist, glancing up at the giant vault doors and waiting in anticipation for them to begin to slide open. What would she find on the other side?

Instead, there was a rush of static and a voice echoed out from the control panel:

“Hold it right there! Vault 81 Security.” The voice deepened, turning suspicious. “I don’t know where you got your hands on a working Pip-Boy, but you better start talking.”

Amarli stared down at the control panel in surprise. Carefully, she approached it. “I got it in Vault 111,” she clarified frankly.

“Vault 111? Haven’t heard of that one yet.” There was a lengthy pause. “And what sort of business are you looking to take care of here in 81?”

Considering her words, Amarli leaned forwards again and asked, “What’s with the third degree?”

“It’s called protocol,” the security guard replied irritably. “Think we just let anyone in here? Think again--”

“Who is it, Edwards?”

This was a new voice – the voice of an older woman, Amarli decided.

“Ma’am, some new Commonwealth traveller. Not one of our usual traders,” the security officer explained, sounding slightly sheepish.

“Well, if someone wants in, they can earn it like everyone else,” the woman said, not unkindly. “Let me speak to them.”

There was the faint sound of a chair being wheeled out of the way, and then Amarli heard the woman’s voice much clearer over the intercom: “Sorry about that,” she said conversationally. “Officer Edwards here was just doing his job. I’m sure you can understand our need for caution.”

Amarli became suddenly aware of her healing wounds and the long sniper rifle in her hands. If they saw her right now, they’d hardly think her a friendly traveller. Yes, she could understand. There were plenty of wastelanders who would do anything for a chance to see inside a vault, so they were smart to be careful.

“For newcomers, we like to operate on exchange,” the woman said. “You help us, we help you.”

Considering this for a moment, Amarli found herself staring down at the Pip-Boy on her wrist. Surely there was another way? A way where she wouldn’t have to give up one of her precious belongings? All she wanted was some shelter for a few days, with people who wouldn’t be waiting to stab her in the back or eat her in her sleep.

Slyly, she leaned in and said, “But I’m a fellow vault dweller. Can’t you just let me in?”

There was silence, and an awkward clearing of a throat, and then Officer Edwards returned: “Excuse me, ma’am. Before you arrived, she did say she was from Vault 111, and she’s in possession of a working Pip-Boy.”

“Is that so?” the woman replied, her voice thoughtful.

The silence that followed after that was almost painful. Amarli waited with a slight grimace, expecting to be turned down or sent away. In the end, she was surprised.

“I’ll allow it,” the woman said curtly. “Edwards, open the door and make the announcement.” And then, to Amarli directly: “Officer Edwards and I will meet you at the entrance. Come inside.”

Chapter Text

The lights were blinding once the vault door had rolled aside. Amarli stood at the edge of the platform, waiting for the bridge to extend towards her, an arm raised to her face to protect her eyes. They seemed to have put up a spotlight of some sort in their entrance room; it was bright enough that she could see nothing but silhouettes.

Finally, the bridge reached her feet and she was able to walk forwards into the vault, blinking against the harsh light until she adjusted to it. There were several people in here, all of them glancing her way with obvious suspicion and curiosity. Amarli thought about Vault 111 and all the skeletons she’d seen there. Everyone here, in comparison, seemed healthy and alive. One of the men even had a meaty gut, as if he’d spent his whole life eating well and had never had the need for exercise. He was sorting piles of vault suits off to the side, holding a clipboard close to his chest, and kept on sneaking furtive glances at Amarli as she entered the vault. There was also a slim woman in a lab coat who was glowering at her unabashedly, her lips pulled down into a grimace. Amarli wasn’t sure what to make of her hostility.

She turned her attention to the man and the woman waiting for her. Officer Edwards was standing with his back straight, hands clasped by his sides, his grey helmet reflecting the blinding light overhead. He was much younger than Amarli had anticipated, his face still pimply and quite childishly plump. His blue eyes, however, were just as wary as those of the woman in the lab coat. After a quick glance at Amarli, he turned to the older woman at his side, evidently trying to get her attention, but she was busy having a conversation with one of the vault dwellers. He was bald and had a lisp, and appeared rather upset about something.

“C’mon, Gwen,” he was saying. “My guys have been working doubles for weeks now. They need a break!”

“Everyone’s working hard right now, Cal – you think I don’t know that?” The woman – Gwen, Amarli knew now – sighed and caught sight of their guest out of the corner of her eye. She smiled shortly and then turned back to the bald man at her side. “Just do the best with what you can, that’s all I’m asking.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. But you and I both know we can’t keep going on like this.” His beady black eyes landed on Amarli for a second, and she wondered if he was about to speak to her, call her out for how out of place she was, but after a second he simply lowered his head and moved away. Gwen turned to her with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “As you’ll soon see, we have a few maintenance projects underway.”

Amarli nodded, though she couldn’t help but wonder now what the vault dwellers were seeing of her; no doubt a dirt-streaked, soggy-looking woman with multiple scratches on her arms and face. She was more out of place than she’d felt since she first stepped into the Commonwealth. It occurred to her, suddenly, how dirty life was on the outside; had these people ever even seen dust and radiation? Had they ever seen blood, or needed to shoot a gun?

“Gwen McNamara, Overseer,” the woman said, seeming to notice Amarli’s hesitance to speak. “Welcome to Vault 81.”

Taking her proffered hand, Amarli shook it graciously.

“Here, we pride ourselves on having maintained a successful vault for the past two centuries,” she explained, gesturing around her. “We’d like to be completely self-sufficient, but there are certain resources we can’t provide ourselves.”

“I’m… impressed you maintained a successful vault for this long,” Amarli said, looking around interestedly.

She smiled again. “Thanks. I owe it to the Overseers before me, but some here would disagree. A few believe that opening the doors to the Commonwealth was a mistake.”

“Aren’t you curious about what the Commonwealth has to offer?” Amarli inquired.

“Of course. But my duty is to these people and keeping them safe. We receive a few select traders often enough to stay well informed.” She caught herself, glancing at the Pip-Boy on her wrist and seeming to realize the time. Sweeping some smooth auburn hair off her forehead, she delivered Amarli an abruptly impatient look. “Look, I’m afraid I have work to do. If you need anything else, I’ll be in my office.”

So that was it? They’d just let Amarli explore the vault as she pleased? Did they not think that was a little risky? But then she looked at Officer Edwards again, saw the distrustful look in his eye, and grasped that they probably had very good security if they were able to survive this long without the outside world bearing in on them. They would be watching her wherever she went.

As Overseer McNamara left her standing at the entrance, her mind apparently already returning elsewhere, Amarli glanced around with unabated curiosity. Officer Edwards had returned to his station by the control panel and was chatting to the woman in the lab coat – Amarli had a sense that she was the subject of their conversation, from the way they kept on looking over at her. The man who had been sorting the vault suits was already gone, and she saw him disappearing around the bend towards the rest of the vault.

There were no windows, of course, except those that allowed her to see into a set of offices on her right. Half a dozen security guards were inside, some sitting at desks, one or two drinking coffee and chatting. Amarli was amazed at the spotless titanium walls and the computers. All the technology here would likely be very outdated, but she figured they made do with what they had. To be able to keep everything in working order was a feat in itself.

Feeling restless just standing there, and driven by an urge to explore, she began to walk down the hall the way the vault suit man had gone, passing through decontamination arcs which had been set up along it on either side. A doctor was standing at the end by the doorway, and he gave her a curious once-over when he heard the filters humming. Amarli had probably brought half the wasteland’s radiation down here with her.

To the contrary, in fact. He glanced at his terminal and marvelled, “No signs of radiation. Impressive.”

Amarli could recall similar reactions from scientists in the Institute upon her arrival, as if they had expected her to be the most contaminated creature to grace their halls. But her two hundred years spent in Vault 111 had allowed her to protect the cells which otherwise would have mutated out of control. Compared to most of the people in the Commonwealth, she still had the most sterile body possible – as sterile as a synth body.

Still… it was hard to believe that the doctor’s sensors had been unable to pick up any radiation whatsoever. What about all the food and water she consumed? What about the air she breathed? If she’d been arrogant enough, she would have stopped to see if she could check the doctor’s radiation sensors and explain that she might be able to fix them.

Instead, she moved on with a tight smile.

Amarli could see security cameras in every corner of the hallway, and in the next room she moved into there were even more. There was an elevator here, with a few vault dwellers waiting for it to collect them and carry them down into their vault. She wondered what they might be there for. Some of them were likely security guards who had ended their shifts and were going home to sleep; others were perhaps maintenance workers – Amarli decided they must work under the man named “Cal”, who she’d figured was in charge of keeping the vault in shape. He was definitely very good at his job.

Amarli joined them, finding herself suddenly under the gaze of a well-armed security guard, this one a dark-haired woman. She wasn’t particularly threatening, but Amarli made sure to avert her eyes anyway, not wanting any trouble.

Finally, the elevator arrived with a ding! and everyone began to swarm inside. Amarli followed, hearing a couple of them whispering about her as if they didn’t think she could hear. Very graciously, she ignored it. It was nothing she hadn’t experienced before. Most of the dwellers tried to move away from her uneasily once they were packed inside, apparently uncomfortable about standing too close. She relaxed into the new space, unbothered, and gave one of the women a rather sarcastic smile.

Overseer McNamara hadn’t been kidding about how cautious the people of Vault 81 were. Amarli had only just arrived and she was already being treated like scum.

The lights went down and the elevator began to hum and shudder, dropping just fast enough that Amarli could feel the pressure building inside her torso. She grimaced in distaste. Finally, the elevator dinged again and slowed to a stop. The doors slid open smoothly and everyone began to rush out, squeezing past one another into the illuminated annex beyond. Amarli followed much more slowly, wanting to look around before she tried heading anywhere. Would they provide her with a place to stay tonight, or would she have to sleep on one of the white benches she could see down below?

“Hey!” someone to her left said.

Amarli turned in surprise to find a little boy standing next to her. He had carroty hair and dark eyes but otherwise strangely reminded her of Shaun. Instinctively, she smiled down at him. “Hey there, kid.”

He was staring at her armour pryingly. “Are you really from the Commonwealth?”

Amarli heard someone muttering and got an odd look from a lady passing her. She ignored it as best she could, instead gazing at the boy with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah,” she said guardedly. “Why do you wanna know?”

“I’ve never met anybody from the Commonwealth before,” he informed her. His eyes were lively as they finally landed on her face, and she instantly knew that he was much more boisterous than Shaun had ever been. Unlike everybody else, he didn’t seem to be at all wary of her. It was refreshing.

Finally, when she made no move to speak, he said, “Are you wondering how I knew you were here?”

“I guess I am.”

He grinned. “Gran says I have a knack for findin’ out stuff I’m not supposed to. Actually… she ain’t my gran. She’s just Priscilla, but she acts like my gran. When my mom and dad died, she took me in.”

Amarli was taken aback by his sudden bout of honesty, but was careful not to show it on her face. “I’m sorry about your parents,” she said smoothly.

“It’s no big deal.” He moved on. “Hey, I could show you around,” he suggested. “Just five caps!”

Sneaky kid.

“Is that your job?” Amarli asked with a smirk. “Are you some sort of pint-sized tour guide?”

“I’m just tryin’ to be nice. So how about it?”

She folded her arms. “Sure, you can show me around. But I’m not paying you.”

“Okay, okay…” He narrowed his eyes at her and gave a world-weary sigh. “Boy, you’re a real cheapskate.”

Amarli only grinned. “So, where do we start?”

“Over here.” He began to walk ahead of her, rounding the railings that bordered the staircase. This was a very large annex room, brightly lit and built with sterile white plastic and metal. From up here, Amarli could see plenty of the vault dwellers going about their nightly tasks below, moving in and out of rooms and chatting to one another. As expected, there were security guards standing at every exit, each of them carrying a rifle and wearing padded armour.

It felt as if she were in a spaceship, and she thought that if there were windows she’d even see a star-spattered sky outside. But she was only incredibly deep underground – a recognition which served to make her feel suffocated. Up above and set into one of the end walls was a large, round window through which Amarli could see a soft yellow light and a figure standing inside. She knew instantly from the slightly rounded shape of the hips and bosom that it was the Overseer who was watching over the vault so thoughtfully. She must have taken a different path to get down into the vault, for Amarli hadn’t seen her anywhere near the elevator. How many times a day did she stand there? Was that her job, to watch people like they were rats in a maze?

Discomfited, Amarli turned her gaze to the back of Austin’s auburn head as he took her to the rooms on the second floor first, leading her with a bounce in his step. He introduced her to the depot first, making sure to mention that the people who ran it had a daughter who was his best friend – a little girl called Erin. He also thought it fair game to tell her about the gossip which had been spreading around; that Mr Combes had been cheating on his wife with another woman. Amarli pretended to be interested, but she honestly couldn’t care less about other people’s business. She didn’t expect she’d be here for very long, anyway; she didn’t at all feel welcome.

Next, he took her to the corridor that led up to the Overseer’s office. Austin put plenty of emphasis on how nice she was, even if she mainly kept herself separate from the people she managed. He seemed to know very little about her, but he sounded pleased enough about her that it put Amarli’s mind at ease. It seemed that none of Vault-Tec’s usual games were going on here. Perhaps this was one of their control vaults, in which no experiments were conducted?

Austin showed her around the entire annex, introducing her to the elderly couple who ran the cafeteria (Mr and Mrs Somerset, who happened to be the first people other than Austin to welcome her with kindness); Horatio the barber (to Amarli’s surprise, he informed her that he himself had been born and raised in the wasteland but had never left the vault since they let him in); and the grey-haired scientist who ran the hydroponics lab, who Austin addressed as “gran”. She was quite stern-looking and hardly looked up from her work, but her voice was gentle enough when she addressed Amarli, welcoming her to Vault 81. After Amarli insisted that no, Austin wasn’t bothering her, and she was grateful for his tour, Doctor Penske commented that she needed to get back to her work.

Austin quickly led Amarli into the residential wing of the vault next; they passed through a long, brightly-lit corridor which was stationed with yet more guards, and then he began to point out the different domestic quarters. He showed her the classroom as well, which was empty save for a young woman sitting at the teacher’s desk. After Austin introduced her as Miss Katy, she jumped up to shake Amarli’s hand, delivering her a genuine smile.

“Are there many kids in the vault?” Amarli asked curiously.

“Not that many.” Katy’s voice was smooth and easy on the ears, and she had intensely dark eyes. Amarli thought she’d be very distracting as a teacher… but that was probably just her. After asking a few more questions out of interest, she said her goodbyes and followed Austin down to their final stop: the clinic.

It was as brightly-lit and sterile as she’d expected, the white-tiled floors stinking of bleach. A man in a white doctor’s coat came to meet them at the door, his eyes probing Amarli’s appearance almost greedily. “Our new outsider,” he said amiably. “Come on in.”

Amarli went in, but only because she didn’t want to be rude. He wasn’t alone; there was also a small Asian woman sitting in a chair by a computer, who glanced up to give her a tight smile.

“This is Doctor Forsythe and Rachel,” Austin said from behind her. “They always say I shouldn’t bother them when they’re working.”

“Now, now, Austin,” the doctor said with a smile. “You know we’re always here to help you if you get sick.” He turned his eyes on Amarli, looking her up and down again. “I hope I’m not being presumptuous, but I’d like to ask you a favour. Would you mind donating some medical samples? Even just a blood sample?”

Amarli bristled. She wouldn’t have expected any less from a vault doctor, but she still felt uneasy about giving any piece of herself away. Working at her jaw, she came to a decision:

“I might,” she said slyly. “For some caps.”

He smiled. “All right. The Overseer did give me a few caps for this. How does fifty sound?”

“That hardly seems enough.”

Doctor Forsythe’s smile faltered, and he seemed slightly put-out. “Well… I suppose I can use the rest of my allotment. I can give you one hundred caps.”

One hundred caps for a blood sample? Amarli wasn’t about to waste such an easy opportunity to make money.

“Sure,” she said quickly.

And so, over the next ten minutes, with Austin waiting patiently at the door, Amarli let the doctor take as much blood as he pleased – two whole vials of it – and gratefully took the caps he offered her afterwards. She tucked them into her bag, remembering as she touched it that her things were still soaked through. With a sigh, she looked at Austin. “Hey, kid – any chance you can show me a place I can stay tonight?”

Austin considered her question for a moment. “I don’t know. We don’t really have any spare rooms anymore. Maybe you should ask the Overseer.”

“Never mind.” Amarli grimaced. “Do you think the depot’s still open?”

“The Combes family always goes home at eight. It’s eight-ten.” He didn’t seem bothered on her behalf, perhaps not understanding that she was in a completely foreign place and had absolutely nowhere to go tonight unless she decided to leave the vault. With another sigh, she said, “Well, thanks for the tour, Austin. Guess I’ll see you around.”

He looked up at her delightedly. “Really? Well, you know where to find me. Gran’s a little grumpy, but she really doesn’t mind visitors.”

“Maybe I’ll stop by.”

Amarli left him in the residential area as she returned to the annex. Very briefly, she considered doing what he’d suggested and going to up to Overseer’s office to ask about where she would stay; she also considered sleeping on one of the benches downstairs until the depot was open again. Instead, she headed for the elevator.

She took the journey back up to the vault’s entrance alone, and was surprised to see that it was just as busy as it had been when she’d arrived. There seemed to be even more security guards up here now, and all of them stared at her as she passed them towards the gigantic open vault door. Hopefully they wouldn’t close it while she was outside tonight, but at least she knew she had a sure way back in.

Once she’d left the vault, she returned to cavernous tunnel that lead her back to the Commonwealth. The sky outside was blue-black and thick with clouds, and the air was calm. Amarli walked to one of the old settlers’ houses and set her bag down on the wooden floor. There was a mattress in here, ancient and covered in leaves, but at least it wasn’t as soggy as her sleeping bag. After laying out all her wet clothes to dry, Amarli ate a lukewarm can of cram, climbed onto the mattress, and closed her eyes. Even behind her closed lids she saw the bright lights of Vault 81; she saw the suspicious stares and the white walls, and the face of that little boy Austin. She’d already made up her mind: tomorrow morning, she would go inside and say goodbye, and she would buy everything she needed from the depot… and then she’d leave Vault 81 behind. It was a curious discovery, but definitely not the sort of adventure she’d been dreaming about back in Sanctuary Hills. It reminded her too much of Vault 111.

Amarli slept fitfully.

Chapter Text

As she probably should have expected, Amarli didn’t end up leaving the vault like she’d planned. For five nights after she arrived, she slept outside of the vault and headed inside at daytime, getting used to the dwellers’ routines. Even the security guards were now accustomed to her coming and going; they’d nod at her in the hallways or make jokes about her needing a bath or a haircut. Sometimes she’d see the Overseer up in the round window over the annex, but she hadn’t talked to her face to face since she arrived. The woman appeared constantly busy.

Amarli would eat meals with the rest of the vault dwellers in the cafeteria, either sitting alone, or with Austin and Horatio. Austin’s best friend Erin, a small dark-haired girl, joined them every day as well. She was just as energetic as Austin was and seemed just as interested in Amarli’s life. While they ate dinner one night, Amarli found herself telling them a story about fighting a Deathclaw – arguably a very graphic one – but all they did was laugh and clap their hands. The more stories she told, the more she realized they must have begun circling around the vault, because more people began sitting with them during meals to listen to her speak. Katy even came to her one lunch time and asked her to tell some stories to her class the next day. And so she found herself becoming a guest speaker, too, telling the school children about synths, and super mutants, and Raiders, and mirelurks. Everyone who had finally begun to embrace her presence told her they loved her stories. But there was still a large portion of people who continued to glare at her and keep their distance.

She eventually earned the Combes’ trust after she went into the Commonwealth to search for Ashes, Erin’s cat, who had been seen slinking out of the vault. She found her eating fish by the reservoir and brought her home, much to Erin’s delight. The cat began to join them for meals, too, sitting by Erin’s feet or walking along the table between them.

Amarli didn’t quite understand why she was still hanging around Vault 81. As the days stretched on and she continued to get to know some of the vault dwellers better, she realized she was waiting for something. Perhaps she’d subconsciously felt something in the air – a note of anticipation – or perhaps she’d temporarily developed the same powers as Mama Murphy, but she’d had a precognitive feeling from the beginning that something would happen if she stayed.

It was on her sixth day in Vault 81 that something finally did happen.

After arriving in the vault that morning, Amarli had been surprised to see that Austin wasn’t at breakfast. Neither was Erin. For the first time in a few days, she ate alone, feeling oddly anxious. It seemed the whole cafeteria was hushed, in fact – it was almost as if somebody had died. Amarli finished her breakfast and went for a walk, hoping to find somebody she knew. Horatio was busy cutting someone’s hair; the Somersets were cooking and couldn’t talk; even the Combes were having a demanding day at the depot. Finally, Amarli stopped by the classroom, wondering if Austin or Erin would be going on break soon. Only Erin was there.

Amarli waited impatiently for twenty more minutes until the class was dismissed for recess and then caught Erin coming out of the door. The little girl looked up at her with significantly less cheer than she usually did. As per usual, she had Ashes with her.

“Hey, Erin.” Amarli searched her face. “I just – well, I guess I wanted to ask if you knew what was going on. No one else has time to talk. Has something happened?”

The little girl scowled. “It’s Austin,” she said morosely. “He’s really sick. They won’t let me go and see him in the clinic.”

Amarli looked at her in surprise. “Austin’s sick? But I thought no one got sick here.”

“They wouldn’t tell me what happened to him.” Her eyes brightened then, as if she had an idea, and she looked up at Amarli. “But they’ll tell you, right? You’re an adult.”

“Right…” Struck by a sudden sense of excitement, Amarli lightly squeezed her shoulder and said, “Austin will be all right, I promise.”

“But-”

Amarli had already left her behind, swiftly heading down the stairs towards the medical clinic. The doors were shut, which was unusual, but she could see a trio of people arguing inside. She pressed the button to slide open the door and walked in without permission, gazing around the room inquisitively. On one of the beds in the corner, a small shape was curled up under the sheets – she could see a shock of auburn hair against the pillow and immediately knew it was Austin. Her chest tightened in sympathy. How sick was he, exactly?

“You have to do something, Jacob!” Doctor Penske was hissing. She looked even sterner than usual, but Amarli could also see the stricken emotion on her face. She just wanted to protect her boy.

“I’m running the tests as fast as I can, Priscilla,” Doctor Forsythe said calmly, raising his hands to reassure her. “I can’t treat Austin until I know what he’s infected with.”

Amarli looked at the third person in the room: a boy of about nineteen or twenty, his black hair shaved at the sides and his features defined. He had large, dark circles under his dark eyes, and his cheeks had the sunken quality of someone who regularly used chems. She recognized him as Bobby DeLuca – his twin sister, Tina, was the woman who Mr Combes had been cheating on his wife with.

Austin’s gossip was suddenly coming in very handy.

“Doctor Forsythe…” Bobby said now, eyes flashing nervously.

“Not now, Bobby!” Priscilla snapped, her voice needle-sharp.

He fell silent.

Her eyes fell on Amarli next, as if just realizing she was there, and they hardened coldly. “And you, stranger,” she muttered. “You’ll have to wait your turn.”

Amarli hadn’t been called a ‘stranger’ for a while now, so the word caught her almost like a slap to the face. But she stayed silent, narrowing her gaze.

“This is an emergency!” Doctor Penske snapped, her voice rising. “Austin got bitten by a mole rat. Isn’t that enough, Jacob? There can’t be that many mole rat diseases or toxins!”

“Rachel is examining the mole rat,” he said, just as calm as before. “Hopefully she will find something.” With a furtive glance towards Amarli, he added, “But these aren’t ordinary mole rats. Who knows what kind of diseases they’re carrying? Because he’s just a child, it’s affected him more severely…”

“Doctor Forsythe, please!” Bobby burst out, sounding frustrated.

They all turned to stare at him, startled by the volume of his voice.

“I think I found something that might help Austin,” he said measuredly.

Doctor Penske’s eyes narrowed; she looked ready to snap with anger. “Bobby-!”

“Hold on, Priscilla,” Forsythe said wearily. He turned the young man, frowning. “What is it, Bobby?”

“Well…” Bobby picked at a nail, his gaze lowered to the bleached floor. “You know that door Austin found? He found it ‘cause of me. I keep my private things in there. He saw me get them.”

“You mean your chems,” Doctor Penske spat. Bobby flinched away from her as if he had been hit.

“Get to the point, Bobby,” Forsythe sighed. “What did you find in that place?”

His eyes grew eager. “It’s like a whole extra vault in there, but half ruined and caved in! There was this terminal there, so I started poking around in it. There were some notes and stuff on using molerats to grow viruses…”

Amarli watched him speak grimly, her recognition that the Vault-Tec secret had been there all along already beginning to wear on her nerves. So the experiment wasn’t in this section of the vault. It had been in a vault built next to it – which was better for observation. And it seemed that something had killed all the Vault-Tec scientists before they could finish their research. Served them right.

“But they also said they used ‘em to make vaccines and treatments!” Bobby said – he was clutching at straws, it seemed to Amarli. Who knew whether they had managed to succeed in making any treatments? They had probably died before they had completed their work.

“A secret vault?” Doctor Forsythe marvelled. “Good lord! I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

I’m not surprised, Amarli wanted to say.

Priscilla’s face had cleared almost as soon as Bobby finished speaking, and now she strode over and gripped his shoulders firmly, a slight smile coming to her face. “Bobby, you’re a genius! A junkie genius!”

His cheeks flushed slightly.

“There might be a cure for whatever Austin got from that mole rat somewhere in that place!” she said, gaining momentum. Her eyes fell on Amarli for a second time, noticing again that she was standing there in silence. This time, however, she only looked thoughtful. “You there,” she said. “How would you like to do Vault 81 a favour and possibly save my boy’s life?”

Amarli had to admit that she was almost inclined to turn the old woman down. She didn’t owe anything to Vault 81, and very few of the people here had been kind to her or seemed to appreciate her at all. How funny it was that they suddenly needed her help now. Was it because they knew she was a skilled survivor, or because she was the only indispensable person in the vault? If the boy who was sick had been anybody else, she probably would have said no and left the vault once and for all. But it was Austin. He didn’t deserve to die just because she was harbouring a grudge. Besides… she’d known something like this was coming, hadn’t she?

“What do you need me to do?” Amarli asked simply.

Doctor Penske’s expression cleared even further, and she took a step past Bobby. “Save my boy, Austin.”

“What’s in this secret vault?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” she said, faltering. “From what Bobby says, it might be a medical research facility. At least, I hope so. It may be Austin’s only chance.”

A medical research facility using the people of Vault 81 as test subjects, Amarli thought blandly. Have they not figured that part out yet?

“Bobby here will lead you to his secret stash,” Priscilla said, placing a hand on the young man’s shoulder again. “There’s a chance that somewhere in there is a cure for Austin.”

Amarli didn’t want to tell her the likely truth; that the scientists had died before developing the cure, or that it had likely expired over the past two hundred years. If there was even the slightest possibility that she could save Austin’s life, she would take it.

“If I find it,” she said. “I’ll bring it straight to Doctor Forsythe.”

The man looked at her in surprise, and then bowed his head gratefully. “And I’ll do with it what I can.”

Amarli gestured for Bobby to lead her out of the clinic, but just as she was turning away, Doctor Penske grabbed her sleeve. She looked very desperate now – not stern at all – and Amarli looked at her in mild shock. “Yes?”

“For Austin’s sake, please hurry,” she said. “I don’t know how much time he’s got left.”

Amarli paused, then nodded her head subtly, making a silent affirmation. Having a timer on the situation wouldn’t make much difference; either there was a cure in there, or there wasn’t. She would do what she could to find it.

“Let’s go, Bobby,” she said, pulling her arm away.

 ---

Bobby took her to the generator room, where she knew he worked with his sister on maintaining the vault’s power. Tina DeLuca was nowhere to be seen, which was probably for the best. Amarli would rather she didn’t have an audience just this once.

She followed Bobby past the generator, blinking at the bright flashes of electricity, until he stopped at one of the walls. She stared at it in confusion until he used the toe of his shoe to kick it – hard. With a hiss, the wall slid open, and Amarli found herself staring at another door. This one looked considerably older than the rest. She turned to Bobby, intrigued now.

“How did you find this place?”

He shrugged, face paling. “It was an accident.”

Amarli realized, all of a sudden, that he was scared of what was in there. Perhaps he hadn’t realized until now how dangerous his secret vault was.

“You should stay out here,” she told him. “I’ll be out soon.”

He nodded tersely, and she turned to unlock the door, waiting for it to open. When it did, she blinked in confusion at what she saw on the other side; at her feet was mud and rocks – it was as if the floor had been swallowed by the ground beneath it. And everything was dark and silent. She stepped through, sensing the door closing behind her, and quickly set down her bag to begin drawing out her weapons. There had been no ammunition to buy in Vault 81, so her shotgun was still out of commission. Luckily for her, mole rats were easy enough to kill with 10mm bullets.

As she prepared herself for an attack, the silence seemed to press in on her from all sides, adding eerily to the darkness. How long had it been since all the Vault-Tec personnel in here died? Had anyone in Vault 81 even noticed?

She pressed forward, hearing her own pulse drubbing in her ears as she clicked on her Pip-Boy’s torch. It glowed a sickly radioactive green, making the room look like it belonged in the Glowing Sea. She ascended some stairs, seeing an orange flashing light above. It looked to be an alarm – perhaps it had been flashing ever since this place went to hell. There was no sound to accompany it but the silence, and she felt a shiver run through her as she looked at the ground again. Even at the top of the stairs, the platform had been overcome with dirt and stones. It was as if the earth had swallowed this place whole, leaving only carnage behind. The scientists had lost a battle with nature itself.

While she was passing a doorway that had become completely clogged with mud, there was a snarl and a small explosion of soil beneath her feet. Amarli reacted on instinct, rolling out of the way and bringing her pistol up to shoot. Three silenced bullets penetrated the creature’s small skull and it collapsed with a wheeze, kicking its little legs for a few painful seconds before growing still. Curiously, Amarli leaned to check its body. It looked like any other Commonwealth mole rat, with long yellow teeth and beady eyes covered in a milky film. What was on the inside, however, was probably very different. Whatever happened from now on, she would need to take care that she didn’t get bitten by any of them, or she would end up in a hospital bed like Austin.

Amarli entered an old office with a terminal in it. The main power must still be on, she reasoned, or the screen wouldn’t be blinking like that. This was probably the terminal that Bobby had used to learn about Vault-Tec’s experiments. Instead of leaning down to look through the files, however, she moved on, sensing that her time was already running out. She passed through several more ransacked hallways until she reached a section of the vault that still had lighting. Everything was much clearer now: the grimy ceiling with broken tiles; chalky, splintering paint on the walls (not to mention the bullet holes that were visible every now and then); left-over furniture which had been upturned or broken; and, of course, the muddy floor. Amarli couldn’t help but notice the stench of dead flesh, either – it filled her nostrils until she made herself stop and take a bandana out of her bag, tying it around the bottom half of her face. She was wearing a bowler hat today, and she was already feeling her scalp sweating beneath it, though it was more from anticipation than fear. Rather reluctantly, she took it off and put it away in her bag.

The further she went into the vault, taking random turns and searching the rooms, the more the mole rats seemed to sense her presence. Sometimes she could hear them breathing in the walls, or digging beneath the floor. Many of them were brave enough to charge at her, squealing, teeth bared. She left their bodies untouched once she’d killed them, wishing she had a hazmat suit on her so she wouldn’t have to worry about flying spittle or blood splashes.

Eventually, she reached corridors that were set with their own security – turrets and protectrons that were still somehow online after all these years. Amarli nearly had her head blown off and was forced to throw herself out of harm’s way several times. After dealing with the security and making the room shake with explosions, she heard the worrying noises of more scurrying feet and panting all around her.

How many mole rats were there in this place? What had these scientists done?

As Amarli passed down a staircase, she found she was facing a cafeteria that was almost identical to that of Vault 81. This was the annex, she realized. Or part of it, anyway. Where would the cure be kept? Was there a laboratory section, or would she need to find a medical clinic?

She entered another corridor, this time coming out into a large chamber. Half-buried generators could be seen in here, and only one of them was still spitting electricity. Amarli had to kill several mole rats as she walked, coldly kicking them aside once she’d dealt with them and moving much faster. This particular room was probably their favourite hiding spot; it was filled right to the brim with rocks and mud.

She was proven to be correct about this just as she was climbing the stairs to leave.

A whole group of mole rats seemed to appear from nowhere. Among them was the biggest mole rat of all, with fatty flesh and stubby legs – the brood mother. Amarli cursed and ran even faster up the stairs, throwing crates and chairs behind her to put distance between them. Finally, she turned and began to shoot, emptying out an entire clip on her assailants. The brood mother took a while to die. She was still twitching as Amarli approached and looked down at her in disgust. She shot it twice more, just to be sure.

The truly unnerving features of the vault only appeared once Amarli had entered the annex again. She found herself outside a large observation window with a terminal beside it, and there was a glowing sign above: HYDROPONICS. From a speaker somewhere in the ceiling, she could hear the familiar voices of Katy and Doctor Penske.

“Why him?” Doctor Penske was sniffling. “He’s just a boy!”

“He’s going to be just fine.” That was the soothing voice that Amarli remembered. She could imagine them standing amongst the planters in the hydroponics lab, Katy’s hand on Doctor Penske’s shoulder. Amarli tried to peer through the observation window, but it was so smudged with dirt that all she saw was her own reflection. She knew, somehow, that the Vault 81 hydroponics lab was just on the other side of this wall. And she could imagine all the scientists who had used to stand here with their clipboards, making notes and perhaps laughing at the things that people said. A shiver ran through her just at the thought.

There was also a large box beside the observation window that looked somewhat like a vent. Vault-Tec would have been testing strains of diseases on people like this, perhaps spraying them through the air shafts. Perhaps contaminating their water supply. And then they’d watch them closely. Amarli felt angry, suddenly, wondering if Overseer McNamara knew anything about this. Was it possible that she did and just hadn’t told anyone about it?

There were similar observation windows for every section of Vault 81: the depot, the medical clinic, the classroom – even the Overseer’s office. Amarli didn’t wait long enough to listen in on their conversations, feeling nauseated by the idea of all the scientists who had used to work here. She was glad they were dead.

Finally, Amarli seemed to be getting somewhere with her investigating; about twenty minutes must have passed since she had entered the secret vault, and now she’d entered a sector with the bright sign RESEARCH hanging over it. This was the place she would find the cure, if there even was one.

It also happened to be where she found plenty more mole rats.

Some of them were sleeping in cages, some of them crawled out of the very walls, and one of them was even hiding under a desk. Amarli killed them all, keeping an eye on her ammunition, and began to search much more avidly for some sort of hidden laboratory. The closest she found was a room that looked like a kitchen, the fridges and shelves stocked with blood bags and medicine. She took all of it.

She was about to give up hope and start heading back the way she had come when she arrived at a locked door. Examining the terminal next to it, Amarli found that it only required some rather amateur hacking to open it; she began typing away with renewed vigour, a feeling of excitement rising up inside of her again. Whatever was on the other side of this door was what she’d been searching for – she was sure of it!

On the other side of the door was a room with one collapsed wall and an observation window partly obscured by muck. It was an anticlimactic discovery, really, though she didn’t know what she’d expected. Perhaps a glowing pedestal with the cure on it, or some giant mole rat queen which she had to fight. This was plain in comparison.

Amarli glanced to her right and found three lockers which had been laid lengthways on the ground, each footed by a vase of crumbling flowers. Without even opening the lockers, she knew that there were scientists’ bodies inside. Which scientists? Would they have been the leaders, or just employees? And were they in charge of testing diseases or making the cures?

Amarli’s eye was drawn to the observation window, through which she had seen some sort of movement. A white flash, perhaps. Or maybe it had been a trick of the eye. Very carefully, she made her way over, pistol raised, but lowered it the moment she saw the robot inside. It was a pre-war Miss Nanny bot; one of those utility robots with female programming. Amarli instantly found herself pressing a hand to the window, examining the robot with intense curiosity. Miss Nanny and Mister Gutsy units were both sometimes considered as being variations of the Mister Handy model by consumers as well as by their creators. They were created by the very same company. But Amarli had rarely seen Miss Nanny models before the war; they seemed less popular than robots like Codsworth, and they were considerably more expensive. The last thing she’d expected was to find one locked in a dark and dingy vault several kilometres below the surface.

The robot seemed to be surveying her in a similarly curious way. “Oh, another stranger,” it finally said, in a surprisingly pleasant French accent – the sort of accent Amarli had only heard in movies – and then, “Are you Vault-Tec security? I’ve waited so very patiently for you to arrive.”

Amarli was still a little taken aback by the accent, feeling it didn’t fit at all with how the robot looked. She’d known, of course, that all Miss Nanny models had a French voice module, for whatever reason, but that didn’t stop it from being out of place. She cleared her throat. “Who the heck are you?”

“I am a Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer, or CVRIE,” the robot explained smoothly. “The human scientists call me Curie. Or… more properly, they called me this when they were alive.”

Of course. Curie, after the French-Polish physicist who had died in 1934. She was another great scientist who Amarli had loved to learn about in school as a little girl. Sometimes she regretted not having chosen to follow a scientific path when she went to university – would everything have been different, then? Would she still have met Nate and had a son to search for when she arrived in the Commonwealth two hundred years later?

“I repeat: are you Vault-Tec security?” Curie asked, her accent only seeming to become thicker.

Amarli remembered all of a sudden why she was here, and she drew back from the window. “These mole rats carry a disease,” she said. “Do you know anything about it?”

To her surprise, the robot’s eyes seemed to lose their focus, whirring and swivelling to survey the room behind Amarli. “My poor little darlings,” she sighed. And then, with a hint of fascination: “They were used to grow all manner of new and interesting pathogens. Then vault citizens would be exposed to these new viruses in the hopes that they would develop new antibodies. But they never got the chance to execute their plan.”

Coming from Curie, the heinous workings of Vault-Tec seemed almost thrilling, but Amarli knew better. “What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.

“Clyde got out of his cage,” Curie explained, as if the name meant something to Amarli. “He was smarter than the others, my sweet Clyde. He let out the others and those poor scientists never stood a chance.”

Amarli chewed on her lip, surprised at the strange sound of Curie’s voice – something akin to emotion, almost. As if she was wistful. And yet the robot was talking about death as if it was nothing more than a turn of fate. As if the scientists had simply had bad luck.

“Clyde has been dead for almost two centuries now, but his descendants have free run of the vault,” Curie said. The three eyes seemed to focus on Amarli again, and there was a pause before she said, “I’m rambling. Where are my manners? Are you… Vault-Tec security?”

There it was again. This robot was awfully insistent. “Can’t you just leave?” Amarli asked.

“I require verbal or written authorization. Actually, any Vault-Tec employee – even you – could authorize me. You must be Vault-Tec, or you couldn’t possibly be here!”

“Heck no,” Amarli remarked with a slight smile. “I’m just a girl looking for the cure to a mysterious disease…”

“You’re quite certain?” Curie sounded almost disappointed. Which was odd for a robot, Amarli thought. “Perhaps you just misplaced your papers?”

“Well…”

“In fact, papers are not strictly necessary, no?”

Amarli considered her through the glass, and then glanced over at the door uncertainly. “I’m really not with Vault-Tec…”

There was a pause, those metal eyes losing their focus again. And then Curie did something very odd.

“My audio circuits must be malfunctioning. I distinctly heard you say ‘yes’.”

Amarli stared at her. “What?”

If a human had been stuck in that room for two centuries, she would understand their desperation to get out. But Curie was a robot. She should not have noticed or cared about the length of time for which she was stuck in there. Especially if she was under a human’s orders. But Amarli had explicitly told her that she was not with Vault-Tec and Curie had decided to let her in anyway, which was significantly odd behaviour for a Miss Nanny bot. She was directly disobeying her programming. Was she that insistent that she get out of the laboratory?

 “I’ll open the door for you,” Curie announced cheerfully. She turned, thrusters firing up as she disappeared from behind the observation window. Amarli walked over to the door to wait. Once it was open, a gust of stale air hit her in the face, and she wrinkled her nose even through the bandana at the smell. It wasn’t bad exactly, just… old.

“Since you are a Vault-Tec representative,” Curie pointed out, “I entrust you with the broad-spectrum cure I developed! If you have an equivalent to my digital Hippocratic oath, please use it quickly to prevent any undue suffering. However, be advised: there is only one dose left, and I can no longer make any more.”

Amarli stared at the robot in surprise as one of her claws reached towards her, a small vial clutched in her grip. Very gingerly, she took the vial and held it up to the light, hardly believing that it had been so easy. So, the scientists had developed a cure before they died. Or, more specifically, they had built a robot so advanced that she had been able to continue their research without them and succeed where they had failed. Amarli was even more impressed now by the Miss Nanny bot hovering in front of her. What kind of programming did she have? It certainly wasn’t the original factory programming. The scientists must have written it themselves. It was as if she had a life of her own.

“Thanks for the cure,” Amarli said.

“It is my hope that this cure finds its way to someone who needs it,” Curie declared. “Hopefully now I can properly further my scientific research.” She returned to the doorway. “Since my job here is done, I think I will follow you out.” There seemed to be a hint of impatience in her tone – or perhaps Amarli was only imagining it again. Whether she was imagining or not, her interest had been piqued.

Amarli stepped past her so she could see the laboratory better, even more curious now despite already having the cure in her possession. She began to search through the shelves and the cabinets, sensing that the robot was watching her every movement. There was no comment, however. Curie stayed respectfully silent, hovering by the doorway.

There was a terminal. Amarli sat down in a chair and wheeled towards the desk, beginning to search through the entries. Most of them were from Vault-Tec themselves, explaining to the scientists what they would be doing for their time spent monitoring Vault 81. Curie was mentioned several times, but there wasn’t much information on her.

As Amarli got up and began searching the room again, Curie pensively inquired, “Is there something you need, Madame?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she replied distractedly. And then, changing her mind, she paused. “Actually, is there another terminal here somewhere?”

Curie spun on her thrusters and pointed with one metallic limb towards the caged room on the edge of the laboratory. “There is my terminal, if you wish? Is this a Vault-Tec protocol?”

“Sure it is.” Amarli entered the dark little room and bent to look at Curie’s terminal screen, surprised to see that there was no password. Then again, she wouldn’t have had much need for security when she was all alone here.

There was the slight roaring of thrusters, and the clicking of filters behind her as Curie came to hover and watch over her shoulder.

Amarli began looking through the files one by one, getting more and more curious as she read. At the top, before all of her entries, was the message: Entries are the personal work and property of Curie. Do not read! Yes, this means even you, Doctor Collins!

She didn’t seem particularly bothered that Amarli was reading them right now, even though she was watching over her shoulder so vigilantly. Perhaps it simply didn’t matter anymore, after all this time being alone. Either way, the idea of a Miss Nanny robot wanting privacy was an odd thing to think about.

The entries themselves were a goldmine. Doctor Collins had been Curie’s creator, and he had asked her to write in this terminal, something she had at first been reluctant to do. Robots were not supposed to own property, she had said, but he was insistent that she do it anyway. And so she wrote about her colleagues – the other scientists she worked with – and about their research. Up until the final folder, the entries seemed just as impersonal and cold as Amarli would have expected from a robot.

The final folder was called “Doctor Collins’ Archive”. It explained how Doctor Collins had decided to make modifications to a Mr Handy bot personality he had found, which would help them do their lab work more easily. Upon talking about Curie’s personality at the time, he had mentioned:

“She’s a little bit of Liza (I really hope she got into her vault down in DC) and a little bit of my grad school fling from Versailles back in ’46…”

Doctor Collins had also put the work of dozens of famous scientists into Curie’s archives, giving her plenty to learn. She was, as he put it, ‘more of a peer than an appliance’. He had even told the other scientists to address her like a human. Eventually, he started to feel it was wrong to keep manipulating her personality matrix. His greatest creation, it seemed, had been Curie herself all along: she had evolved until her mind was almost human-like. She transcended his expectations of robotic programming and had grown a personality that was almost as genuine as his own.

Which explained plenty of things to Amarli.

After she’d read right to the last line, she straightened up and turned to look at Curie over her shoulder, seeing things now that she hadn’t noticed before. She would have thought it was incredibly hard for a robot to show emotion, but there was something in the tilt of her body and the swivelling of her eyes that recalled curiosity. And doubt, too, perhaps. Amarli thought of the three coffins outside, each containing a body and decorated with a vase of old flowers. It couldn’t have been anybody but Curie who had put those dead scientists to rest. She had folded up their lab coats neatly and put away their glasses, and had even left flowers on their makeshift graves. Amarli thought it was oddly moving.

Amarli marvelled at the Miss Nanny robot for a long minute, until Curie meekly said, “Is something wrong, Madame?”

“No, of course not,” Amarli said quickly. She smiled. “I just… I think I’ve discovered something truly incredible.”

“Is that so?” The three eyes swivelled again, glancing at the terminal interestedly before returning to her face. “What did you discover?”

Amarli gazed down at the cure which was still held tightly in one fist. Saving Austin mattered, of course, but there was suddenly something much more interesting in this laboratory than medicine. Austin would be all right, and the people of Vault 81 would learn about this place, and then all of that excitement would be over. Curie, however, was the start of some new excitement – Amarli could feel it in her bones.

“I guess we’ll see,” she said thoughtfully. “Come on, Curie.”

Chapter Text

“The cure! You found it!”

Amarli nodded grimly, already reaching to hand the vial over. Doctor Forsythe held it like it was a live creature, his eyes examining the liquid within with astonishment. “Only one dose?” he asked, faltering. “I hope this works. If it doesn’t, there won’t be anything to analyse to try again.”

Glancing back over her shoulder, Amarli saw Curie waiting by the stairs outside the clinic, completely oblivious. Several vault dwellers were staring at her with suspicion, much like they had once stared at Amarli when she was new to Vault 81. But Curie hadn’t noticed them yet – and if she had, she had already greeted them cordially. Surely she’d fit in here?

Amarli followed Doctor Forsythe over to Austin’s bed, folding her arms across her chest as she watched him prepare the cure, drawing it into a needle and flicking the glass to remove bubbles. As he applied it to the vein in Austin’s forearm, he glanced up to see Amarli was watching and gave her a genuine smile. “Now, all we can do is wait,” he said. His eyes flickered in surprise as he looked at someone behind her.

There was the clearing of a throat. “I heard you had returned.”

Amarli started and turned around, suddenly feeling guarded as she saw the Overseer at the entrance of the clinic. She looked as kind as she had been the last time Amarli saw her, but something about what she’d seen in the secret vault made her distrustful of her. “I have,” she said simply. More scathingly, she added, “I take it you had no idea there was another vault?”

“None at all.” Gwen McNamara’s smile weakened, however. “Bobby told me about what he found. I… I can only assume that the Overseer before me must have chosen not to pass on the information when he realized the scientists had failed. It was a regrettable decision on his part. If I’d known, perhaps Austin wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“Well, this is what Vault-Tec does,” Amarli said grimly. “Vault 111 conducted experiments, too. There isn’t one vault I know of that doesn’t have some dirty secret hidden deep inside.”

Overseer McNamara sighed, glancing at Austin. “I suppose I’m glad that we’ve survived this long despite what they were doing,” she said. “And that their experiments ended, one way or another.”

Thinking of all the frozen bodies in Vault 111, Amarli hugged her arms around herself tighter and scowled. “Yeah,” she muttered bitterly. “You’re all very lucky.”

McNamara left Amarli’s side and walked over to Doctor Forsythe. They began speaking in hushed tones, leaving Amarli out of their conversation, and she found herself glancing out of the clinic’s window again, checking to see if Curie was still there. No one had asked about her yet, and Amarli didn’t expect them to. The people here didn’t like to talk about things they didn’t understand.

The sound of rustling sheets was enough to draw Amarli’s attention back to the events inside the clinic. Austin was moving, rolling over in bed. His fever seemed to have broken almost instantly – the greenish hue to his skin was fading into pink, and his eyes were squinting open. He groaned and muttered, “What… where am I?”

“Thank God!” the Overseer gasped.

Forsythe kneeled next to the bed, pressing the back of his hand to Austin’s forehead and looking very pleased. “You’re in the clinic,” he clarified. “You were very sick, Austin. Our visitor from the Commonwealth saved your life.”

Austin’s eyes sought out Amarli’s face, and she saw the hint of a smile on his lips. “Really?” he asked weakly. “I… thanks. I had no idea I-”

“It was a virus we’d never seen before,” Doctor Forsythe interrupted. He took on a sterner tone. “You won’t go wandering around in that vault ever again, will you?”

Austin tried to sit up, and then looked around him at the clinic. “No,” he said, though it didn’t sound entirely genuine. “Where’s gran?”

“I was worried to death about you, Austin,” the Overseer berated, her eyes narrowed. “What got into your fool head, going into a place like that?”

The little boy’s pink face pulled into a grimace, and his eyes landed on Amarli again. She gave him a reassuring smile, giving him confidence to speak.

“Nothing exciting ever happens here,” Austin grumbled. “I just wanted to see what was in there.”

“Well, if it hadn’t been for our friend here, you might have died,” Doctor Forsythe told him harshly. Austin hung his head, laying back on his pillow, and went silent. Forsythe turned to Amarli and said, “Thank you. I know you made sacrifices to help him. I know Doctor Penske will be grateful.”

“She’s not the only one,” Overseer McNamara added. “The whole vault is thankful. You’ve opened a lot of eyes around here, including my own. I’d like to give you a room here in the vault. A place you can call your own.”

Amarli’s head swam as she tried to take this in. She almost wanted to laugh. Now that she’d made herself useful, she was suddenly welcome. They had decided all of a sudden that she deserved a place to stay. Had all her stories about saving the Commonwealth not been enough to prove that before?

The Overseer’s words only made her more intent on leaving Vault 81 for good.   

“Thanks,” she said flatly. “But I think my time here is up.”

Overseer McNamara seemed truly disappointed. “Well, there’s always a place here for you if you return,” she said. “I hope you make a habit of visiting.”

Amarli shrugged. “We’ll see.”

The Overseer left the room and Forsythe returned to his desk with the empty vial, perhaps hoping he’d be able to scratch some remains out of it for testing. Amarli went to Austin’s side and smiled down at him. “Glad to see you’re okay, kid.”

“Thanks for helping me,” he said, cheeks flushed with what she could only imagine was embarrassment at the situation. He peered up at her with wide brown eyes. “Are you really leaving?”

“I think I have to.” Amarli glanced quickly at Forsythe. “But I might come back sometime. You never know.”

He sighed. “I wish you could teach me more about the Commonwealth. They’d never let me, but… if I could survive out there, I’d leave the vault, too. Even if it means I don’t get to see gran and Erin as much.”

Amarli touched his shoulder. “You’re safe here, Austin. That’s not something a lot of us in the Commonwealth can say. Don’t take it for granted.”

After a few moments of staring up at her, he nodded. She patted him and stepped back. “I’ll see you around, kid. Don’t go wandering anywhere you’re not supposed to.”

She left him lying in his bed, nodding once to Doctor Forsythe before she left the clinic and went to stand by Curie. The Miss Nanny bot swivelled to look at her when she approached. “I trust the cure worked?” she asked lightly.

“It did,” Amarli confirmed.

She made to head up the stairs, but Curie quickly said, “Madame, a moment please?”

Amarli paused. “Is there something wrong?”

“I have been trapped for so many years,” Curie said haltingly. “I believe it is customary to thank you for your role in saving me.”

Amused, Amarli replied, “You’re welcome, Curie.”

But the robot wasn’t finished. “My entire life has been in this vault. I have analysed and learned everything there is to know here. So now I must see the Commonwealth. Consult with scientists. Unearth more data to challenge my hypotheses.”

Tilting her head inquisitively, Amarli asked, “What are you looking to learn up there?”

“Down here is an enclosed system,” Curie explained unreservedly. “And without the introduction of new mutagens, viruses, or bacteria, it is quite… dull. Medically speaking. The world up there is infinitely complex. Who knows what diseases can be found and studied?”

Amarli considered her meditatively, trying to see her in the Commonwealth, taking samples and running tests with broken lab equipment. It wasn’t exactly easy to imagine, but there was no denying that what Curie was saying had truth to it. Still… Amarli wanted to make sure that Curie knew what she would be heading into, especially now she was aware of how special the robot was. If she got destroyed up there, all of Doctor Collins’ ground-breaking work with her would be ruined.

“It sounds like the vault could really use you,” Amarli said skeptically.

“Of this, there is no doubt,” Curie agreed. “But I seek to elevate my capabilities, and down here I will stagnate. I do not wish to intrude, but I must ask… please, Madame, will you take me with you?”

“It’s no picnic up there.” Amarli put on a show of thinking very hard, leaning against the staircase’s railing. “Anything you can do to help us survive?”

“But, of course!” Curie declared, as if she had been waiting for this moment to come. “I have been equipped with medical equipment. If you become injured in our journeys, I can administer stimpacks. I also have defensive capabilities. A laser. But surely there is little reason to use that...?”

Amarli’s smile quickly turned into a smirk. Oh, she had no idea.

“Come along, then,” she said curtly.

“Excellent!” Curie exclaimed. “We must embark at once!”

Little did Curie know, Amarli had already decided that she wanted her along for the ride. After what she’d learned from Doctor Collins’ work, she was extremely captivated in finding out how much more human Curie’s personality could get. She was an experiment operating all on her own, and Amarli felt the Commonwealth would be just the push she needed to begin properly understanding human emotion. Perhaps Curie would let her conduct small experiments of her own? Ask a few questions? If Amarli took her back to Sanctuary Hills, she knew Shaun would be just as excited as she was; he might even want to tamper with her a little. Maybe they could teach Curie about the Commonwealth together, and help maintain her systems as the world began to wear on her, and set up a laboratory for her in one of the old neighbourhood houses…

Amarli paused while thinking this, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.

She’d left Sanctuary Hills looking for excitement, for inspiration. It had now fired to life inside of her. But she couldn’t go home just yet. She felt oddly protective of this new discovery, worrying that if someone got their hands on Curie, all of the things that made her special would disappear. She needed to see exactly how Curie would fare in the wasteland and learn more about her strangely human personality. Alone – she needed to do it alone.

 ---

Curie happened to be a rather entertaining traveling companion. Very soon after they had left the vault, she was looking around in awe and talking to herself as if taking notes for a journal, thrusters carrying her smoothly along the rocky ground.

“I wonder how the hepatitis, Ebola, and influenza have mutated over the years!” she speculated first.

And then: “We must find the men of science and institutes of learning. Surely, they are out there still!”

Amarli was entertained to see that she was reconciling information from two hundred years ago with the things she was seeing today. She had been right; there was plenty to learn up here. Her data banks needed some serious updates.

Since Amarli didn’t necessarily have any plans for where they would go next, she led Curie on a slow-paced journey back to the train tracks by Oberland Station. They followed the tracks for the rest of the afternoon, Curie asking questions and commenting on their surroundings consistently until darkness began to fall. At this point, the robot finally fell silent. She simply seemed to be observing the world around them, eyes swivelling to and fro. While Amarli set up camp for herself, Curie watched curiously. As Amarli ate, she hovered near the fire and stared down at the flames as if hypnotised. And when Amarli was climbing into her sleeping bag, ready to sleep, Curie said, “I shall keep watch, yes?”

“If you want.”

Curie immediately moved towards the edge of the camp and hovered there, eyes turned towards the horizon. After a few moments, she said, “Despite the changes below, the constellations still shine bright.”

She sounded awestruck, like she had the voice of a child. It made Amarli stare at her for a little while longer, deep in thought. She had a sense that Curie would miss nothing tonight.

The next morning, when she woke up to the sound of her Pip-Boy’s alarm, she found Curie in exactly the same position, her three eyes still focused on the horizon. As Amarli sat up in her sleeping bag and stretched, the robot finally turned to her. Curie watched until she began climbing to her feet before speaking:

“So you need to sleep every single day in places like this?” Her French accent was just as jarring as it had seemed the day before. With a tone of amusement, she added, “Organic beings have so many interesting characteristics!”

Amarli couldn’t help but smile. “Are you studying me, Curie?”

“I do not have any other human subjects to monitor and learn from,” the robot explained, whirring over and stopping by the fire. “You are a most interesting creature, Madame.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Is everyone in the world above like... you?” she asked inquisitively.

Amarli, who was already busy rolling up her sleeping bag, paused in the motion to stare at Curie. “What do you mean?”

“I did not mean to offend, Madame. I mean to say you are very adept at survival. The Commonwealth does not seem to worry you.”

Amarli turned back to her sleeping bag, rolling it up so tightly that her hands whitened at the knuckles. “It doesn’t worry me anymore,” she said truthfully. “But it used to.” With both hands, she forcefully fit the sleeping bag into her rucksack and drew the zips together. “Want to know something special about me, Curie?”

The Miss Nanny bot hovered closer. “I would like to, yes.”

“I’m not that different from you.” Amarli pulled the rucksack onto her back. “I wasn’t born in the Commonwealth. For two hundred years, I was frozen in a vault.”

Curie moved even closer, eyes focusing on her face, and then scanning her entire body. “A routine analysis of you indicates you have suffered very little from radiation,” she said after a moment.

“That’s because I’m pre-war. They didn’t have this sort of radiation back then.”

Again, the robot examined her. “Curious.”

Amarli let her finish her scanning before she turned and kicked some dirt into the embers of the fire. “Come on. Let’s get going before the day gets too hot. I’d like to show you around town.”

“The "downtown"?” Curie hummed. “How exciting!”

 ---

They spent the day walking in the general direction of Diamond City, Amarli finding that she was surprisingly unbothered by the constant stopping and starting of her journey. She’d expected to become quickly frustrated by the robot’s need to comment on every single thing, but she only found it endearing. Curie was like an insatiable child.

When they reached the main city, Curie paused in the outskirts and said, “The population density is far less than I expected.”

“Yeah, it’s a little underwhelming, isn’t it?” Amarli lifted a wheel and kicked it, watching it roll in circles before clattering to the asphalt again. A crow, startled by the sound, cawed loudly and flapped away as fast as its wings could carry it. The sound was lonely in the echoing silence of the city, reverberating off the buildings and seeming to carry in every direction. Curie waited until the bird was gone before she stopped moving, her sensors whirring to life.

“I have made it to the big city. I must record this.”

Amarli waited patiently for her to finish, fingering the trigger of her gun and gazing around her. After a few moments of fidgeting, she collected a cigarette from her pocket and lit it, taking a satisfied draw. She turned to find Curie watching her, all three eyes on the cigarette she had between her lips.

“What, do you want one?” she joked.

“Smoking is very bad for your lungs,” Curie informed her. “The desire to infuse the blood stream with so many dangerous chemicals is truly perplexing.”

Amarli thought she detected some actual bitterness in her voice and was shocked. She lowered the cigarette, frowning at her. “It calms me.”

“Nicotine consumption can result in impaired cognitive functioning and violent behaviour,” Curie pointed out, as if she were reading from a textbook. “It is very bad, Madame.”

“You said,” Amarli muttered irritably. But she still found herself dropping the cigarette and crushing out the glow with her heel. Obviously, Curie was right, but it still felt odd being scolded by a robot about her health. She wasn’t even sure it was concern for her livelihood that Curie felt. Rather, the robot was simply telling her what she knew to be the truth and could not empathize enough to understand her reasons for smoking in the first place.

They continued further into the city.

Amarli got to see Curie in combat for the first time when they were cornered by a pack of feral mongrels. They had been heading down Hangman’s Alley, and Amarli had been about to tell Curie where they were going when they heard multiple growls behind them. Curie moved just as fast as she did, her laser already cocked and shooting before her eyes had swivelled to see the mongrels. She killed three of them, and Amarli killed two. After checking the bodies, she grinned at Curie, holstering her pistol. “Nice work.”

“If anyone attempts to harm you, I will leap to your defence,” Curie replied simply.

Amarli was pleased to hear it. Her new robot friend was charmingly loyal. She remarked, “Do you usually shoot first, ask questions later?”

“No. I far prefer to be defensive,” was her honest answer.

They continued on through Hangman’s Alley, stopping momentarily in the small settlement there so Amarli could check in on how her people were doing. Eventually, she could see the green-painted walls of the baseball stadium extending above the rooftops, shining like it was built from emeralds. When Curie realized the stadium was their destination, she seemed very enthusiastic.

“Are we going to see a baseball game? How exciting!”

Amarli only smirked, leading her towards the entrance. Not much had changed since the fall of the Institute, but she’d half-expected to find that security had changed now Geneva was the mayor. Instead, she saw the same weary guards waving her through.

The city was glittering in the sunlight, and as they stopped at the top of the great metal staircase to gaze down at all the buildings, Curie let out a surprised, “Oh!”

“Pretty sight, isn’t it?” Amarli was already itching for a drink and for a real bed to sleep in tonight. “Maybe I’ll introduce you to some of my friends while we’re here.”

“Superb!”

Amarli led her straight to Publick Occurrences first, only to find that Piper was off somewhere else in the Commonwealth on the hunt for a new story. She went to Valentine’s Detective Agency next.

“Oh, it's just like the detective books!” Curie marvelled outside.

But Valentine wasn’t home either; Ellie mentioned that he’d gone off for a case a week ago and hadn’t yet returned. Feeling down, Amarli left the agency with a scowl on her face. At least this explained why neither of her friends had picked up her call when she’d been waiting on them in Sanctuary Hills. They were busy people, so she shouldn’t have expected any less.

“The housing prices here must be quite affordable,” Curie said after a moment, looking at the alley around them.

Amarli had the urge to laugh at her innocent statement, but forced it down. It was quite obvious that Curie was only trying to be polite about the mess of the houses around her, but she had managed to sound almost sarcastic. Her social skills would definitely need some work.

“Come on,” Amarli said, her mood improving again. “I’ll take you to see my friend Vadim. He owns the bar here.”

When they entered Dugout Inn, Amarli wasn’t surprised to see it so busy. They had arrived during one of the most popular drinking hours, after many of the city’s people would have finished work for the day. As they approached the bar, Curie hovered just over the shoulder of a rough-looking man in a trench coat and called to the bartender: “Monsieur. Do you serve alcohol here?”

Vadim himself glanced at her in shock, then caught sight of Amarli beside her and set his wide mouth in a happy grin. “Alcohol?” he repeated, glancing back at Curie. “No, I serve nectar. Nectar of the gods. Bobrov’s Best.”

Curie faltered, and then her voice took on a superior tone. “The gods? You think to fool me. There is no proof of any divinity in all my records!”

“After you try Bobrov’s Best, you will disagree. Mark my words.”

Curie turned very suddenly to Amarli, and she could see from the rapid focusing and un-focusing of her eyes that she was confused. “He is joking with me?” she said uncertainly. “The pulling of the leg?”

Struggling to hide a smile, Amarli nodded.

Curie turned back to Vadim, voice becoming lighter. “I say, humans are so confusing…”

“I’ll have the drink,” Amarli said, leaning against the counter towards Vadim. “Make it double.”

“For you, I will give triple,” Vadim said graciously.

He slid the three shots towards her and she sat on one of the stools, already lifting the first one to her mouth. As she took them, one after another, Curie watched her without seeming to understand. Finally, she said, “If you are pregnant, I recommend abstaining from the alcohol.”

Almost spitting out all of the moonshine, Amarli coughed hard and hissed, “I’m not pregnant!”

“It was just a precaution,” Curie said smoothly.

Jesus Christ.

Amarli placed a pouch of caps on the counter and slid it over to Vadim. “For the drinks,” she said. “And a room.”

“Number three,” he told her. “I’ll let my brother know you are staying.”

She led Curie to the painted door, opening it without the use of a key. The Bobrov brothers had designated this room for and her only after she had destroyed the Institute, telling her they wanted her to always have a place to stay when she came to Diamond City. She was grateful for the offer, even if the room was about as dingy as they came. The bed was musty and falling apart, and all the furniture had been half-eaten by termites. Still, she made herself feel at home, closing the door once Curie had followed her inside and beginning to unlace her shoes and unpack some of her things.

Curie watched curiously, as per usual, hovering in the corner of the room. “Is this a place where you do your sleeps?” she inquired.

Chuckling, Amarli nodded. “Yes.”

As she began getting undressed, Curie continued to watch her, until Amarli began to feel quite uncomfortable. She muttered, “You don’t mind me doing this, huh?”

“Doing what, Madame?”

“Never mind.”

Curie was a robot, after all. Why should she care about a half-naked body? Amarli took off all her clothes and exchanged them with clean ones. She swapped her trilby hat for a worn fedora and moved towards the door. When Curie made to follow her, she stopped.

“You don’t have to come, if you don’t want to.”

“My systems are eager to absorb new data,” Curie clarified. “This city… humanity is so resilient, to cling to life despite all of this. I would like to take more notes.”

“…Right.” Amarli opened the door. “Come on, then.”

Dutifully, Curie followed her back through the bar and out into the city again, sticking close the way a vulnerable child might. Amarli was starting to feel worried about ever leaving her alone. She was still looking around in astonishment at the corrugated iron walls of houses, the smoke rising from makeshift chimneys, the children playing along the paths, the people sitting on benches and reading newspapers… all of it seemed to stun her into silence. As they returned to the market square, Amarli headed straight for Arturo’s weapons stand. Curie drifted off to talk to Moe Cronin, the baseball equipment vendor, who ran the stall next door.

Once Amarli was finished stocking up on ammunition, she went to Curie’s side, only to find she was in the middle of a heated debate about what a game of baseball entailed. Moe Cronin looked considerably more red in the face than he usually did and was arguing his case with a rising voice.

“Curie,” Amarli hissed. “Here – come here.”

The robot immediately did as she was told, spinning and firing up her thrusters, hovering over to where Amarli was standing. Moe Cronin glared after her, having stopped speaking mid-sentence, and then shook his head and went back to checking through his stock.

“Is there something wrong, Madame?” Curie asked unknowingly.

“Don’t get into any fights with the people here, Curie. They’re still wary of robots.”

“Robots?”

“Well, synths, mainly. No one likes synths much in Diamond City. If a robot like you gets in their way, they still might hurt you.”

Curie’s eyes focused and re-focused. “Do not be silly, Madame! I am not capable of pain. And did you say ‘synth’?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I am afraid I do not know what you are talking about. Perhaps you could explain?”

Amarli rubbed at her face tiredly. “Do you not know anything about the Institute? Was there no information about that down in the vault?”

Curie was silent.

“Right.” Amarli nodded towards the Power Noodle stand. “Come with me while I eat, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Of course, Madame.”

 ---

When she had finished telling Curie all about the Institute and what she had done to them, eventually finding her explanation branching into her own personal story, the robot came to hover uncertainly by her side. “Madame Fowler posited the idea that robotic evolution could surpass that of their creators,” she said finally. “The synths prove this quite neatly.”

“Yes.”

“To talk with the Institute would be a dream. So many marvels they have created!”

“The Institute’s gone, Curie.”

“Do synths have a psychology? Or are they merely sophisticated machines?”

Amarli sighed. “They’re rather like humans. I’d say that yes, they do have a psychology. But most people don’t care about that. To them, it’s the chip in their head that matters.”

“But you said… some of these synths only wanted to be free. Is that really wrong? Do they deserve to die for this?” Curie sounded confused.

“I don’t think so.” Amarli laughed shortly. “I mean, my son – well, not my son, more like a rendition of him – is a synth. I may have had my doubts about synths in the past, but I became more open-minded when Father gave him to me. He’s more important than some machine.”

Curie hummed thoughtfully. “And these synths do not age? Do not get sick? Do not grow fat? Do not have children?”

“As far as I’m aware, no. The Institute wouldn’t have wanted them to expire, so they made them last forever. In excellent physical shape.”

“And your son?”

“Yes, him too. He’ll be a child forever.” Amarli looked away, swiftly changing the subject. “Do you have any other questions? About the Institute, the Railroad – anything?”

“Not at this very moment, Madame. You must give me time to process these new things I have learned.” Curie’s voice had faltered again. “What a technological marvel these synths are…”

They didn’t continue the conversation after that. Instead, they sat in silence at the noodle counter until Takahashi – the protectron who had served Amarli – returned to take her caps. And then Amarli put her worn fedora back on and led Curie back to Dugout Inn, where she had another drink before bed. Curie remained utterly silent the entire time.

Chapter Text

Amarli made sure to keep Curie in Diamond City for several days, wanting her to get the hang of living somewhere considerably safe before they returned to the general wasteland. Already, Curie had begun to use the people of Diamond City to help her understand the Commonwealth better. She had built up her databases about Raiders and Gunners, had learned plenty about mirelurks and radroaches, and was beginning to question people about the dangers of Deathclaws. Most people looked at her warily but answered her questions anyway; others waved her aside as if they couldn’t be bothered with her. Curie took no offense from this. She simply wished them a good day and moved on.

“Oh. How rude! Does anyone up here engage in civilized discourse?” Curie said once, after someone cursed at her and shoved her out of the way.

Amarli was sniggering, standing a few feet away with her hands in her pockets. “Very few people, I’m afraid,” she admitted.

“I believe some psychological counselling is in order.” Curie stared after the man who had pushed her, and while her voice had sounded cheerful enough, Amarli had a sense she was… upset. If it was possible for her to feel such a thing.

After two days, when Curie understood the layout of the city, Amarli made her go out on her own and do some exploring for an hour. The robot did so enthusiastically and returned later chatting about the city’s farming methods and brand of livestock. Since it had seemed so effective, Amarli sent her out the next day as well. And the next. While Curie was gone on the third day, she took a trip down to the Choice Chops stall. As she’d hoped, Polly was there in her butcher’s apron, wielding a knife and gazing down at a hunk of brahmin meat critically. She glanced up when she saw Amarli, however, and gave her a special smile.

“Lookin’ to buy?” she asked.

“I’m not.” Leaning against the counter, Amarli stared down at the meat before returning her gaze to the woman’s face. “Mind joining me for a drink or something?”

Polly’s hazel eyes examined her for a long moment. “You’re unappeasable, Lorenzen.”

“Well, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Amarli grinned at her flirtatiously. “I’ve got an hour to spare. How about you?”

Shaking her head as if she couldn’t quite believe her, the blonde woman sighed. “Jesus, fine.” She put the knife down and began taking her gloves off. “I don’t want to drink, though.” Beckoning to the house behind her, she muttered, “You can let yourself in. I’ll be there in about five minutes.”

Amarli went straight to the door of Polly’s house and went in, glancing around at the still slightly unfamiliar interior. She and Polly had gone at it several times before, but it had more often been in her rented room at Dugout Inn. They had first met while Amarli was buying meat from her stall, and since she’d been particularly bold at the time, she’d asked her out for a drink. Obviously, she couldn’t assume that every woman she came across would be interested in other women, but her instincts were often proven to be correct. And Polly was the one woman in Diamond City who always seemed up to having fun with her. Amarli knew little about her, other than her surprising love for writing poetry and dancing. But she didn’t need to know anything, really. Their arrangement was solely for pleasure – the same sort of arrangement Amarli had made with countless other women.

When Polly entered her house and shut the door behind her, Amarli was sitting on the bed smoking a cigarette.

“It’s been a month,” Polly said dryly. “Nice of you to show up now.”

“I was in the neighbourhood.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you around.” The woman ran a hand through her hair and began taking off her jacket. “You’ve been here for three days, huh? With that robot – the white one with the French accent.”

“I would’ve come sooner,” Amarli said. “But I’m sort of… babysitting.”

Polly stared at her. “Babysitting?”

“It’s fun, really. Wish I could explain, but I really can’t.” Taking another draw of her cigarette, Amarli checked her Pip-Boy and then looked up at her suggestively. “Well, I’ve got another forty minutes. Think we’ve got enough time?”

Any annoyance in Polly’s expression seemed to fade away as she came over and sat on the bed beside her, taking the cigarette from between her lips and kissing her. “Sure,” she said.

 ---

Amarli returned to Dugout Inn feeling rather satisfied, only to find that Curie was already waiting for her at the bar. It seemed she'd lost track of time. The robot was all alone in a corner and hovered over the moment she saw Amarli approach, examining her from head to toe.

“Have you been running?” Curie asked curiously. “I detect a high level of physical exertion.”

Her face flushing, Amarli shook her head. “No Curie, I wasn’t running.”

“It is good to remember exercise.” The robot turned away and began moving towards Amarli’s room. “Too much time on a terminal is not healthy.”

Amarli rolled her eyes and followed her inside, already beginning to get ready for bed. “How was your exploration today, Curie?”

“It was magnificent!” Curie exclaimed. “I talked with the robot and we exchanged data.”

“Which robot?”

“I believe his affiliation was ‘Wellington’. He works in the… upper stands, you call it?”

“Wellington’s an asshole,” Amarli said frankly. “He only lets rich people drink at the Taphouse. He treats everyone else like garbage. Much like the people he works for, I suppose…”

“I… I do not understand your phrasing.”

“Never mind.” As Amarli climbed into bed, Curie watching her closely like she usually did, she paused thoughfully. “How’re you doing, Curie?”

Curie didn’t seem to understand her question. “As long as we stay clear of vaults, I am quite content,” she said. “To be fair, anything would be an improvement to scanning the same four walls for centuries.”

Hearing this, Amarli felt a startling lump rise in her throat. She felt sympathy for the robot, she realized. If she hadn’t known that Curie was special, she would not have been able to understand where those words were coming from. But Curie had a mind like a child – an incredibly smart child – and it was terrible that she’d had to stay locked up in that room for centuries. A human would have gone crazy. Had Doctor Collins known that upon his death he would be leaving her to such an upsetting fate?

Amarli rolled over and put her head on her pillow, putting her back to Curie. The robot was watching the door now, she knew, like she did every night. Robots didn’t sleep, and they couldn’t power down unless they were given the command. How terrible must those two hundred years have been?

 ---

While Amarli had been hoping that Piper or Valentine would show up as she hung around the city, she eventually realized that it was time to move on. She and Curie couldn’t stay there forever, and at some point she would have to return to Sanctuary Hills like she’d promised Shaun. At least the Great Green Jewel had been good to them so far. On their fifth morning in Diamond City, she brought up the idea of leaving to Curie.

“Would you mind if I took you to my home?” she asked, halfway through her bowl of noodles.

Curie spun to look at her. “But of course I will go with you!”

“Good.”

And that was that. Amarli was growing used to Curie’s presence now, and she had a sense that Curie was growing used to her. She liked having the robot around – her innocence was refreshing. And… well, it was morbid to think about, but Amarli liked the idea of Curie meeting her son, if only it meant he had a friend other than Codsworth who would be with him forever, even after Amarli was dead. And Curie was almost human; surely, Shaun could identify with her more than he could identify with Codsworth?

They set off at midday, Amarli finally feeling that she was fully stocked up on equipment again. She’d bought a whole load of shotgun shells, replaced her 10mm bullets and fusion cells, and had even filled her bag with boxes and cans of food.

As they left the fortified baseball stadium, the sun beat down on them pitilessly, catching them venturing out from cover. A few crows sat on telephone wires high above, gazing down at them, and Amarli was caught by the sudden urge to raise her shotgun and shoot them one by one, like bottles on a wall. She refrained, because she could feel Curie watching her. For some reason, even though she knew it was impossible for the robot to truly feel anything, Amarli found herself thinking of her as she would any other human companion: she tried not to shoot at things out of the blue, because she knew the sound would startle her; she made sure not to be rude or harmful to others, because she didn’t want to offend her; and she rarely left her alone because she knew she would be distressed. Amarli had never heard of a Mr Handy bot having emotions or a moral code, but she was certain that Curie did – or at least, she was developing one. She seemed to know the difference between right and wrong.

That day, while they were leaving the city, they got into a somewhat bloody fight when they stumbled across a raider den. Amarli ended up with a bullet wound in the shoulder, and Curie’s white plating was damaged almost irreparably. To Amarli’s absolute surprise, once the fight was over, Curie’s first comment was a spiteful one: “I feel no remorse for terminating raiders. They offend me.”

She said it in a voice that was very unlike her usual cheerful tone, and Amarli stared at her in shock. Curie noticed she was pressing a bloody hand to her shoulder and rapidly hovered over, one of her metal limbs already extending with a stimpack needle. “Please stay still, Madame.”

After she’d injected it, Amarli sighed in relief at the soothing feel of the medicine in her veins and stood up, looking with satisfaction at the corpses surrounding them. While she had done most of the killing this time, Curie had proven to be resourceful backup.

“You’re getting better and better at combat, Curie.”

“Yes,” the robot said. But that was all.

Again, Amarli stared at her, wondering what was wrong. Was Curie… brooding? Did robots brood? She was too uneasy to ask yet, however, so instead she bent and began to loot all the Raider corpses. There were caps and cigarettes, mainly, and she managed to empty the clips of most of their guns.

“Shouldn't a coroner be doing that instead?” Curie asked uncertainly, loitering just next to the den’s entrance.

“There aren’t any coroners.”

“Oh.” Curie examined the bodies. “Still, I believe you should wash your hands after that. It can be unsanitary to handle the deceased.”

“Noted,” Amarli said with a tight smile. But she didn’t wash her hands; she just put her bag back on without jolting her injured shoulder and beckoned for Curie to follow her.

As they walked on, Amarli was again stricken by the robot’s odd silence. It would be impossible to know what cognitive processes were going on inside her. What was she thinking? Amarli wanted to know. If something had somehow upset Curie, it was important to make sure it didn’t change anything about who she was.

When they stopped in the shade of an apartment block so Amarli could eat, spooning some cold Pork N’ Beans into her mouth, she was suddenly itching to ask what was wrong. Curie had drifted off to look around, but she was making no comments or journal entries like she usually did. And her thrusters looked like they were down on power; she could hardly make an effort to carry herself anymore. When Amarli had finished eating, she tossed her empty can to the side and called Curie over. The Miss Nanny bot hovered over and stopped in front of her, waiting expectantly. Clearing her throat, Amarli asked, “Curie… is everything all right?”

There was a whirring noise as the machinery inside Curie processed her question. And then: “On the whole, no. It is not.”

Amarli blinked at her, taken aback by her blunt honesty. “Was it me?” she asked quickly. “Did I do something to upset you?”

“‘Upset’?” Curie swivelled her eyes to stare at the road. “I am not capable of this.”

“What is it, then?” Amarli prodded.

The sigh that came from her processors sounded almost wistful. “I have spent much effort gathering information on our travels so far. And my self-diagnostics have come to a grim conclusion: it is not lack of data or lack of collaboration which stifles my scientific progress. The inescapable truth is there has never been a great robot scientist.”

“Sounds premature,” Amarli pointed out. “You’ve only just begun.”

“I have learned enough to recognize my fundamental limitations,” Curie insisted.

“Well… why is it a big deal?”

“My purpose is to study diseases, viruses, and other contagions, and either prevent or curb their ravages. And I am thwarted by my own incapabilities.”

Amarli paused. “I’m sure your research isn’t that bad, Curie.”

“You are polite to say this,” Curie said, a hint of her usual cheerfulness returning to her voice processors. “But if something does not change, my efforts will be mere stagnation. The greatest scientific minds of history, the Einsteins, the Curies – my namesake – have something beyond raw data analysis capabilities. They have had a spark. This elusive inspiration is something I must possess.”

Inspiration, huh? Amarli cocked her head, observing Curie even more closely now. One upon a time, Amarli had been looking for inspiration, too. She liked to call herself an inventor, but she knew she had far less useful informational and skilful capabilities than a robot would have. Wouldn’t a robot mind give Curie more space for information and less chance for emotion getting in the way? Wasn’t Curie better as she was?

“If I am to advance my understanding of medicine in this strange world, I must embark on a great adventure,” Curie continued grandly. “I must become human, or as close as I can. I must find a way to download all that I am into a human brain.”

“Become human?” Amarli repeated in shock.

But there it was – as with Vault 81, she had expected that travelling with Curie would amount to something spectacular. If she was seriously witnessing a General Atomics robot talking hopefully about becoming human, she was on the brink of something major. Surely there had never been a Mr Handy bot like Curie before. Codsworth certainly hadn’t had such strange ambitions.

“Is that even possible?” Amarli asked blankly.

“Who is to say? There were great advances made before the war in cognition and memories. And think of the synths you spoke to me about!” Curie sounded much more optimistic now. “Surely there is someone who can help. Or who can at least point us in the right direction…?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well.” Curie turned away again. “If you find someone – a brain surgeon, an artificial intelligence programmer, or someone who is an expert on matters of the head, please bring me to them.”

Amarli was almost rendered speechless by the tone of Curie’s voice. All of a sudden, she had an idea – a very good one. She smiled grimly and rapped her knuckles against Curie’s peeling body paint. “An expert on matters of the head, huh?” she said wryly.

“Did you think of something?” Curie was facing her once more, scanning her body language hopefully.

“I believe so.” Amarli stood up and stared at the sky, wondering how much daylight they had left. “If you really want this, Curie, I’m willing to help you.”

“Oh, Madame-!”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Amarli interrupted grimly. “I’ll take you to my friend in Goodneighbor. She’s… I’d say she’s the only person who could help you. That I know of.”

“She is a brain surgeon?”

“Not really.”

Curie appeared doubtful. “She is a neuroscientist?”

“Come on.” Amarli was already walking, having changed their direction immediately as she checked the map on her Pip-Boy. “She can introduce herself when you meet her.”

Chapter Text

“Oh, can we see the Old State House? Maybe they have the tourist brochure?”

With a grave expression, Amarli shook her head. It was night now, and they had reached Goodneighbor just in time to avoid the packs of feral ghouls and mongrels which were summoned to walk the city’s streets by dark. They had crossed the wall which enclosed the small town and the door was shut tightly behind them, secured with a heavy iron latch. Not that the only dangerous creatures were outside. There were plenty inside, too. Human monsters.

“The Old State House isn’t a museum anymore,” Amarli informed Curie. “It’s... well, the mayor lives there. Hancock. I’m pretty sure he’s just covered every surface with chems, so there’s nothing much to see.”

“Oh.” Curie sounded disappointed.

Amarli began walking with ease, knowing these streets just as well as she knew the winding paths of Diamond City. She’d been to Goodneighbor just as many times, though she’d only ever come to drink at The Third Rail, see friends, or look for women. It was exactly the place she’d told herself she shouldn’t return to once she moved into Sanctuary Hills with Shaun. While she had always enjoyed her time here, it remained a troubling memory of her past; she’d been a woman searching fretfully for her son and mourning the loss of her husband, taking temporary pleasure from chems, alcohol and sex. It had worked for a little while, but she likely would not have made it into the Institute at all had her friends not convinced her to get her life together. She’d ditched the alcohol and the chems, stopped seeing women at Hotel Rexford quite as much, and made her trips to Goodneighbor rarer.

It was, therefore, a little odd being back.

Seeing Curie here was somehow even worse than seeing her own feet upon the familiar mossy cobbles. The damp darkness of the alleys and the cobbled pavements made the robot look like she was falling to pieces; she looked like a pale ghost in a sinister horror movie.

The alleyway they took to get to the Memory Den allowed them to pass right by the Old State House. The walls were too high for them to bother seeking the almost black sky, and garbage seemed to collect at Amarli’s feet with each stride. As they left the Goodneighbor entrance behind, the lampposts cast their shadows like black over deepest charcoal, shimmering on the wetness of the stones beneath their feet. From the apartments and buildings around them came noises, not so much as in the daytime but all the louder for the absence of light and pedestrians. There were people cooking, people shouting, a bottle being smashed, a baby crying. In a window that was half-open above, a ghoul woman was leaning out with a cigarette at her lips, watching them pass. She waved when she noticed Amarli’s sure stride, almost dropping the cigarette in the process.

“Hey Daisy!” Amarli called, stopping so suddenly that Curie almost crashed into her. Not sure what else to say, she asked, “You seen MacCready around?”

Daisy shrugged, her face impossible to read in the darkness. “Not recently. You?”

“No.” Amarli hesitated. “How’s the store going?”

“Haven’t had any screaming customers for a while.” She chuckled amusedly at that, her raspy voice only growing raspier. “I guess they’re getting used to my face.”

Curie chose the worst time to announce her presence: “One must wonder, what causes the deterioration of this ghoul condition?”

Daisy noticed her hovering by Amarli’s side and curled her lip. “What did that thing say?”

“This is my companion,” Amarli said vaguely, suddenly feeling uneasy.

Curie turned to her, her voice just as loud as before and seeming to echo around the alley. “I should give the ghoul a full physical, yes? I am certain the data would be very interesting.”

“Now isn’t the time, Curie. Just… stop talking.” Amarli glanced over her shoulder, thinking she’d heard a footstep on the cobbles. When she turned back to gaze up at Daisy, the ghoul was staring down at Curie with a fascinated look in her eye. “That robot sounds like a doctor,” she said. “Never heard of one of those before.”

“I am actually scientist. However, my capabilities do involve some advanced healthcare,” Curie pointed out.

“Look, we’ve gotta go,” Amarli said quickly. “Maybe I’ll catch you at your shop tomorrow, Daisy.”

After a few seconds, the ghoul leaned back on her windowsill and drew her cigarette to her mouth again. “Sure, honey. I’ll be lookin' out for you.”

Placing a palm firmly on Curie’s metal body, Amarli shoved her until she began hovering forwards again, moving faster through the alleyway. She felt the heat of the robot’s thruster on her feet and was forced to jump a little out of the way so her shoes wouldn’t catch on fire. All three eyes glancing back at Daisy, Curie innocently asked, “Why do we make such a hasty exit?”

“No one in this town wants to know who or what you are,” Amarli muttered. “If you tell them, they’ll just scrap you for parts or try to steal you.”

As they came out the other end of the alley, Curie stopped moving and turned to face Amarli again. “Stealing is a felony,” she told her gravely.

With a dry laugh, Amarli nodded. “I know, but there aren’t any police to enforce that law.” After a moment, she added, “Especially if this whole thing works and you find yourself in a human body… you need to know how dangerous it is to talk to strangers.”

“But how else will I collect my research?” Curie asked, bewildered. “And you knew that ghoul, yes? She was not a stranger.”

Amarli sighed. “Whatever. Just be careful.”

Litter was dumped on the street all around them, and bird nests had been built amongst the sprawling rot. Grimacing, Amarli picked her way past the trash, already seeing the main workings of the city in front of them. They had reached the small courtyard below the mayor’s balcony, smelling of urine but looking clean enough. There were two benches here beneath yellow streetlights, and vents in the floor that gusted clouds of steam which could warm you in the winter. Two ghouls with machine guns, dressed to the nines in dark suits, winked at Amarli as she passed them. She knew them well enough as Hancock’s men; they worked with Ham, the bouncer for The Third Rail. Perhaps, if she came down here later, they’d be able to catch up.

The glowing sign for the Memory Den had already caught Curie’s eye. It was certainly the most magnificent sight in the whole town, shining  with wine-red light and displaying a beautifully carved roof and overhang. There was fading lettering across the billboards above which read the titles of the last Burlesque performances which had been shown here before the war. As they passed under the arch and approached the crimson doors, several drifters dressed in leather and smoking cigarettes sneered at them, eyeing Amarli’s weapons. “Nice Pip-Boy,” one of them called. “How much for that thing?”

Amarli ignored them, opening the door and letting Curie go inside first before she followed her. The interior had the same red-satin glow, though there were nightclub posters pasted over the brick walls and a small table in the corner covered in empty bottles of all types: vodka, whiskey, wine, moonshine…

The only light in this place seemed to come from candles, making it glow warmly orange-and-red. Amarli led the way into the main room, feeling Curie taking it all in behind her. There were four memory loungers in here, only one of them occupied. Along the walls of the room, draping over the delicate patterns of the wallpaper, were majestic ruby curtains dripping strings of rubies from their hems. There was an enormous crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, however it no longer worked and was more there for show than anything else. A long rolled-out red carpet led to the wooden stage on the other end of the room, very moth-eaten but still as grand as it had probably been two centuries ago.

The Memory Den looked like a house that belonged to Cupid – tacky, but unmistakably appealing – and Amarli had always been caught up between hating it and loving it.

Up on what used to be the stage at the end of the room was a love seat in which sat an older woman in a scarlet dress with feathers and sequins at the hem. She looked like royalty, though Amarli knew her well enough that she wasn’t intimidated one bit. Walking right across the carpet and onto the stage, she towered over Irma with a grin. “Hey there, hot stuff.”

Irma blinked up at her in surprise, and then straightened slightly in her seat, making no move to get up and greet her. She’d always been good at playing hard to get.

“Didn’t expect I’d see you again,” she said in a low purr. “I hope you’ve been taking care of yourself.”

Her eyes were angled like a cat’s, and she looked rather feline as she gave Amarli a leisurely once-over. And then her gaze turned momentarily to Curie, who was hovering by one of the memory loungers. “You’ve brought a friend,” she said simply.

“This is Curie,” Amarli clarified, introducing her. “I said I’d bring her to see Doctor Amari.”

“Is that so?” Irma’s smile became secretive, and she leaned against the arm of the love seat again, stretching her body across the cushions. “She’s downstairs, honey. Make sure you knock – you know how grumpy she gets.”

“I will.” Amarli paused, wanting to say something else to the older woman, but bit her tongue instead. “Come on, Curie.”

The robot followed her out the back of the room and down a brightly lit staircase to the laboratory that Doctor Amari kept below. The fancy decorations were now nowhere to be seen.

“This is where we find your friend?” Curie asked hopefully.

“It is.” Amarli raised her hand, giving the wooden door two hard raps. She very clearly heard the heavy sigh on the other side, and then slow footsteps in slight heels as the doctor came over to open it for them. When she did, more white light spilled onto them, and they could see the basement room beyond. Amarli felt slightly nauseous as she remembered the last time she had properly been in here, searching through Kellogg’s memories for information about her son. It had been one of the worst experiences of her life.

“Oh, it’s you,” Doctor Amari said, not unkindly. She was older than Irma, but not by much. The age showed on her face more, however; she had wrinkles across her cheeks, a few grey strands in her dark hair, and very wise brown eyes. She was wearing her lab coat over her skirt and blouse, and there were a few spots of dark ink on the white material, as if she’d been writing entries before they interrupted her. Almost immediately, she stepped back from the door to let Amarli inside, looking skeptical but surprisingly pleased to see her. Even though Curie bumped into the door on the way in, the doctor hardly sent a glance her way, instead crossing the room to return to her computer and the numerous files spread across her desk. “So,” she said, her accent lilting slightly. “What's brought you back to me this time? Is there another brain you’d like me to search?”

“Ha. No.” Amarli looked at Curie, seeing that the robot was examining one of the memory loungers closely, peering through the window at the padded interior. “Actually, my friend here needs your help. Curie-”

“Yes, I need help!” Curie agreed, turning swiftly to face the doctor.

“Oh?” Doctor Amari looked at Curie properly for the first time, seeming unconvinced. “I’m not a mechanic. What could she possibly want from me?”

Curie turned to Amarli. “This doctor can help me?”

“Go on and ask her.”

Immediately, Curie hovered closer to Doctor Amari and waved with one of her limbs. “Greetings, doctor!” she said cheerfully. “I wish to download my data and core programming into a human brain.”

Doctor Amari’s eyes widened by several degrees. “You… you want to what?” She turned to Amarli. “Is she serious?”

“Curie has a lot of pre-war research data,” Amarli rushed to explain. “But she can’t continue her work as a robot.”

“Why not?” Doctor Amari turned back to Curie now, her arms folded across her chest. “I won’t even consider something like this unless there’s a good reason.”

“I was programmed to further our studies of disease, pathogens and viruses. I cannot do this with the fundamental limitations of my robotic systems.” Curie paused. “If I become human… with the wealth of information in my databanks, I hope to do much good for the Commonwealth.”

Doctor Amari was silent for a long time – long enough that Curie seemed to falter, glancing at Amarli over her shoulder in what she could only term as confusion. The robot wanted this badly, she realized. Curie wanted to be a human woman.

Finally, Doctor Amari walked in a small circle around Curie, examining the rust and splintering paint on her bodywork. She came to a stop in front of her and said, “A pre-war robot with your knowledge and skills plus cognition. Yes, you could potentially save many lives.”

She said it critically, but Amarli knew that hard tone of voice; it meant that Curie had already managed to convince her to help. To her surprise, she felt her heart leap a little bit in happiness. She tried to tell herself it was because Curie would only become even more of a phenomenon and it excited the scientific part of her brain, but it was more likely because the robot’s sense of humanity had moved her. If she ever heard Curie’s voice coming from an ordinary Commonwealth woman’s mouth, she was sure she would have a heart attack.

“It’s an… interesting problem,” Doctor Amari said thoughtfully, this time speaking directly to Amarli instead of Curie. “The memories wouldn’t be hard. We translate those from the brain to computers and back all the time here. It’s how the loungers work. Her personality, though? All the extra pieces of robotic, programmed decision-making? A normal organic brain wouldn’t know what to do with them.”

“So there’s no way?” Amarli asked, her heart sinking.

“I didn’t say that.” The doctor examined Curie again, a faint smile on her face. “A synth brain, on the other hand… well, it’s already somewhere between the two...”

“The cybernetic enhancements,” Amarli said eagerly, catching on instantly. “They interface directly with the brain – the Institute had an interpreter for raw data!”

Doctor Amari nodded. “That’s my hope, at least.”

So Curie wouldn’t become entirely human – not in all the ways it mattered. But she could certainly get very close. She’d still have the same feelings as any other human being, even if she never got old or sick. As Amarli got more enthusiastic thinking about this, she was hit with a sudden recognition – but where would they get the synth?

Quickly, she said, “You’re not suggesting…? I won’t kill a synth.”

Doctor Amari’s face hardened. “I’m suggesting nothing of the kind,” she said reproachfully. “Allow me to explain.” She walked over to her desk again. “You were with the Railroad long enough to know about the mind wipes I perform on synths. But… but the procedure isn’t always successful. If something goes wrong, it can leave them in a brain dead state. Living, but with no cognition.”

Amarli swallowed, trying and failing to imagine what that felt like. And then she looked at Curie and thought, Is it like being stuck in a room for two hundred years, unable to leave?

“I know a caretaker for one of these brain-dead synths,” Doctor Amari said quietly. “If they’re willing, we could try transferring your friend’s consciousness into her.”

“Oh, yes!” Curie said cheerfully.

“So you’re willing to perform the operation?” Amarli asked.

The doctor sighed, smoothing back her hair. “My patient knew the risks and opted for memory replacement. She wanted a new life. I failed her. But this…” She glanced at Curie disparagingly again. “Well, this procedure may be as close as I can get to fulfilling her wishes. But I cannot make this decision. Her caretaker can.”

Amarli nodded. “So, who is this caretaker? Where do we find her?”

“You don’t need to find her,” Doctor Amari said firmly. “Give me a day to get in contact with them. They’re understandably cautious, but I think they’ll hear me out.”

“All right.”

Curie surged forward. “I will stay with the doctor,” she announced. “Assuming all goes well, I want to be ready for the procedure.”

Amarli gazed at her with hesitance, remembering how she’d felt in Diamond City and in the Commonwealth – as if she needed to protect Curie at all costs. But she should trust Doctor Amari now, or how would she ever let Curie go through with the procedure? Sighing, she gave in.

“Fine. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Madame!” Curie said graciously.

“Goodnight, Curie.” Exchanging a grave look with Doctor Amari, Amarli turned and left the room, hands in her pockets as she took the stairs back up into the Memory Den. At least she was free now to have the drink she'd been craving in The Third Rail.

 ---

The place was full of smoke haze and the smell of booze, just like the last time she's come down here. Ham had made her leave all her weapons upstairs before entering the bar, and she felt oddly naked. A few ghouls stared hard at her as she passed them, but she ignored them much like she was used to ignoring drifters around Goodneighbor. No one had ever tried to fight with her here; she had a feeling it was something to do with Mayor Hancock and how much he liked her.

The smooth, husky notes of Magnolia’s singing reached her ears as she walked to the bar and took a seat, relishing in the warmth of the air around her. A man a few seats down was smoking a cigar and playing a card game with his friend, a growing stack of caps on the counter beside him. Most people were sitting in mismatched seats and watching Magnolia sing, whistling and calling out songs they wanted her to perform next. She was as unbothered by this as ever, her sleekly-cut black hair smoothed out of her face, her eyes intensely focused on the audience, her lips set into a serene smile as she sang. She looked like one of the women you found on the front of a Life & Love magazine, and Amarli had been an admirer since she first laid eyes on her. Whether Magnolia noticed her or not, she made no indication of it. Eventually, Amarli was forced to drag her gaze away and look around for Whitechapel Charlie, the robot bartender.

When she saw him further down the bar, wiping glasses with an old dishrag, she gave him a friendly wave to call him over. He hovered towards her and spoke in a surly voice over the music: “You gonna drink, guv?”

“Sure. Beer, please.”

He uncapped a bottle, handing it over to her, and she returned the caps he was waiting for. She asked, “What’s the word around here, Charlie?”

The robot eyed her. “Nothing that interests you,” he replied shortly. “Unless you’re here to see Magnolia, that is.”

He sounded jealous, but Amarli knew that was only because he admired her as the singer of his bar. He was incredibly loyal to her – as loyal as he was to Hancock – and Amarli had always made sure to respect it. “I might be,” she said. “How busy is she tonight?”

“You can ask her yourself.”

Amarli frowned at him. “Fine. Can I have a water, too?”

Whitechapel Charlie prepared her a glass of water with ice cubes and slid it towards her. With that, he hovered away to serve other guests.

After setting the glass of water to the side, Amarli took a sip of her beer and swivelled fully in her seat to watch Magnolia sing, considering the sparkling red dress she was wearing with an appreciative smile. While Magnolia had always made it incredibly clear that she was married to the stage and had no interest in a relationship with anyone other than Whitechapel Charlie, Amarli knew she had a soft spot for her. Magnolia knew more than most people did about Amarli’s story, and they had spent plenty of hours in bed together. Still… Amarli had always made their meetings very rare. Neither of them had ever wanted more than sex, and that was how Amarli liked it. It was a warm, exhilarating experience, and then they both went their own ways.

Magnolia was winding down the song now, her voice deepening a little. Finally, as the last tender strains of the music faded away from the speakers overhead and most of the room broke out in applause and wolf-whistles, she smiled and said, “That’s right, Goodneighbor. We’ll be back after a short break.”

She left the stage swiftly, already heading towards the bar. Amarli turned in her seat, sliding the glass of water further away from her in anticipation of Magnolia’s approach. The woman smiled when she saw her, and then her eyes alighted on the water, and she said, “Is that for me?”

“Sure is.”

“You're such a sweetheart. Thank you.” Magnolia instantly took a seat beside her, bringing a waft of sweet-smelling perfume with her. The red dress was even more fascinating up close, the sequins glittering. Her grey eyes, enhanced by thick eyeliner, searched Amarli’s face curiously. “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Don’t tell me you didn’t like the song?”

“I loved it,” Amarli said honestly. “As always.”

“Well… what is it that’s got you looking so down?” She took a sip of water, wetting her lips. “Has something happened?”

Amarli hadn’t realized she looked upset, and took a minute to check herself before answering. “Nothing really,” she said hastily. “I guess I’m… waiting for news on a friend.”

“A friend, hmm?” Magnolia gave her knowing look over the rim of her glass. “A gentleman? Or a lady?”

“A robot,” Amarli said flatly, bristling a little.

Magnolia chuckled, the sound low and husky. “Excuse me for making assumptions, sweetheart.”

“I’m not interested in ‘gentlemen’.”

“I know.” She took another sip of water, studying her face again. “What brings you back to Goodneighbor?”

“I wanted to hear your beautiful voice again.”

Another chuckle. “Charming as ever. You've hardly given me a head start.”

“You don’t need one.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds, nursing their drinks as the sounds of the crowd began to fill the void in the room that the music had left. Amarli suddenly didn’t remember why she’d come here, or what she’d wanted. She certainly didn’t want it anymore. The beer tasted disgustingly bitter and warm on her tongue, and the smoke around her was starting to make her feel suffocated. “I’m sorry,” she said abruptly.

“For what?” Magnolia looked surprised.

“I don’t know.” Amarli’s beer was almost finished, but she slid it away from her. “Guess I’m just tired.”

Magnolia paused to consider her. “If you wait until I’ve finished my last set, I could show you a bed to sleep in...”

The idea certainly stirred her, but Amarli was suddenly too keen to get out of there. She felt like she was drowning in all of the cigarette smoke. Awkwardly, she stood up. “That’s a hard offer to reject. You know it is. But… I’ve got to go.”

The woman was staring at her with understanding – she wasn’t offended, just disappointed. After a few seconds, she smiled and patted Amarli’s hand. “Nice seeing you, sweetheart,” she said in her husky voice. “Maybe you could drop by sometime before you leave, with this ‘friend’ of yours?”

“Maybe I will.” Amarli drew reluctantly away from her lingering touch and then turned to go, heading for the stairs. The cigarette smoke was squeezing like hands of mist around her neck, and she had a feeling Magnolia’s eyes were on her back the entire time she was walking away.

Was this how much she had changed since the last time she’d been here? Had living in Sanctuary Hills with Shaun for so long made her incapable of dealing with the seedy atmosphere in Goodneighbor? She could still remember the romance of her life before: drinking with MacCready in the back room, taking chems with Hancock during personal visits, and sleeping with the town’s most beautiful songbird. But it just wasn’t the same anymore. Perhaps, if she was able to change skins like Curie, she’d be able to feel like she had before. Happy, pleased, excited.

Or perhaps it was time to move past that life. It wasn’t hers anymore.

 ---

Amarli rented a room in Hotel Rexford for a night, asking specifically for the one she’d always used to stay in, on the top floor with a view of the town. The shutters were still dusty and streaked with rust, but they opened out onto the courtyard below, and that was good enough for Amarli. She set out her bag and her weapons on the coffee table and began to unstrap her armour, watching herself in the mirror over the sink as she did. It was about one o’ clock in the morning, and she looked extremely exhausted. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her normally light cocoa-coloured skin was looking considerably paler than usual. When she took off the military cap she’d been wearing, her hair looked like a frizzy mess. Sighing, she un-tied the plaits and ran her fingers through the soft black curls.

And then she stood back and gazed at her entire naked body in the mirror, silently noting down all the scars which reminded her of something in the past: there were still raised bumps in the creases of her elbows where she’d used to take psycho and Med-X; faint scattered marks where she’d been burnt by acid while clearing out a Queen Mirelurk from the Castle; a horizontal, jagged scar on her stomach where she’d been sliced through by a Deathclaw; numerous fading bullet wounds and burn marks from fights with Raiders and Gunners; there was also, alongside her spine, a small scar which had been put there during her battle in the Institute – she’d been placing an explosive on their fusion generator and had been stabbed in the back by one of the retaliating scientists. Oh, and how could she forget the long scar on her leg from a railway spike when she was caught in the crossfire during the great battle of Bunker Hill? She’d truthfully been there on the Institute’s behalf, but had only been aiming to free the synths who were being kept in the basement. Many people had died in that battle, and she’d almost been one of them.

Most would call these marks of heroism, but Amarli only wished they would fade. The amount of collateral damage which had come with trying to best the Institute was upsetting. She was glad they were gone, and felt the Commonwealth was wholly a better place, but if she could have gone back and caused less pain and death for the people around her, she would have. As it was, she’d lost many people who she had called her friends. There were dozens of graves down at the Castle, housing Minutemen who had died for Amarli’s cause. And there were people within the Institute who had always been nice to her who had been gunned down before her very eyes during the battle. Most of them had been entirely innocent.

When she'd had synth Shaun back and she’d returned to Sanctuary Hills, Amarli had been expecting to say goodbye to more scars like these, and goodbye to losing more friends. But having had left the safety of that neighborhood and entering the Commonwealth again in search of danger and excitement, she had shaken everything up irreparably. She knew that now. She should never have left. How could she ever return to Sanctuary Hills and live her life like she had two weeks ago? It was impossible.

And if she couldn’t live there, how could she convince Curie to stay there, whether she be robot or human? Amarli didn’t want to go back to that boring life anymore. And she didn’t think Curie would have much to explore there. Neither of them were made for the quiet suburbs of Sanctuary Hills. Perhaps, upon finding Curie, Amarli had learned the truth. Perhaps it was for the best that she knew what she'd done to herself.

Amarli climbed into bed, still naked, and stared up at the cracked ceiling thoughtfully. When this case with Curie becoming human was closed, she would need to consider what was happening next. Eventually she would have to return to Sanctuary Hills to explain everything to Shaun; it couldn’t be avoided. But for now, she might as well enjoy being stuck in limbo as it was – not quite fitting in her old life, but not fitting in her new one, either. She’d need to find a medium somewhere. Curie, she was sure, was the key.

Rolling onto her side, Amarli found herself drifting off the moment she closed her eyes, and had vivid dreams all night long.

 ---

When Amarli returned to the Memory Den the next day, Irma waved her downstairs as usual. She entered the laboratory in the basement to see that two other people besides Curie and Doctor Amari were there. One of the women was lying in a memory lounger, apparently fast asleep – but, with closer inspection, Amarli could see no movement of her eyes beneath her eyelids. She wasn’t dreaming. She wasn’t doing anything other than breathing. This was the brain-dead synth who Doctor Amari had been talking about.

As she entered the room, the three others looked up and acknowledged her presence civilly. Amarli shut the door behind her and walked over. “So?” she said.

The stranger was actually somebody she recognized – a tall, dark-skinned woman with silver hair and brown eyes. She was still wearing her Railroad Heavy uniform, and she was looking at Amarli with something like disdain. “You?” she said. “You’re the one who wants to put a robot brain in G5-19?”

Amarli was immediately put on the defensive. She hadn’t exactly parted from the Railroad on good terms, even though she’d graduated to become one of their best agents. Upon joining the Institute, she had gone on radio silence and eventually ended up fighting against them during the battle of Bunker Hill, trying not to get her cover blown. While she had released the synths in the end and had managed to explain to Desdemona that she was only doing it to get closer to the Institute, their relationship had never been the same. She had asked the Minutemen for help in the end instead of them. If she’d had the Railroad’s backup, she probably would have been able to save many more synths. Again, here was a reminder of all the collateral damage she had caused.

Almost reprimanding, Glory gestured back at the woman in the memory lounger and said, “You know she’s a synth, Professor. We’re supposed to protect them.”

Amarli winced at the use of her code name. It had been a tacky choice, now she thought about it, but it wasn’t as if any of them had ever had much creativity. She liked to read science magazines, and tinker with inventions, and collect odd things, so the name “Professor” had always suited her.

“Glory,” Doctor Amari cut in. “She wanted new memories. She knew her personality would be all but erased. These are just different memories – perhaps better ones.”

“I don’t know.” Glory seemed to calm down a little, glancing uncertainly at the memory lounger again. “Maybe I should just let her go.”

“What would G5 have wanted?” Amarli asked.

Glory’s eyebrows drew together. “G5 was scared. Like most synths, she was terrified the Institute would find her and send her back. I tried to convince her that she could live free, as herself. But she didn’t listen.”

“I’m sorry,” Amarli said softly. “But… she’s already dead. What’s left of her could help others.” She pointed at Curie. “Curie isn’t just some old robot. She could really make a difference in the Commonwealth. G5’s sacrifice will give someone else the gift of life.”

Glory sighed, glancing over at Curie. “I… I think she’d like that.”

Doctor Amari put a hand on her arm. “G5’s off life support right now. Her body is deteriorating. It’s best if you decide soon.”

“Damn it,” Glory cursed, again looking at the woman in the memory lounger. “Fine. Do it now, before I change my mind.”

“Superb!” Curie said suddenly, hovering forwards. Glory only looked at her doubtingly and moved away to one of the couches along the side of the room, sitting down to watch the process.

Doctor Amari walked towards her computer. “Curie, let’s begin. Terminate all non-essential operations.”

Curie hovered over to her, stopping just beside her desk. After a long moment of whirring, she chirped, “Affirmative!”

Focusing entirely on her computer screen, Doctor Amari began to type. Amarli watched curiously over her shoulder as she went through a dozen commands, her fingers flying over the keyboard. Finally, she said, “All right. Connection complete. I have access to your memories, Curie.”

Amarli glanced at the Miss Nanny bot, expecting something to be different, but she didn’t appear offline or anything. For a second, Amarli panicked. What if the process ended up wiping everything that made Curie who she was? All of Doctor Collins’ work would be gone, and Amarli didn’t know how she’d ever get Curie’s personality back. She’d feel like it was her fault if something were to go wrong now. It was effectively killing someone, wasn’t it? Similar to murdering a synth. As far as she knew, Curie was sentient life.

“Curie,” she said suddenly. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

The robot didn’t reply, but Doctor Amari glanced back over her shoulder and said, “I’m in control of your friend’s systems. She can’t answer you. We’ve gone too far now for you to be having doubts.”

Quickly, Amarli said, “I’m not having doubts. I was just… checking.”

“Go and sit down,” Doctor Amari suggested. “Curie will be fine.”

After hesitating for a few seconds, Amarli left the doctor to her work and went to sit with Glory on the couch. They were resting defensively, their legs and arms crossed and their faces frowning. They were both worried for different robots who were about to become the same being. Their anxiety was something which felt entirely dissimilar but happened to be shared. Glory must have noticed this, too, because she glanced over at Amarli with a slightly softer expression than earlier. Amarli returned her look with a short smile.

“…G5’s already been prepped,” Doctor Amari was saying. “This shouldn’t take… long. Yes, there.” Her fingers pressed several keys at once and her eyes turned to the memory lounger, assessing the form of the synth inside. “Here we go,” she said.

Amarli sat forwards, not sure whether to look at Curie or the synth. She still couldn’t form an image of Curie inside a human body, and it was sending her mind to all sorts of abstract places.

All of a sudden, there was a loud beeping sound and a striking crash as the Miss Nanny robot’s heavy body collapsed to the tiled floor. All of them flinched at the sound and Amarli even rose to her feet, not sure what to do. Had it worked? Was it over?

Doctor Amari stepped back from the computer, pressing a button to open the memory lounger. As all three of them scurried over to peer at the woman inside, Amarli caught sight of the unsure expression on the doctor’s face. “What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly.

“Nothing.” Doctor Amari moved out of the way so she and Glory could see better. “The operation worked, as far as I’m aware. Now we’ll just have to wait and see.”

The woman was still fast asleep. If Curie was really in there, they wouldn’t know about it until she woke up. Amarli didn’t know why, but she’d expected it to be instant. She’d expected to be leaving Goodneighbor tonight. But, in an instant, the significance of what Curie had chosen to do hit her properly, and she realized this was quite literally a brain transplant. No ordinary human would be able to recover from that in the blink of an eye. Not even a synth could. As much as she disliked it, Doctor Amari was right; they needed to wait.

Glory sighed and backed away from the memory lounger, looking pained. She glanced over at the remains of the collapsed Miss Nanny robot as well, and it only served to make her look even more upset. “I’m going,” she said tightly after a moment. “I don’t wanna be here if she wakes up.”

Doctor Amari looked at her sympathetically. “I know this was difficult for you,” she said. “For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing.”

Glory nodded. Before she left, however, she turned to give Amarli a hard-eyed look. “Listen, G5-19 went through a lot, but she was good. Solid. I hope…” She bit her lip. “I hope a little of that’s still there. And if it isn’t, you better make sure all of this was worth it.”

Amarli was quick to reply: “I will. But you should know that with Curie’s scientific skills, there’s a real chance she’ll help a lot of people down the line.”

Glory looked unconvinced. Her eyes travelled over to the memory lounger again, dark with unexplainable grief. “Yeah. Here’s hoping.”

She left the room in silence, shutting the door behind her, and Doctor Amari shook her head before returning to the terminal. Amarli was left standing alone by the memory lounger, not really sure what to do or say. How long did it normally take for a patient to wake up after memories were replaced or wiped? Would it be minutes, hours, or days? Or would the woman continue to sleep forever with Curie locked away inside of her?

The thought made Amarli shudder.

She turned back to gaze at the woman, thoughtfully studying her in hushed silence. She looked impossibly peaceful, curled up with her cheek pressed to the velvety padding. Would her personality really be the same? The mess of Miss Nanny parts on the floor which Dr Amari was already sweeping away were nothing compared to this vulnerable-looking woman. And yet Amarli felt much more loyalty towards those pieces of metal than she did to the flesh-and-blood person lying in front of her.

This new Curie had a rounded face, slightly lighter than ivory with a rose coloured tint to her cheeks. She had a small, delicately-formed mouth, long eyelashes of the same inky-black colour as her hair, and veins running like connected rivers across the exposed skin of her forearms. She was fair, almost like a porcelain doll, yet she did hold some colour. Amarli couldn’t see her surviving in the Commonwealth at all; she looked much too young and unguarded for such a rough place. Even her hands were unblemished, looking as smooth and small as a child’s.

Synths were so human that nobody could tell the difference. They moved, talked and gestured like anyone else. They sometimes made bad jokes and looked socially awkward. Sometimes they were charming and self-assured. Amarli had always thought they were absolutely fascinating, even though they had terrified her at first. The Institute may not have created them for good, but they truly were a breakthrough of the ages. After a long time spent researching them, Amarli knew that the only thing which made the synths robots in the first place was the chip planted in their brains that allowed the Institute to control them. Otherwise, they were biologically similar to any other Commonwealth citizen. Surely you could plant a chip in a human’s brain and have the same result? And yet they wouldn’t be called a synth…

It was tricky, trying to decide what the difference was. Amarli had long ago come to decide that there was hardly any difference at all. So she looked at Curie now much like she had always looked at Shaun, with a warm smile and her hands clasped together in entrancement. This would be very new for Curie, if she did wake up; she’d struggle with her humanity at first, but she’d soon get the hang of it. Eating, and drinking, and sleeping, and having mood swings, and feeling pain…

Amarli would protect her while she did, and perhaps, if Curie let her, she could run some tests? Do a little research? Would Curie still be as intelligent as she was as a Miss Nanny bot? She no longer had her full systems, and the human brain had a much smaller storage space. Would she remember how to fight in combat, or would Amarli have to teach her all over again? Would she struggle to control her human urges or would she need help with that, too?

Amarli crouched beside her and examined her sleeping body again from a closer angle. Feeling bolder, she picked up one of those unblemished hands to see that it was smooth and un-callused, the nails neatly filed. She was practically fresh out of the womb. Amarli carefully placed the hand back by her side, curiously running a fingertip across her wrist and finding that it was as pale, soft and untarnished as the rest of her. She’d hate to see something marring such pretty, clear skin, but she had a feeling that Curie would begin to scar the moment she set foot in the Commonwealth. Everyone did.

She straightened and turned to see Doctor Amari watching her. She flushed self-consciously, thankful that her skin tone prevented the woman from seeing it. “When do you think she’ll wake up?” she asked.

“It’s taken days before,” Doctor Amari answered after a moment. “You’ll have to be patient.”

“And she will wake up, won’t she?”

“We’ll see.” With all of the Miss Nanny bot parts swept into a corner of the room, she grabbed an empty mug and beckoned to the doorway. “Come upstairs. Curie will be best left to sleep. I can send for you if she wakes up.”

Amarli could hardly deny her authority; after all, Doctor Amari had done this for Curie out of the goodness of her heart. She had the right to do as she wanted. Amarli glanced once more at the sleeping young woman before following the doctor back up into the main room of the Memory Den.

Irma smiled her way when they entered. With a little flush of satisfaction, remembering the last time she’d seen the woman, Amarli returned the smile and boldly said, “So, what’re you up to tonight, Irma?”

The older woman leaned into a sitting, surprised but pleased. “Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking I’d hang around The Third Rail later. You could join me, if you like.”

It was smoothly done; flirting had always come easily to her, and she knew the effect she had on people, whether they be man or woman. Behind her, Doctor Amari was undoubtedly rolling her eyes as she returned to her computer.

Irma said slyly, “Are you sure it’s not Magnolia you’ll be looking for?”

Remembering her short-lived conversation with the bar’s singer the night before, Amarli quickly shook her head. “No. She’ll be busy, no doubt.”

“How do you know I’m not busy?”

“Are you?”

Irma smiled at her. Giving in, she finally said, “Okay. If you promise to buy me a drink or two.”

“Deal.” Chancing a glance back over her shoulder, she saw Dr Amari hard at work, typing away with a strenuous expression on her face. “You will tell me when Curie wakes up?” she asked again.

“You’ll be the first person to hear about it,” Doctor Amari replied impatiently.

Amarli pressed Irma’s shoulder lightly with one hand and winked before leaving. The woman was eyeing her like a lion might eye its supper, her ruby red lips poised into a smile.

 ---

They ended up in the Hotel Rexford that night, in a completely different room to the one Amarli had slept in before. It was dingy and smelled of its previous inhabitants, but they let their passions run wild; Irma was just as delightfully seductive as Amarli remembered. And she had a wicked streak, which was always entertaining. After they were done, Amarli lay back on the bed with the sheets bunched around her and smoked a cigarette, watching Irma get dressed.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Irma said. She was flushed, and her blonde hair was falling from the pins that were holding it up.

“It was.” Amarli exhaled some smoke, recalling the night quite fondly. It was all fun, of course, but she felt a note of anxiety fill her again as she remembered how different it all was to her now. She rarely got to spend time in Goodneighbor these days. Not with Shaun to take care of; not with all her Minutemen duties. But would that change now she knew she could never properly go back?

“Will I be seeing you again?”

Amarli shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not here for long.”

Finally, with her red dress fastened properly, Irma strode over and leaned in to give her a chaste kiss. “Well, I’m always game for a night like this,” she purred. “Though you rarely seem to have much time for me these days...”

She didn’t seem offended or put-out, just amused. Amarli liked it when sex was like this; no strings attached. No jealousy or heartache. It was done, they parted ways, and there were no hard feelings on either side. She was also very much aware that neither Magnolia and Irma – two of her favourite women – were interested in much more than a one-night stand. Then again, it got lonely sometimes. Especially in Sanctuary Hills. The possibility of meeting someone and falling in love was below zero, and Amarli sometimes found it frustrating.

“I don’t blame you,” Irma said quickly, misreading Amarli’s silence. “You’re a busy woman. Talented, too.”

“Am I?” Absent-mindedly, Amarli took another draw of her cigarette, suddenly wondering about Curie. Had she woken up yet? She thought of that innocent, vulnerable little woman fast asleep in the memory lounger and it brought a smile to her face.

Irma sat down on the mattress beside her, her hand suddenly flush against her bare leg. “You are,” she said. “Very talented with your hands…”

Chapter Text

PART II

Curie had known it would begin with something like the end. To these eyes, the end looked like death. No… not these eyes. Her eyes. This was her now.

She had been in a place she knew well – a world that was linear, categorized, easy to read. Now, she was instinctively winding herself around the humanity of this woman even though all of it was impossibly crippled in comparison to what she had known before. She was connecting herself to the brain, the spinal cord, the organs...

No. Her brain, her spinal cord, her organs.

This is me. The body is mine.

At least the language was the same, fluid and familiar. Curie found herself using it differently, however. Her thinking was all over the place – words, colours, sounds, shapes – and her reflex was to send it all away. Far away. But she couldn’t. She had no control over this mind, or this body, even though she knew it should now be under her command.

Her systems had always been easy to control; she could scan her data banks whenever she wished, block whichever stimuli that were causing her trouble, put a name or a number to anything her sensors hit upon. It seemed Curie had greatly underestimated the difference between her own processors and the processors of a human body, even though she had already expected a major distinction. She had been warned thoroughly of the difficulty of this conversion by the doctor. Human emotions would be stronger, more vital than anything else Curie had known. She would be introduced to touch, taste, and a sense of smell. There would be new messages, pleasures and warnings being sent to her processors – her brain – and she would need to interpret each of them separately.

Curie could already feel lucidity approaching; a sense of slackening, loosening, opening up to the world around her. But she was not ready. She needed to prepare herself, backup her memory files, recall the data from her robot body –

No!

Everything seared with sharp colour and ringing sound. It was all so much more startling than what she had used to take in with her sensors. This woman’s body was more sensitive than anything Curie had ever experienced, and her own lucidity caught her like a slap to the face.

Her face. This was her body. She needed to remember that if she was going to learn to control it.

But then there were the feelings. Curie was too overwhelmed to do anything but note what they were and file them away for later. There was cold air on her skin and a dull pain gripping her limbs; and, even more magnificent, one of the senses she had never experienced – scent. The air in her nose was uncomfortable, but it was not a bad smell.

Dust, Curie thought immediately. Old fabric.

This body already had existing databanks on everything it had experienced, even if the memories and the previous inhabitant were gone. Marvellous! And there was muscle memory too – images arrived unbidden to her frantic mind of people walking, running, moving, talking. Her own muscles twitched in response.

To get more of the feeling of the musty fabric in her nose, Curie found herself breathing in – she felt the air move all around her, and there was a worrying pressure in her chest as it expanded and filled. Panicking, she tried to force it all out again, but her chest still did not feel quite the same once the air was gone. Now she felt empty. Her mind ran through all of the lung and heart disease files she had, matching with too many to count. What was wrong with her body? Was it sick? Was she dying?

“Just breathe.” The words came from all around her at first, but when Curie thought of them again, she could pinpoint that they originated from somewhere to her left. She worked to identify it and came up with a label immediately: Doctor Amari.

Bubbling up without her permission, she found words automatically leaving her lips: “I… I… my chest! What is happening?”

Her voice sounded high-pitched to her own ears, and it vibrated throughout her head and down her airways. If anything, she was gasping even harder after she had spoken. Did all humans have to do this, all the time? Did they need to concentrate this hard on drawing air into and out of their lungs? How did they sleep? How did they do anything? She had always thought…

Suddenly, Curie felt it – panic. Pure, goading fear, locking around her like a vise. There was a hammering rhythm in her skull, and she knew it must be her poor little heart beating out of control. She opened her eyes instinctively and saw glass all around her, and a light so bright that it blinded her. Where was she? What if she suffocated in here? What if she died?

“Just breathe,” Doctor Amari said again. There was a movement at the corner of Curie’s vision – the doctor in her white lab coat. “It’s an autonomic function. Just let your body do what it must.”

There was a heat and wetness in Curie’s eyes, so she closed them again and tried to suppress the fear. But it wouldn’t stop. The more she grappled for control, the harder it was to breathe and the more scared she felt. And then she realized; this was not how human bodies worked. If she was to live inside it – if it was to become hers – she would need to let it act instinctively, primitively.

Curie slackened her grip on the body slowly, hearing her own ragged gasps rising in her ears. And then, as if by some curious magic, her pulse rate faded and she felt her chest begin to rise and fall on its own. She opened her eyes again and stared down at it; a flannel shirt in which she could see each individual coloured thread weaving it together. Beneath the shirt, a bra, and her breasts, and her ribcage, and her internal organs, all rising and falling as one.

It was working!

Again, the words came by themselves, shaped by her mouth just as she thought them: “I-I feel… I feel so strange…”

“Listen to me,” Doctor Amari said. “Can you hear me? What is your name?”

Curie looked down at her hand, focusing all of her attention on it, and then felt the muscles in her arm grow taut as she lifted it to her face, curiously examining all the little hairs on the skin, and all the veins running beneath it. It was a small, pale hand, and it looked so alien to her that she wondered if it was even hers. She turned the hand around and saw the little swirls on the fingertips and all over the hands, and the creases for where she clenched it into a fist. She lifted her hand even further until it reached her head and the fingers were pressed to her face, warm and soft, exploring all the features she had already seen from a distance. Now, she was exploring them as her own. There were eyelashes, the strips of hair above the eyes – eyebrows – and the hair on the top of her head, which was warm and silky but cut quite short. There was the protrusion of the nose, the dips of the eyes, the incredibly soft mouth, the ears on either side of the head. She built an image of herself using this, her eyes still focused on the bright light far above her.

“Can you hear me?” Doctor Amari asked again. “Tell me your name.”

The doctor’s voice reminded Curie of what she was supposed to be doing. She tried to draw herself together, but now she’d let go of her control, it felt as if she had no power whatsoever over the feelings in her body. Painstakingly, she set her hand down and turned her head towards the doctor’s voice, feeling the tendons pull stiff and her throat close slightly. It was uncomfortable, but Curie only noted the feeling with curiosity, wondering how humans were so good at surviving when their body parts were this delicate.

“My designation is Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer,” Curie said, this time forcing the words out, her mouth struggling with them. This mouth – this tongue – was not used to a thick accent such as hers. “Or Curie.”

“Good.” There was an internal beeping sound, and then the glass screen around Curie began to lift. She blinked at it, flinching until the movement had stopped. A brown hand reached towards her and Curie followed it up the lab coat-clad arm until she met brown eyes. They were smiling at her kindly along with the mouth. This woman, she knew, looked very different to her, but she remembered all of a sudden that they were almost biologically the same. Curie was in a human body. She had joined the most resilient, resourceful race in the world.

Cautiously, Curie made herself reach for Doctor Amari’s hand. The contact filled her with so many more emotions – elation, warmth, surprise, confusion – and Curie had to wait before she used the woman’s hand to help her sit up. It was an odd feeling, the relaxing and contracting of all the muscles in her body, but once she was more vertical, she began to get a handle on things. She began rapidly noting smells as they reached her nose: dust, bleach, laundry detergent, shampoo, ink. And the sounds, too, although still startling, were able to be sorted between what was inside her body and what was outside. She continued to hold Doctor Amari’s hand like an anchor as she peered around the room and went over every single detail she had remembered before changing bodies. She couldn’t quite remember the exact positions of the purified water cans, or the trays with medical equipment on them, or the box on the floor under Doctor Amari’s desk. As a robot, she had been able to remember every little detail she saw and keep it like a photograph in her database. Now, after looking once, she immediately forgot everything except what the object looked like. This was perhaps something else she had underestimated.

“How’re you feeling, Curie?” Doctor Amari asked.

“Very strange,” Curie replied haltingly. “It is… so overwhelming, but I feel my systems are in order.”

“Good. Very good.” Doctor Amari’s eyes changed – there was a flash of something extra which Curie would never have recognized with her robot sensors. Now, however, it made her recoil.

“What is it?” Doctor Amari cautiously pulled back and stared at her. “Are you okay?”

Curie pressed a hand to her forehead in a woeful gesture she had seen before on other humans, which felt natural to her. “I am so confused,” she whispered.

“Would you like to try standing? Walking?”

Cautiously, Curie lifted her head and nodded. She didn’t know what she must have seen in Doctor Amari’s eyes before, but she surmised she was only scared because she didn’t yet know how to interpret it. While this body told her everything it knew about the world and gave her all the tools to understand it, it was up to her to learn how to use those tools. What good was knowledge without knowing how to apply it?

Doctor Amari lowered her hand again and Curie took it, leaning forward and feeling all the muscles in her body shorten and lengthen at once. So odd, and yet she felt so powerful. With more help on the doctor’s part, she found herself rising onto her legs, moving higher and higher until she almost hit her head on the glass window of the memory lounger. She flinched frantically, not wanting to feel pain just yet, and Doctor Amari pulled her out of harm’s way.

“There you are,” she said, pleased. “You’re standing.”

Her legs were shaking.

Curie looked down at her feet, which were dressed in falling-apart sneakers. They would do no good for long periods of walking – as soon as she could, she would need to find someone to repair them. Even the clothes could do with some replacement. She wiggled her toes experimentally and then grabbed Doctor Amari with her other hand as she almost toppled off-balance. “I am sorry!” she squeaked.

“It’s all right.” Doctor Amari steadied her. “Let’s try walking, hmm?”

And so Curie began to move her legs, too, and it came to her much easier than she had expected.  She began hobbling around the room first, and then walking smoothly, and then – without Doctor Amari’s help – gliding laps as if she had been doing it her whole life. She let out a loud, vibrating sound, and then slapped her hands over her mouth in surprise and confusion. What was that?

“You’re laughing,” Doctor Amari said, chuckling as well. She was leaning against her desk and watching Curie’s progress.

“That is… odd.” Curie couldn’t quite comprehend the happiness she was feeling. It was wonderful, but daunting as well. “Is there something funny?”

“I suppose there must be.”

Curie began to walk again, pacing back and forth. “This is very easy,” she said.

“Glad to hear it.” Doctor Amari grabbed something off her desk – a clipboard – and shuffled a few papers around. “I would like to test some cognitive functions with you, Curie, but I promised your friend I’d tell her when you were awake...”

“Ah!” Curie said suddenly, excitement flaring inside of her and making her stomach flutter. “My Madame! Yes, tell her to come! She will be just as pleased as me, I think.”

“Stay here and continue with your walking,” Doctor Amari told her firmly. “I’ll be right back.”

Curie nodded and watched her leave the room. She had not thought about her Madame yet! Where had she gone? Would she be happy and excited to see that Curie was awake? Would she believe it was really her? The excitement was so whole and complete for a moment that Curie had to stop walking and steady herself against the wall. Oh… odd. The entire body felt these emotions – she felt it in all her limbs as well as her chest and her head. These emotions were so severe, yet so wonderful. She did feel very fond of the woman who had saved her from the vault, so perhaps it was no surprise that the feelings for her were stronger than those for the doctor.

Drawing herself up, Curie began walking again, lengthening her strides.

 ---

Amarli was smoking on one of the courtyard benches when a woman in a dark coat came and stood over her. She blew smoke out the side of her mouth and squinted upwards, stiffening in alert when she realized it was Doctor Amari. The woman very rarely left the Memory Den, so it was an odd sight to see her out here. Beneath the coat, she was still wearing her clothes from the lab, and she had a clipboard pressed to her chest. Quickly, Amarli discarded of her cigarette and said, “Jesus, it’s been two days – did she only just wake up?”

“Yes,” Doctor Amari said simply. She paused as she watched Amarli stand and brush off her jeans. “But she’s finding it hard to get used to everything. Please don’t overwhelm her too much.”

“Why would I do that?” She peered at the doctor anxiously. “Has she changed? Personality-wise, I mean.”

Doctor Amari had begun to smile. “Oh, no,” she said. “I would say she is exactly the same personality, only in a different body. It’s really quite charming.”

Amarli tried to imagine the robot’s innocent, quirky scientist mind in that sleeping woman’s body. She couldn’t do it. She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “Well? Take me to her, then.”

Stepping back from the bench, Doctor Amari began to return to the Memory Den, picking her way around clumps of rubbish as if she had been doing it for most of her life. Well, she probably had. Amarli followed much more slowly, wondering what she was going to find down in that old lab. She still couldn’t think of Curie as anything other than a Miss Nanny robot. Was it really possible for her to become a human being? Had it been a bad idea to let her try?

Irma wasn’t where she usually was when they entered the Memory Den; Amarli glanced around for her curiously before remembering that it was rather early in the morning and the woman was probably asleep. There were rooms upstairs somewhere, she was sure, though Irma had never invited her to stay.

Doctor Amari took off her coat and draped it over one of the memory loungers, straightening out her skirt. She was still holding the clipboard, and when Amarli looked closely at the words, she could see a few hastily-written questions and boxes for answers. She followed the doctor as she headed downstairs, her skin burning in anticipation as the woman opened the door with ease and slipped inside. As Amarli stepped in after her, she had to step back again almost immediately as someone almost walked right into her. That someone in question stopped their progress by stumbling into the wall for support and then looked at Amarli with an expression of cheerful excitement. “Oh – Madame!”

Amarli stared at her. The shock of hearing such a familiar French accent coming from that strange woman’s mouth was like a glass of cold water to the face. Now that the woman was awake, Amarli could see the colour of her eyes: it was almost like they were both blue and hazel at the same time, with the blue creeping in around the edges as if it were trying to take over. Curie blinked and the beauty was momentarily covered by the shield of her eyelashes; naturally long and soft-looking. All of her features were alive and animated, her hands moving, clasping together. The lines of her body were long, clean and symmetrical, with considerable curves, but she held herself with a sense of awkward uncertainty.

Unsure, Amarli asked, “Is that… really you, Curie?”

“Yes!” Curie’s excitement seemed to grow – it showed pure and stark on her face. She took a step forward, wobbled, and then moved back to the wall again. “You sound so different with these ears,” she said sheepishly, her accent distorting the vowels.

Amarli continued to stare at her. She couldn’t quite believe it, but it had had happened. There was no mistaking the tone and accent, even if the voice was very different. It was cleaner, smoother, less muffled by her robot processors. This wasn’t just the same woman – it was really Curie.

“We’re going to start testing your cognitive functions now, Curie,” Doctor Amari said. She was already scribbling something down on her clipboard, watching their exchange.

Tearing her eyes away from Amarli’s face, the woman – Curie – turned to face her. All of a sudden, the pure excitement was gone and replaced with an expression of grim determination. It had been such an abrupt switch that Amarli found herself still staring, mouth half-open. It would make sense that Curie wasn’t entirely in control of her emotions yet. She had no idea how to hide anything that she was feeling; she probably didn’t even realize that it was all showing on her face.

“What is one plus two?” Doctor Amari asked.

“Three,” Curie said instantly.

“If I threw a baseball at your head, what would you do?”

“Uh… move.” She said it in a surprisingly indignant voice, as if it was something which should be painfully obvious.

“Think of a strong memory. The first that comes to mind. Tell me about it.”

Curie looked meditative now, her face going blank. And then she smiled and sighed, the change just as abrupt as before. “Doctor Burrow was very old,” she began. “He was the last living scientist in my section of Vault 81. He was on his bed. Very weak. He said to me, ‘Curie, you must…’” Curie’s voice faltered, and a look of mild confusion came onto her face. “…And he died before he finished the sentence.”

“Curie? You okay?” Amarli asked reflexively.

“Oh, my insides feel peculiar,” she sighed. “What is that?” She pressed a hand to her stomach, and then her chest.

“I’m not feeling it, so you tell me.”

Curie's eyes widened in bewilderment. “I have no idea! My chest feels so tight.” She paused, her voice weakening. “Poor Doctor Burrow…”

Amused, Amarli said, “You might be feeling grief. For a friend.”

“This unit has no friends,” Curie said immediately. “But… there! My chest is tightening when I think of poor Doctor Burrow...”

Doctor Amari was smiling. “The operation appears successful.”

Curie still looked troubled, leaning into the wall with her eyes downcast. Approaching Amarli, the doctor said, “I think it will take a lot of adjustment for your new friend. She may need your help to make the transition.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, doctor!” Curie said suddenly. “For this opportunity!”

“I’m glad it went so well.”

Curie was still pressing a hand to her chest; with a stricken look in her eyes, she lowered it. “Do we leave now, Madame?” she said to Amarli.

“Maybe you can wait outside?” Amarli suggested hesitantly. “I just need to talk to Doctor Amari about a few things.”

Nodding sharply, Curie walked determinedly to the door, stared down at the door handle, and then reached and fumbled with it. When it was finally open and she disappeared from view, Amarli found herself smiling wide. She knew this was going to be much more difficult than she had anticipated – Curie was even more vulnerable than she’d expected her to be. But it was touching to see her trying to learn how to use her body properly, and Amarli would be happy to be involved.

“So, doctor,” Amarli said. “Tell me what exactly I’m going to have to do to help her with her… transition.”

 ---

When Amarli finally left the laboratory, mulling over everything that Doctor Amari had suggested, she looked around her in surprise. She’d expected Curie to be waiting on the stairs, but she was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, she jogged up and peered into the Memory Den’s main room. She wasn’t in there either. Feeling like a panicked mother who’d lost her child in a supermarket, Amarli stopped and stared around her sharply, suddenly feeling very frustrated.

How was she already missing? She’d only just been out here for a minute!

“Curie?” she called, not bothering to lower her voice for Irma’s sake. “Curie, where did you go?”

There was a muffled, “Madame!” from the rooms behind the Memory Den. Very quickly, Amarli strode towards the sound with a scowl on her face, only to find that Curie was sitting neatly on a stool beneath the staircase, hidden in the shadows. She was huddled there as if she thought it was a safe space, as if she was trying to hide from the world. Her face was set in confusion; she evidently had no idea why Amarli might be angry. “You need something, yes?”

Amarli let out a sigh of relief as she approached and stopped to look down at her. Reigning in her annoyance, she said, “Don’t go wandering off, okay? Not until you’ve gotten the hang of being in a human body. I can’t help you if you get lost.”

Curie’s head dipped up and down in a hesitant nod. She looked uncomfortable doing it, and there was a flash of mixed emotions in her eyes. At least Amarli would always know what was going on inside her head now. She was as readable as an open book.

Drawing in a deep breath, Curie looked away and said, “Remember to breathe. I keep thinking if I forget to do this...” Her eyes widened. “…No more Curie!”

She sounded so worried saying it that Amarli couldn’t help but bend and place a comforting hand on her shoulder. The woman flinched at the touch, her eyes narrowing, and Amarli quickly pulled away. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“It is…okay.” Curie looked sheepish. “This is all so new! Suddenly, all this excitement we do, there is an element of something new. What if my arm is blown off? It is not so simple to repair this now!”

Quite amused, Amarli said, “Here’s some advice: keep your limbs attached from now on.”

The laugh came from Curie like a newly sprung leak – timid at first, stopping and starting. It was one of the most natural things she’d done so far, and she immediately clasped a hand over her mouth in an old-fashioned gesture of shock and embarrassment. The mirth was in her eyes, but she didn’t seem to understand or acknowledge it at all. Slowly, she lowered her hand. “That was... strange,” she said. “I laughed.”

Amarli was enjoying this more and more. She leaned against the wall, grinning down at Curie. “Are you afraid?” she asked more seriously.

Curie inhaled deeply again, her confusion returning. “I suppose it could be fear. But… something else as well. It is a jumble.”

“This is what you signed up for.”

“But I had no idea how different it would be!” Curie protested, looking truly nervous now.

Amarli sighed. “Look, you don’t have to worry. I’ll keep you safe.”

Glancing up at her, Curie’s hazel-blue eyes seemed to brighten, peering at Amarli with a strange expression. Vaguely, she said, “That makes me feel… better. Calm.”

“Good.”

“I… I will be fine. It is coming to me. Quickly, I hope.” Curie swallowed, the bobbing movement of her throat drawing Amarli’s eyes to the smooth, pale skin there. She was not necessarily as small and delicate as Amarli had thought when looking down at her in that memory lounger, but she still looked incredibly vulnerable. Surely it would hardly take a heavy gust of wind to knock her over, or a piece of paper to cut her skin. Yes, Amarli would protect her as well as she could. She couldn’t just leave Curie here all on her own.

“Just bear with me,” Curie said brightly. “I am sure my research will blossom with this magnificent new hardware.”

Hardware?

How long would it take to make Curie talk like a normal person and not like a robot? If she started speaking about her ‘hardware’ or her ‘processors’ on the street, people would immediately catch on that she was a synth and pull their guns on her. She wouldn’t last a day.

“Hey, Curie,” Amarli said. “How about, unless I tell you to, you don’t speak unless it’s absolutely necessary? Just while we’re inside the city, I mean.”

Curie looked confused, but she nodded. “Of course, Madame! I shall make silent observations.”

“Good.” Amarli straightened and beckoned with her head to the doors. “Let’s go. I’ll take you to the hotel.”

 ---

It was almost as though Curie was both an adult and a child simultaneously. She still seemed to retain the innocence and on occasion the emotions of a young girl, yet she had outstanding deductive and analytical powers which were left over from her two hundred years spent as a Miss Nanny bot.

The moment Curie stepped out into Goodneighbor, she wrinkled her nose in incredible disgust and said, “Who knew that the chemical composition of the atmosphere could smell so... very off?” She turned and looked up at Amarli hopefully. “We should visit someplace that smells nice.”

Amarli forced back a smile. “Remember what I said about keeping quiet?” she scolded.

Curie immediately clapped a hand to her mouth. “I shall remember this time,” she promised fretfully. “It is harder to remember things now, but I will do it.”

Shaking her head in amusement, Amarli began moving towards the buildings next door. “Come on. Keep close.”

The woman stuck to her side, following her like a sheep and staring at all of the drifters with new, curious eyes. She walked confidently enough, but Amarli had a feeling that everyone knew how out of place she was. Goodneighbor was perhaps the worst place to get Curie on her feet. If someone chose to approach Curie now, she could very easily get hurt or even killed.

Amarli entered the lobby of Hotel Rexford, holding the door open for Curie to follow her. The woman looked around in awe, taking in the red carpet and the people lounging on couches. She opened her mouth to speak, then remembered what she’d been told and very determinedly cast her eyes to the floor and pressed her lips together. Everything she did was involuntarily comical, and Amarli was genuinely having a hard time trying not to laugh at her. 

Leading the way past the front desk and up the stairs, Amarli made sure to walk slowly so Curie didn’t have to rush herself. There were so many simple things she hadn’t yet experienced, and physical exertion was one of them. When Amarli unlocked the door to her room and led Curie inside, the woman looked around curiously. She went to stand near the window, and then glanced at the bed. Finally, she said, “There are signs of previous human occupants here.”

“That’s hotels for you,” Amarli said. She dumped her bag by the door and went to sit on the mattress. Curie immediately moved to sit next to her, bouncing a little and looking surprised. She squeezed the mattress with her hands. “This is very… pleasant.”

Amarli was watching her. “You don’t know what a good mattress feels like. Maybe someday I’ll show you mine back at home.” After realizing this almost sounded like she was flirting, Amarli impulsively said, “Not that I want to sleep with you or anything.”

“Why not?” Curie glanced up at her now. “Sleeping is good, yes?”

Amarli laughed awkwardly. “Uh… yes.”

With a great sigh, Curie suddenly flopped back and stared up at the ceiling. She raised her hands to her face and stared at them, too. “So much to experience and feel. How can I fit it all in one lifetime?” she wondered.

You’ll live more than one lifetime, Curie, Amarli thought. It was a sobering thing to remember. Someday, she would eventually grow old and die (if she didn’t get killed by something first). Synths like Shaun and Curie would live on until the end of time.

“It is morning, yes? We should go somewhere exciting.” Curie clawed her way into a sitting again, and then pushed herself to her feet, wobbling slightly. She began walking around the room, picking up objects to examine them before placing them exactly where she’d found them. She did it in such a watchful, precise way that Amarli found it was impossible to deny that she was the same Curie who had been in that Miss Nanny bot body before. While her movements were still slightly awkward, she was very quickly getting used to being human.

She stopped by the mirror and flinched a little bit in surprise at her reflection. “It is me!” she said absorbedly, as if she had made an astounding medical discovery. With her fingertips, she traced her features, and then turned to look at Amarli. “It is so jarring being in this body.”

“I bet it is.”

Curie stared at herself for a few moments more before moving on, her fingers tracing the taps on the sink, and the basin, and then the lamp on Amarli’s nightstand. She finally returned to the mattress. Amarli realized she was building up a tactile memory of this place as well as visual. She was testing every one of her senses. How must it feel to be introduced to so many new things at once?

“So?” Curie said brightly. “Shall we go?”

Amarli frowned at her. “We’ve just arrived. Now you want to leave?”

“I am taking notes, analysing data, and yet I keep getting distracted. By all manner of inconsequential things,” Curie explained. “It would be good for me to become accustomed to these distractions, yes?”

“But-”

“We should go walking. A good walk outdoors is an excellent way of maintaining one's vigor.” Curie gazed out of the window again at the town below. And then she suddenly snapped her head back to stare at Amarli, her face draining slightly of colour. “Oh!” she said. Pressing a hand to the space between her hips, she gasped. “What…?”

Wincing, Amarli said, “I’m guessing you need to go to the bathroom.”

Was she going to have to go in with her and help her? Yikes.

But then Curie’s eyes unexpectedly brightened. “Ah, yes,” she said knowingly. “I must dispose of unnecessary bodily fluids.” She looked around the room. “Where can I do this?”

“There’s a bathroom down the hall. I can take you, if you want...”

To her surprise, Curie gave a quick, resolute shake of her head. “I must learn to do this myself,” she said firmly. "It is not so difficult."

“Uh, okay.” Amarli eyed her amusedly. “Well, I’ll just show you where it is, then.”

She stood up and led Curie out of the hotel room and into the hall. When she pointed at the correct door, Curie set off with determined strides towards it. Once she’d shut the door behind her, however, Amarli heard the woman sneezing loudly.

“My nose is so broken! Ack...”

Her voice was muffled, but Amarli had heard the words clearly enough that they finally set her off laughing. She was unable to move for a long second, completely overcome by the trembling laughter rumbling from her chest. She felt a little guilty; after all, Curie wasn’t here to entertain her. But there was something so naïve and adorable about her that Amarli just couldn’t help it. Finally, the laughter tapered off and she let out a sigh, folding her arms and leaning against the door frame while she waited. The bathroom door eventually opened and Curie came out looking frazzled but beaming from ear to ear.

“I have done it!” she said victoriously.

Barely disguising another chuckle, Amarli stepped back so Curie could pass her into the room. The woman immediately went straight to the sink and began washing her hands, staring at her reflection the mirror. And then she looked around, confused. “Where is the soap?”

“Soap?” Amarli repeated, closing the door. Realizing that Curie was completely serious, she sighed and walked to her bag, taking the partly used bar of soap out from where it was nestled in her clothes. “Here.”

Curie took it gratefully, cheerfully scrubbing her fingers until they were just as white and clean as before. She tried to give the slippery bar back to Amarli, but Amarli put it back on the sink. “When it dries,” she said gently. “I’ll have it back then.”

And then she stood and considered Curie, in her ragged clothes and with her un-combed short black hair. She glanced at her bag, thinking of all the caps in there. She could definitely spare a few, if it meant Curie’s life would be easier and safer.

“Right,” Amarli said suddenly. “Curie, I want you to stay in here until I come back.”

The woman’s eyebrows immediately drew together into an anxious frown. “If waiting is what's required...” she said reluctantly. “It is safe here, yes?”

“If you stay inside.” Amarli grabbed her bag and went to the door. “I’ll be back in an hour, I think. Maybe less. Make yourself comfortable.”

Curie didn’t at all look comfortable. She stood stiffly by the sink, eyes trained intensely on Amarli. “Just don't leave me here too long,” she said gravely.          

“I won’t.”

 ---

Curie busied herself at first by trying to go through all of her backed up system data. But, to her frustration, she could currently remember hardly half of what she had known before. The things she had forgotten were only small details – hundreds of them – but Curie still found herself mourning their loss. The mortality rate of Influenza C... was it 88%? Or 89%? She just couldn’t seem to recall.

Eventually, she had to give up, because all the thinking was making her skull ache. This surprised her more than anything else, because she was used to being able to skim through all of her data within seconds. Now, she felt it could take hours. Maybe days.

Curie began exploring the hotel room again. This was no "chocolate on the pillow" hotel like the ones she had read about. There were no chocolates anywhere. Or pillows. In fact, apart from her Madame’s things, there wasn’t really much in the room that she could interact with. She began to develop a routine: stop for five whole minutes and listen; close the shutters; impulsively check the closets, drawers and nightstands; climb onto the bed and lay there until her skin began to tingle and she needed to move again; walk over to the sink and stare at her new reflection in the mirror; wash her hands with cool water. And it would go on and on.

Curie was doing it so that she could keep the time. There was no clock of any kind in the room, and Curie didn’t have her internal systems to tell her what time it was. So she used the routine to tell her how long it had been, waiting and waiting for her Madame to get back.

She didn’t like being alone. Now that she had gotten used to the rush of air against her skin, the feel of her clothes as she moved, the smells that came out of nowhere, the sounds which she heard vibrating through the ground… now, she was hungry for more. And her Madame had been the most exciting of all her stimuli, making her chest fill with happiness and her heart swell. Curie could not believe the woman had gone through so much to help her. Inexplicably, although she could at times be very formidable, Curie felt safe around her. There was a sense of calm, of ease, of understanding.

Curie sighed. The sound filled the silence in a pleasing way. So she sighed again. And then, out of nowhere, a surprising urge took over her, swelling in her chest and her throat until it broke out of her. Her mind scrambled to attach a meaning – it was a yawn. She had yawned.

Oh no.

Curie felt as if her battery was running low. All the fuel had been draining from her body from the effort of keeping up with her new humanity. Perhaps she needed a refill? Food. Humans ate food.

Curie walked over to the door, where the beige wallpaper was peeling and she could see the damp creeping up the walls. She peeked through the crack but could only see darkness. Curie was certain an hour had passed, unless her calculations had been incorrect. They had never been incorrect before.

Where was her Madame?

Curie’s body was filling with an odd tingling energy that she reckoned must be panic again. She was worrying her Madame would not come back. And she was still not sure how so many things worked – how high were her chances of survival without her? Lower than fifty percent. Thirty-eight percent at most.

There was a desk in the room as well as the bed, dresser and cabinets, with a rickety wooden chair beside it. Curie walked over and sat down gingerly, her elbows on the wooden surface. It felt rough and cool against her skin. Struggling to find a comfortable position, Curie finally ended up with her cheek resting on one fist. She was staring directly at the door in hopes that her Madame would come in all of a sudden and she wouldn’t be alone anymore. But she did not come.

Curie felt her chest loosen, and her eyes grew hot all of a sudden, her eyelids beginning to droop. She sighed, leaning harder against the desk, struggling to keep her eyes open. How was she suddenly so low on battery? Her systems always used to warn her when she was below 20%. This had come out of nowhere. But it was insistent and powerful, and her whole body seemed to crave the closing of her eyes and the resting of her head on the desk. Curie found herself resting the entire weight of her head on her fist, eyes flickering closed, and was about to surrender to the blackness beyond when she dimly heard the turning of the door handle. She had been waiting for the sound for so long that it immediately saved her from whatever was about to happen – Curie jerked up, energy fizzling in her veins, and looked towards the door. She was overwhelmed with relief when she saw her Madame there, bag on her back and arms filled with some bundles of leather. There was an urge to run over and get close, and show the woman how happy she was for her return, but Curie’s low-battery state forced her to continue sitting there.

“Curie, are you…? Oh.” Her Madame had turned after putting everything on the bed, and had her hands on her hips as she looked across the room at her. She let loose a small laugh, a sound that perked Curie’s ears. Sympathetically, she said, “You’re falling asleep.”

Curie felt an instant flash of surprise. “I have only been awake two hours and forty-three minutes.”

“How… do you know that?”

“It is simple mathematics, Madame,” Curie said, finding that she was yawning again. “I created a routine-”

“Never mind. You don’t have to explain.” The woman brushed a wisp of curly black hair out of her face and walked over, bending to look in Curie’s face. She was smiling. “I forgot you were a genius.”

There was a jerk of something in Curie’s chest. Pride, her mind told her. Her mouth stretched into a smile without her permission, and she felt her cheeks heat as well. To hide it all, Curie lowered her head and stared at the desk. Her Madame’s hand was there next to hers, the fingers long and capable, the fourth finger wearing a slender silver ring which shone against her creamy tan flesh. Curie stared at it for a long moment, wondering how a hand could look so aesthetically pleasing when all it was doing was sitting there.

“Do you want to go to bed?”

Curie looked up into her Madame’s face, drawn by the startling green of her eyes against the brown of her skin. Slowly, she nodded. She knew there was no other way to get rid of this feeling; if she was exhausted, even food couldn’t solve it. Sleep was a vital indicator of overall health and well-being.

“May I touch you?”

Curie nodded again. She didn’t mind the contact when she was expecting it, even though it still confused her with a blur of emotions. When that long brown hand gently clasped her shoulder, helping her stand up, Curie felt the warmth of it through her clothes and only felt safe. She was led swiftly over to the bed, and then she clambered onto the mattress and automatically found her body curling up lengthways near the headboard. “Thank you, Madame,” she murmured.

There was another short laugh, and the mattress dipped as the other woman sat down next to her. “I’m not the boss of you. You need to start calling me by my name,” she said. Her voice softened. “Call me Amarli.”

Curie lifted her head. “Amarli?” she repeated, the word tumbling slowly and cautiously out of her mouth. This heavy accent of hers seemed to butcher the pretty name.

Amarli only looked incredibly pleased, smiling wider. “That’s right.” She glanced sideways at all the equipment she had laid at the bottom of the bed. “I’ll leave you to sleep right now. But when you wake up you can look at all the things I bought you.”

Curie’s eyes were already closing, and she saw the same odd colour of the insides of her eyelids that she remembered from earlier, upon waking up in her new body. She was a little scared to let her body drift off like this, but she knew it was only for the best. She would be recharged when she woke up. There was the ghost of a hand on her shoulder again, the mattress moving as Amarli stood up, and then Curie finally let go and allowed her body to drag her further into sleep.

Chapter Text

“They might be too big,” Amarli said doubtfully, spreading out all the clothes she’d bought from the Goodneighbor stores much earlier on. She’d gotten t-shirts, jeans, sturdy boots and – so her job wouldn’t be made any harder than it needed to be – some of the best leather armour that KL-E-O had to offer. Curie had woken up a little over ten minutes ago, looking drowsy and unsure of her surroundings. Amarli hoped the weariness would fade away soon. Her hair was messy and her eyes were still half-lidded, but she’d been adamant that she see what Amarli had bought her.

“I must try,” she announced. Carefully, she leaned to rub the material of one of the t-shirts between her fingers. “Thank you, Madame.”

“Amarli,” Amarli corrected her.

Curie smiled absently, as if she hadn’t heard her. And then, without any warning whatsoever, she began pulling the flannel shirt she was wearing over her head.

“Wha-!” Amarli grabbed her arms and made her drop the hem of the shirt. “Curie, what are you doing?”

Curie looked confused for a second, and then cocked her head. “Is not wearing clothes still considered taboo?” She frowned. “But that data is old.”

Amarli let out a surprised laugh and let go of her. “No, you’re right. I just… you’ve got to unbutton it first. Look.” While Curie was watching her, she reached for the front of her shirt and began pushing the buttons through the holes. She did the first two, felt her face heat, and then stepped back. “Now you do it.”

Having gotten the hang of it instantly, Curie unbuttoned the shirt the rest of the way and let it fall from her shoulders. Amarli instantly averted her eyes, looking at the wall instead. It would feel incredibly wrong to start looking at Curie the way she looked at other attractive women. She was… like a child. As endearing as she was, Amarli would not bite.

Curie reached for one of the t-shirts – a white one – and began wriggling it over her head. While Amarli was already losing her nerve, she again had to stop her, realizing she was about to get stuck. “No, not like that.”

She made Curie relax and then showed her how to put her arms through the arm holes first, and then her head. She kept her eyes trained on Curie’s face the entire time, wondering when this was going to end. Curie was completely unabashed about her own half-naked body, and Amarli had a feeling she would not be averse to stripping off her trousers, too. Curie was shy, but she hadn’t been in a human body long enough to develop a sense of self-awareness or be embarrassed about the way she looked. Not that there was anything to be embarrassed about.

The t-shirt was too short in the arms but long enough that it passed Curie’s hips. It looked like an older brother’s hand-me-down. Amarli stepped back to examine it. “Yeah, good,” she said, pleased.

“Good!” Curie smiled. “Now the trousers, yes?”

“Uh… yes. Actually, I need to go to the toilet.” Amarli quickly moved towards the door. “You can manage, can’t you? I’ll be back to help you with the armour.”

Curie looked disappointed but eager to please. “I can manage,” she said with certainty.

“Good. I’ll be back in five.”

As she left and closed the door behind her, she heard a quizzical, “Five what?”

Wasting as much time as she could in the bathroom and the hallway, Amarli waited for much longer than five minutes before returning to her room to see how Curie was doing. To her relief, the woman was already dressed in her jeans but seemed to be struggling with the button. Amarli approached her. “Gently,” she told her.

Curie relaxed her hand, and then managed to push the button through the hole, looking up triumphantly. Her cheeks were slightly red, and Amarli wondered how much she had struggled just to get one pair of trousers on. It made her tremble with the urge to laugh again.

“I would not be able to do this without you, Madame,” Curie said blushingly. Lowering her gaze, she corrected herself: “Amarli.”

Touched, Amarli smiled at her. “Now the armour,” she said.

“It will keep me safe?”

“It’ll do its job,” Amarli said vaguely. “But you should definitely try to avoid getting hurt.”

The armour was much easier to deal with than the clothes. Amarli helped her with the chest piece first, making her hold it against her as she tied and buckled the straps around her torso, making sure not to pull them too tight. And then she did the armguards, tying the leaded leather to each forearm while Curie sat on the edge of the mattress. Finally, she kneeled in front of her and strapped the armour to her thighs and calves. She made sure not to touch Curie too much with her bare hands, aware that contact still made the woman uncomfortable, and when she was done, she found that Curie was smiling down at her.

“Does it feel okay?” she asked

“It is tight,” Curie said. “But not so much I cannot breathe.” She inhaled and exhaled deeply as if to prove her point. “Now I must learn to shoot, yes?”

“That’ll come later.” Amarli stood up. “It’s time to go for a walk. I’ll feel better about taking you out there now you’re at least a little bit protected.”

“But you would protect me.” Curie said it as if it were a definite thing, standing up as well so she could look more directly into Amarli’s face.

“I’ll try to protect you, Curie,” Amarli said uncomfortably. “But I don’t know if I’ll always be able to succeed.”

Curie’s face fell.

“Come on,” Amarli said, glancing away. “We can get you something to eat while we’re outside.”

After a couple moments of hesitation, Curie moved to the door and let Amarli lead her out of the hotel room.

 ---

It turned out that going to the bathroom, eating, sleeping and drinking were the lessons with which Curie struggled the most. She knew how to do all of these things, but she still hadn’t gotten the hang of understanding her body’s messages. She still couldn’t really tell the difference between needing the toilet and feeling hungry, although there seemed to be an obvious distinction when it came to thirst and sleeping. Those were more unique feelings than the usual ache in her abdomen.

For the first few days of Curie’s human life, she convinced Amarli to let her stay often in the hotel room so she could get the hang of her basic human needs. She slept a lot, but the more the slept, the more tired she seemed to feel. Amarli brought her snacks and at first needed to teach her that she had to chew before swallowing or the food would get stuck in her throat. With water, Curie learned to take measured sips so that she wouldn’t end up inhaling it into her lungs when she needed to take a breath. She was so worried about needing the bathroom all the time that she went straight to the toilet the moment she noticed something amiss in her lower body. Eventually, even though Amarli still needed to be there to watch her all the time, Curie began to take all of it in stride. She could eat and drink without too much trouble, began cutting down her sleeps to night time and afternoon naps, and got much better at knowing when her body needed to eject its waste.

Amarli, who had been completely caught up in helping her, seemed to be doing less of all these things herself. Curie had never really seen her eating, rarely saw her take a sip of water, and she never slept except for taking short naps in the mornings and afternoons. The only thing she did do right was slink gracefully off to the bathroom every few hours. While Curie continued to remind her that her health was important, her concerns were constantly dismissed. Amarli, it seemed, was not at all bothered about herself. 

While she was out at night, Amarli bought her magazines and textbooks that she’d managed to find in the stores on the east side of the town, and Curie would spend mornings skimming through them as fast as she could, re-learning about things which had seemed unnecessary when she was a robot. There was a short, worn book called Etiquette for Young Moderns – How to succeed in your social life! by an author named Gay Head; a Red Cross edition of the Junior Health and Hygiene Manual; several articles displaying advertisements for Lifebuoy soap; and, perhaps most useful of all, a magazine called Heading Out on Your Own: 31 Basic Life Skills in 31 Days. Curie pored through them with enthusiasm.

Curie began to create her own health routine – to her, in that dingy old hotel room, her hygiene was one of the most fascinating things she could concentrate on. She convinced Amarli to buy her a toothbrush and toothpaste, her own bar of soap, shampoo, and a comb for her hair. She brushed twice a day and bathed herself regularly; every night while Amarli was out. She trimmed and filed her nails, combed her hair every morning when she woke up, and washed her hands before and after eating or going to the toilet. Amarli told her often that she was turning into a “neat freak”, but Curie didn’t understand how that could be a bad thing. Even Amarli had a military sort of neatness; Curie had watched her folding up her clothes and lining up her boots and bag by the door every night. She’d seen her brushing her teeth and washing her face twice a day. She didn’t wash her hands as much as Curie told her to, and she seemed to enjoy smoking and drinking alcohol, but Curie was ultimately pleased with her. Compared to many of the people they had seen in town, Amarli was the picture of human health.

Curie did not like Goodnighbor. It was full of unnatural, terrible smells, and people who leered at her, and men who called her “baby” when she passed them on the street. She didn’t mind it quite so much when Amarli was with her, because the woman had a very bizarre effect on people – the moment they saw her, they would either smile or lower their eyes. Respect, Curie thought. Amarli was the sort of figure who commanded respect just because of how she looked and acted. And because of the friends she’d made.

Curie met Monsieur Hancock on their third day in Goodneighbor, when Amarli had finally taken her inside the Old State House to look around. She was shocked to see how dark and dusty it looked, with nothing in the displays or on the shelves – everything had been “looted”, Amarli had told her. Stolen. In the main room on the second floor, where every surface was covered in different sorts of medicines and alcohol, they found Hancock smoking alone.

The moment he saw Amarli, he stubbed out his cigarette and said, “I heard you were hangin’ around Goodnieghbor, sister. Nice of you to drop by.”

His voice was very raspy and rough; Curie thought that he must have a sore throat. She tried to think of remedies which she could recommend to help with the pain, but she was unsure if many of the ingredients were still sold after two hundred years.

“I couldn’t leave without seeing the mayor,” Amarli returned. She sat down on one of the couches, leaving Curie standing alone in the doorway. Hancock’s entirely black eyes landed on her immediately, and he smiled wide enough that his extremely scarred cheeks looked as if they would split open. “New friend, eh?” he said to Amarli.

“This is Curie,” Amarli said.

Remembering that Amarli didn’t like her to speak around strangers, Curie kept her mouth shut.

Hancock immediately turned back to Amarli and slid something across the table towards her. Curie noticed with apprehension that it was Jet, one of the most addictive drugs that was still being sold on the market. Hardly glancing down at it, Amarli said, “No thanks. I’ve been taking a break from that sort of stuff.”

“A break?” The ghoul whistled. “Well, I’m sorry to tempt you.” He grinned, leaning against the back of the couch again. “Hey, thanks again for that little recon work you did at Pickman Gallery. Hopefully the jobs you did after that were less... gruesome, huh?”

“I did that job ages ago,” Amarli said, waving a hand. “And I’ve done nothing since.”

Hancock stared at her, and then looked at Curie again, this time more closely. “Don’t tell me you’ve settled down already?”

“I did, for a little bit.” Amarli picked at a loose string on her jeans. “But I couldn’t exactly stay away from danger. Found Curie somewhere along the way, and now… we’re here.”

“Huh.” Hancock busied himself lighting another cigarette, and then beckoned to the couch across from him. “You gonna sit down?” he said to Curie.

Realizing he was being polite, Curie said, “Oh – of course, Monsieur!”

Hancock’s eyes widened at her accent. “Well, well. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“I am not,” Curie agreed. As she sat down, she paused, glancing cautiously at Amarli, before saying, “I think you are such a fascinating specimen, Monsieur Hancock!”

He chuckled. “That's right. Like my face? I think it gives me a sexy, king of the zombies kinda look. Big hit with the ladies.”

Rapidly, Curie nodded, and said, “I should give a ghoul a full physical. I am certain the data would be very interesting.”

“…And my day just got better.” He was grinning at her slyly now, and his look was starting to make Curie feel uncomfortable. Instinctively, she shrunk back. Amarli shot her a very confusing look – part of it seemed angry, and part of it seemed sympathetic. She turned to Hancock and said, “I’m afraid I didn’t come for a long visit.”

“What?” He sat up in surprise. “And here I was thinking ya missed me.”

“I did.” Amarli stood up, however. “Might come by again some other time. But it’s getting late, and we’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

His eyes flickered between her and Curie with stark curiosity, and Curie realized he was trying to discern their relationship to one another. Finally, he let them go with a small nod of his head, putting his cigarette to his lips again.

“It was nice meeting you, Monsieur,” Curie told him graciously.

He smirked. “Nice meeting you too. Take care of yourself out there.”

Amarli was already leaving through the doors, and Curie rushed to follow her, her heavy boots clomping on the floorboards. She had a sense that the other woman was somehow annoyed with her, but she didn’t understand why. When they were back out in the streets, walking side by side in the darkness, Curie found her own emotions rearing up unexpectedly. It was worry, she realized – worry that she’d done something wrong.

“Madame?” she asked carefully.

Amarli only glanced at her, her eyes impossible to read. “Yes, Curie?”

“I… must apologize. You had forbidden me from speaking. It is only that my failsafes do not prevent me from doing it.”

“Curie, I already said I’m not the boss of you.” Amarli sighed. “You’re allowed to speak to whoever you want to. I guess I’m just worried about having to protect you.”

Curie was bewildered. “But Monsieur Hancock is your friend, yes? You talk about him with such happiness.”

“He’s… a complicated person. As am I.”

This didn’t clear away Curie’s confusion at all. But before she could begin asking Amarli more questions, she felt the tell-tale rumble in her stomach that revealed her hunger. “We must have dinner,” she said instantly.

“Can you make it back to the hotel on your own?”

Curie turned to look at her, seeing a challenging glint in her eye. Amarli had done this sometimes over the past few days, making Curie go to places alone in Goodneighbor so that she could learn independence. It was a very dangerous place – Curie knew this – so it meant a great deal that Amarli thought she was autonomous enough to go anywhere on her own. Straightening her shoulders, she said, “Of course!”

“Then I’ll see you back there. And I’ll bring food.”

The moment Amarli dropped the hotel room keys into her hand, Curie began walking, automatically avoiding the worst-smelling piles of rubbish. As she’d expected, the two men outside the town’s bar leered at her as she passed by. She nodded at them with a cheerful smile. “Good evening!”

As she approached the Hotel Rexford, she caught sight of something outside which unexpectedly made her stomach plummet as if she were falling. She faltered in her stride for the first time, suddenly not feeling so confident. There were men standing around a person laying sprawled on the pavement, and they were shaking their heads mournfully. When Curie came close, they gave her odd looks, but she told them, “I have medical knowledge. May I see?”

They shrugged and moved aside.

The man’s head looked as if it had been cleaved in two, with all the bloody contents sprayed out across the pavement. Although Curie was used to looking at death objectively, she felt it affect her now with a strange sort of dizziness. Somehow, the sight of all that blood and brains on the concrete reminded her of how close she was to death. It could happen to her today, or tomorrow, or in a week, or in a month. This man’s death only made her think of her own mortality all the more.

Amongst the mess was a glinting piece of hardware. Curie bent to look at it, her systems immediately identifying it as a chip – some sort of brain implant. Her own reaction to this was jarring; her throat seemed to seize up, her eyes watering.

“Hey, lady – are you-”

A hand gripped her shoulder and Curie immediately yanked herself away in shock at the feel of his touch. The man was staring at her. “Jesus, I was just trying to see if you were okay,” he said. “What, you never seen a dead body before?”

Curie didn’t know how to explain any of the emotions simmering inside of her. She felt more rumbling in her stomach, but it didn’t feel like hunger this time. It felt like she wanted to get something out of her. Nausea. Hotness stung in her eyes, and she lowered her head.

“Hey, don’t be upset. It’s just a synth,” the man said. He adjusted his bowler hat, and then pointed at the chip on its carpet of brains. “Sammy was replaced long ago, probably. I…” He looked troubled. “Jesus, I guess I’m gonna have to tell his mother…”

The other man – a ghoul – was picking at his teeth with one fingernail. He was staring at Curie with an odd smile on his face, like she was entertaining him. “So you’re a doctor, eh?”

Curie shook her head, taking a step back.

“Well, there any other reason you’re here botherin’ us, then?”

“I-I am sorry.” Curie swallowed. She stared at the body again. “This is what is called... a ‘synth’?”

The man fingered the trigger of his gun thoughtfully, still smiling at her. “Uh-huh.” All the alarm bells were ringing in her head as she stared at his weapon. What if he knew she was a synth? What if she ended up with a bullet in the head and her brains all over the ground? No more Curie.

“I must leave!” Curie said quickly. She felt even more unwell now, and she was worried an urge was about to overcome her which she couldn’t control.

“All right. You just stay close to you and yours now.” The man smirked. “They start acting weird – you get that gut-punch that says they’ve been replaced? You’ll know what to do.”

Curie pushed past him, moving hurriedly towards the hotel doors, and heard one of the men chuckling behind her. Her mind was a whirlwind of emotions. She could not be found out now! She still had done so little research with her new hardware – all of this struggle would have been for nothing.

Curie ran for the first time once she was inside the lobby, panic aching in her lungs while her eyes wettened with tears. Running was just as instinctive as walking, though the slamming of her heart in her chest scared her even more. When she reached the correct room, she opened the door and crashed it shut behind her. And then she backed away and sat on the bed. After a few seconds, her heart still racing, she stood and moved to stare out of the window. It was too high up to see the men and the body down below, so she didn’t know if they had followed her. What if they did?

Amarli had weapons, didn’t she? Had she left any of them in the room? Frantically, Curie looked around, seeing that Amarli had – as usual – taken everything she owned with her in her bag when she’d left the hotel that afternoon. So, what could Curie use as a weapon?

She had the key that she’d used to help her get into the hotel room, which could be stabbed into the defenceless eyeballs; there was the lamp on the nightstand, which could be used to enforce blunt trauma; maybe she could even make use of the cans and peel them open so they were sharp like knives. Curie’s panic was so fierce that she actually began to gather these things, ignoring the rational message in her mind telling her that those men had no idea she was a synth and they wouldn’t bother to come after her. She wanted to prove she could stay safe until Amarli returned to her.

It was calming to realize she remembered all the weak spots of the human anatomy. As a robot, she had known exactly where to shoot and exactly what weapon to use. With the arrival of the adrenaline in her human body, all of this information was flooding into her brain once more. Curie was about to grab the lamp and remove its shade when the door handle twisted – she had forgotten to lock it! She spun, holding the lamp up in front of her and drawing her features into what she hoped was anger, something which made her look less like a vulnerable target.

But it was only Amarli, stepping inside with two bottles of Nuka Cola and two cans of cram. She froze immediately when she took in the sight of Curie standing near the window, the room key jutting through the knuckles of one fist while her other hand clutched the lamp like a bat, ready to swing. Amarli looked so shocked that Curie knew immediately she had overreacted – instantly, her stomach plummeted again, but this time in embarrassment.

Awkwardly, she lowered her arms and dropped down on the bed, surprised to feel tears prickling at her eyes again.

“Curie?” Amarli immediately dropped her bags and their dinner by the door, marching over. “What happened?”

For a long time, Curie couldn’t speak. Suddenly, she felt miserably overwhelmed by everything her new body had given her. Why did being human have to be so hard? Why couldn’t she have foreseen the consequences of becoming such a complex, vulnerable creature in a world such as this one? If she could go back, she would. She would do it in a heartbeat.

Amarli, as kind as ever, crouched in front of her so she could see her eyes. “Curie?” she said again, this time more softly.

“They murdered that poor man,” Curie sighed.  

The other woman’s eyebrows rose in understanding. “The man downstairs? The synth?”

“It is irrational to be upset about this, I know, but I dislike the destroying of such works of engineering and science.” Curie paused. “Time and time again, scientific understanding is at odds with basic morality.”

Amarli didn’t seem to know what to say. She looked down at Curie’s hands, and then carefully reached to remove the makeshift weapons from them. Curie let her, quickly loosening her hold on the key and the lamp. As Amarli set them both on the nightstand, she finally said, “Is that why you’re upset? Or is it because you’re also a synth, and you’re scared the same could happen to you?”

Curie sighed morosely.

“Come on, talk to me.” Amarli sat on the bed next to her, keeping a wide gap between them. “You know I enjoy speaking with you.”

“As do I,” Curie said honestly. She grimaced and turned to face her. “I owe you so very much, and I do not mean to sound ungrateful, but I fear I am barely holding myself together.”

Amarli smiled. “It’s all right, I’m here for you.”

Waveringly, Curie said, “Thank you. That means so much.” And it did, because she knew it was true. Over the past few days, Amarli had done nothing but help make her life easier, protecting her from anything that might worry or hurt her. The world was much less devastating with Amarli by her side.

“Becoming a synth is just so overwhelming,” Curie told her gloomily. “At first it was a struggle to master basic functioning. How to brush the teeth, how to operate with only two hands, et cetera. But now I am full of inconsequential thoughts, feelings! How do you do everything with this whirlwind in the head?”

“I hope some of these inconsequential feelings involve me.” Amarli grinned at her.

“Yes – No.” Curie’s eyes widened. “And see, now my head goes ever more! Spin, spin, spin…”

The other woman was still grinning at her, but now looked slightly self-conscious. “I was kidding, Curie.” She sat back. “What sorts of feelings did you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Curie found herself biting down on her bottom lip; it comforted her. “I think anger, fear, happiness – but mostly fear. They’re so new.”

“You’ll get used to them soon.”

“But you make it look so effortless!” Curie exclaimed. “Like breathing. But for me, it is so hard to focus. To do research. And inspiration is as elusive as ever. I fear I will never contribute anything to the world.”

“The world?” Amarli shrugged. “Not so sure. But you’ve certainly made a difference to me.”

Curie stared at her, her throat having gone dry. “More… feelings,” she said quietly. “No words for them.”

Amarli smiled at her kindly. “Like I said, I’m here for you. If you ever need to talk about things like this, you can talk to me.”

As she watched Amarli return to the door and lock it, and then bring over their dinner, Curie found herself speaking automatically: “The saving grace in all of this is you.”

Amarli stopped. “What?”

“As a robot, I had much appreciation for you. But now… it is deeper. I am still loyal. But now I do this because I want to. Because you are… my friend.”

Although Amarli was smiling, she asked, “What do you think a friend is?”

Curie frowned. “Someone that brings you joy – good feelings – when they are about. Someone you desire to help and make happy. Someone you respect. It is hard to say my feelings about you, but I know you are a friend. My friend.”

Sitting down beside her again, Amarli handed her a can of cram and a Nuka Cola. “You're my friend, too, Curie,” she said simply.

Again, there was an incomprehensible rush of feelings, and Curie found herself beaming without meaning to. How had she ever been afraid before? She had made her first friend in this human body, even though she was dreadful at understanding how to use it. That meant she was somewhat successful, didn’t it? Quickly, she looked away from Amarli, not wanting to meet her eyes. “This stirs something in me,” she mumbled. “I have no idea why.”

Amarli laughed. “No idea at all?”

“I…” Curie hesitated, feeling her cheeks grow warm. “I must cut this short. My eyes, they are malfunctioning.” She blinked rapidly, and then set her cram and Nuka Cola down on the mattress. “I need to visit the washroom. Adieu.”

She heard Amarli laughing as she left the room, but it wasn’t the same wicked laughter as the men downstairs. It was soft and almost affectionate. Their conversation had explained many of the feelings she had for Amarli, and it made Curie feel as if she had more of a grip on her humanity. She was a step closer to understanding.

 ---

“Right,” Amarli said on their sixth morning in Goodneighbor. “I think it’s time we get out of here – don’t you?”

It was ten o’ clock, and Curie was standing by the window, gazing outside with open interest and curiosity like she always did. She always seemed to enjoy watching Goodneighbor from above, even though she disliked walking around in it. When Amarli spoke, she looked back at her quizzically and said, “Get out? But where will we go?”

“I promised my son I wouldn’t stay away for too long. At the very least, I should return to Sanctuary Hills for a week or two before coming out here again.”

Curie turned fully to face her, the light from the window shining on her features and making them look soft and graceful. “I will come with you,” she said firmly.

“I want you to,” Amarli admitted. She still felt unsure about returning home after all this change, but she’d been thinking about Shaun a lot, and she’d never been one to go back on promises. Taking Curie home may be a nightmare, but once they arrived, Curie would be safer than she had ever been before. That was where Amarli would teach Curie the proper way to shoot and reload a gun (she’d already taken the woman just outside Goodneighbor so she could practice, but she was woefully underprepared for battle in the Commonwealth). In Sanctuary Hills, Curie would settle into her human body properly, and then she could decide if she wanted to leave again to conduct whatever scientific research she wished. If she wanted to continue travelling with Amarli, she’d be accepted with enthusiasm.

Whenever and however their relationship had changed, Amarli could find no faults with it. She had always been a protective sort of person, so her sudden instinctive need to take care of Curie was anticipated. But Curie’s evolution over the past few days had inexplicably changed things between them. It was something about how close she stood to Amarli when they were in the street, as if she thought a single foot between them would be enough for someone to take advantage of her. Perhaps it was also the sweet, naive look when she smiled. Amarli had become so accustomed to the evilness of the world that Curie’s distinct optimistic, innocent countenance seemed bizarre. Curie hadn’t seen the horrors of the world yet, so she treated everyone with the kindness that they deserved. Bless her, she had no idea she was the purest thing in all of the Commonwealth.

As was perhaps understandable, Amarli only found herself growing more protective of Curie as she continued to be her sweet, oblivious self. When she burned her tongue trying to gulp down hot coffee, Amarli went to The Third Rail to get some ice for her mouth. When she stubbed her toe and almost cried because of her first time feeling pain, Amarli made her sit in bed for the rest of the day and delivered her meals. When she finished every one of her books in record time, Amarli set out to buy her even more. It seemed that her caps were slowly dwindling in number, and she knew she should be worried, but she didn’t regret spending a single cap on Curie. She was… coddling her. A lot. But that was only until she knew how to take care of herself.

They left Goodneighbor behind on a Wednesday morning, Amarli having bought Curie her own bag to carry her things in and her own 10mm pistol that she could wear in the holster at her hip. Curie was so excited to be entering the Commonwealth again that she was literally bouncing on her toes.

“You are my friend. That feels so good to say, you know?” she said, as they were passing the remains of an old diner.

“I’m flattered,” Amarli said with a grin.

“Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what it is like traveling with you.”

Amarli only shook her head at that. She was already used to the fact that Curie could keep only some of her thoughts inside her head. She had no filter, and her honesty was one of the most endearing things about her.

“See that?” Amarli said, pointing up ahead and putting an arm out to halt their progress. There were hulking green shapes resting in the shade of a building with smashed windows. “Super Mutants.”

“Hmm… the curious case of the FEV virus.” Curie had stopped walking, but she was staring at them curiously. Suddenly, she looked troubled. “If the FEV virus mutates and becomes airborne, then all the surviving humans would be at risk.”

“Let’s… not think about that.” Amarli was reloading her gun, as she’d just emptied out the hell of a lot of shells trying to exterminate some pesky bloat flies. Once Justice was reloaded, Amarli slung it over her shoulder and took some gum out of the front pocket of her bag. “Do you want some?” she asked Curie.

“Is this… what do you say – ‘bubble gum’?” Curie took a stick, unwrapped it, and hesitantly put it in her mouth. With a surprised smile, she observed, “It does not taste how it looks.”

Amarli was already chewing her gum, and while Curie was watching her, she pushed it flat against the back of her teeth and blew gently until it expanded into a pink bubble. Curie’s eyes widened. “Superb!” she said suddenly. “You have such talent with this. Where did you learn?”

“I don’t know.” Amarli collected the bubble once it had popped and drew it into her mouth again. She glanced ahead, seeing that the Super Mutants were moving on – their gigantic muscular backs were disappearing down a road to the right. “Should we keep going?”

Curie nodded.

They walked down the rubbish-strewn path until they reached the place that the Super Mutants had been sitting. The corpse of one of them was lying inside the building, and Amarli figured they must have been giving him some sort of honouring or a funeral. Even great green monsters like them liked to show respect to their brethren.

“Fascinating,” Curie said, stepping up to the window so she could look at the body more closely. She crouched beside it. “I should collect samples… perhaps a tissue sample is in order?”

“There’s nothing to take samples with.” Something inside the building, sitting on a desk, caught Amarli’s eye. Quickly, she ducked past Curie and walked over to pick it up. The old telephone was still connected to its cord, so Amarli drew the switchblade from her pocket and severed it, smiling with satisfaction at the object. Many weeks ago, right before she’d left Sanctuary Hills, she had promised Shaun she’d bring a gift back for him, and this was what he had asked for. No point in returning empty-handed.

As Amarli put the telephone in her bag, Curie suddenly straightened up and called, “Imminent threat detected!”

Dashing out of the building again, Amarli saw that Curie had been right; one of the Super Mutants had returned around the corner, and he let out a grunt of surprise when he saw her.

“Die, human!” he roared.

Amarli raised her shotgun immediately, but she was too far away for her shells to cause any real damage. She was forced to leap to the side as his rifle began peppering the road around her with red-hot bullets. As she threw herself back into the building, landing next to Curie, she saw the woman had already drawn her pistol. “Engaging in close combat!” she cried.

And then, as if she’d done it many times before, Curie leaned out of the window and began to return fire. It took a few seconds for Amarli to scramble to her feet and help her, surprised by Curie’s sudden lack of fear. Super Mutants were always on the offensive, so targeting his weak spots was easy enough. When she was sure Curie had her back and was driving him ever closer, Amarli climbed out of the building again, aimed, and fired directly at his arm. The rifle went skittering out of his hand and he roared in pain, clutching himself. The next shotgun shell was delivered into his face, blowing his brains out in a spray of thick blood and felling him like a tree.

Curie stepped out from cover and looked around, her cheeks flushed from the excitement of the battle. Cautiously, she said, “I believe the term is… yahoo?”

Amarli couldn’t help but laugh – in delight, this time, rather than amusement. “Curie, you’re an absolute badass. I had no idea.”

Curie smiled brightly. “I feared there would be fighting, but now it is all better.” She awkwardly put her pistol back in its holster. “This body is so fragile. But capable of such precision.”

For a few seconds, Amarli could only stare at her, realizing that perhaps she had been coddling her too much. She’d been viewing Curie as a vulnerable little creature since she first woke up in her human body, but she’d forgotten that she had formerly been a well-armed, deadly, intelligent robot. Sure, Curie was hindered by the constraints of her human body, and she didn’t seem to understand combat the way she used to, but she had proven now that her instincts would rise up to protect her when necessary. This was a vital moment – it was time for Amarli to step back and let Curie learn on her own. Just like Doctor Collins had done when he first realized Curie was evolving without his help.

“Let’s keep going,” Amarli said abruptly, glancing away. “I want to be outside of the city when it turns night.”

“Of course.” Curie gave the Super Mutant’s dead body a wistful look before following behind her, as if regretting not being able to take any samples. Once she was walking by Amarli’s side, she pressed close like she normally did, though not close enough that their shoulders touched. Amarli very vaguely took a step away from her, looking up at the sun, but she knew that Curie had instantly gotten the message – the woman looked at her with confusion, and then dropped her head and watched the ground instead.

For the rest of their journey out of the city, Amarli kept her considerable distance from the other woman and Curie took it in stride. Ferals, more Super Mutants, and a frazzled old Mr Gutsy robot were among the adversaries blocking their path, but Curie again impressed Amarli with her automatic – and somewhat graceful – entrances into combat. While she was still quite clumsy, her adrenaline gave her sharp precision and enviable accuracy. Each time they fought, she almost emptied an entire clip of bullets, moving surprisingly quickly in order to avoid being hit. She didn’t get a single injury; Amarli, meanwhile, had a bullet skim her wrist and a bite mark on her thigh.

“You should not move fast with your leg,” Curie told her afterwards, as they continued walking. “It could aggravate your injury.” When Amarli said nothing, she added, “And that arm is no good. You must fix it at once.”

“I’m fine, Curie,” Amarli said wearily.

“But the injuries could get worse!”

“They’re both little more than scratches. I’m fine.”

Hearing the sharp bite to her voice, Curie fell silent. Noticing that she had begun to walk close again, Amarli very pointedly moved to the side to put distance between them, setting her jaw. Curie asked no questions – she didn’t even look up this time – but Amarli could tell she was upset. She felt a little bad.

Only a little.

It would be a long journey back to Sanctuary Hills.

Chapter Text

Curie had expected her disappointment to lessen once they had left the city environment, but the view of the empty landscape throughout their journey to Amarli’s home only made her feel less and less sure about the information she had gathered before the war. She’d wanted to see lush green fields and smooth asphalt roads, and maybe even a cerulean sky to light their way. She’d wanted to hear birds and insects instead of creaking metal and gunfire. Maybe even a fully-functioning motorway filled with mid-morning traffic, and people walking their dogs, and men sitting on benches reading newspapers. This was what her systems had prepared her for.

Instead, she saw a country that was withering away. The landscape was sickly skin laid over bones with high-peaking ribs that should've remained hidden. The hills had soil that was as black and dry as charcoal, and the grass was rough and yellow. What was worse, Curie felt the buzz of radiation whenever they crossed a stream or passed a low-lying dip between hills. She no longer had an inset Geiger-counter, but she knew well enough now from the way her skin ached and her hair stood on end what too much radiation felt like. Amarli stopped several times to take Rad-X and help Curie inject her own. They drank from the canteen in Amarli’s bag, staying well away from the polluted streams and ponds they came across. Curie happened to need to drink a lot – she had only just begun to understand how terrible the direct sun felt on her synth body. She was wearing armour, clothes, and a rucksack on her back, and she could feel a coating of sweat between each layer. Her face constantly felt hot and itchy, even though Amarli had provided her with a baseball cap to protect her pale skin from the sun. Sunburn increased the risk of early wrinkles, premature aging, senile skin lesions, and skin cancers, all of which Curie would like to avoid.

Unlike in the city, out here there was hardly any shelter as they travelled down the road. Whenever they did stop for a rest – which was often, as Curie got tired much more quickly than Amarli did – Curie would sit hunched over so the sun wouldn’t get into her face. Her arms and hands got red, though, and Amarli mentioned at one point that there was a red line along the back of her neck. Curie would need to come up with a healing salve when they arrived at their next destination, to regenerate the skin and prevent long-lasting damage. Hopefully Amarli would have the supplies.

Eventually, they passed through several much smaller towns, all of them empty save for feral ghouls or mongrels. Amarli seemed to know exactly where they were going once they reached Concord, her steps much lighter and her shoulders straighter. Curie followed her like a little sheep, taking in as much of their surroundings as possible and filing each detail away for later. The destruction was on a large scale, however many of the buildings had been left standing.

Nuclear missiles... one of her notes said. To think something so comparatively small could destroy so very much!

Curie wasn’t sure if she was feeling upset or fascinated by how Boston had changed. According to her memory of the world before the war, the Commonwealth had been very healthy place with a considerably vast human population. Now, the population of the Commonwealth was a tiny fraction of what it used to be. The humans left needed to focus on reproduction or else they could end up facing extinction.

By the time they reached the river that surrounded Sanctuary Hills, Curie could feel blisters had developed on her ankles, and she was hardly able to walk without hobbling. Even though they were close, Amarli insisted on carrying her bag to lighten the load. Curie didn’t protest, feeling grateful for the other woman’s help, though she’d gotten a feeling ever since they left Goodneighbour that Amarli had much less patience for her than before. She wasn’t being negligent, but she definitely wasn’t as enthusiastic to help anymore.

Curie slowed a little as they approached the bridge, staring down at the water beneath the planks and deciding she liked the calming rushing sound of it. The houses up ahead were all torn and battered, but they were strung with lights and Curie could imagine they must have been nice, once. Before the bombs fell. Unlike the rest of the Commonwealth she had seen so far, this place looked safe and serene. Amarli had a bounce in her step as they made their way up the cracked road – this was definitely her home, as she seemed very fond of it. Curie wondered if she would ever feel something so human as to have a home, somewhere to feel safe and at peace, surrounded by people she loved. The closest she had was Vault 81, and she could not attach happy memories to that place, as hard as she tried.

Stretching out on either side of the road were identical semi-detached houses, each with a path running down the side. They might, Curie thought, be architecturally undistinguished, but at least they were on a human scale. The gates and railings had been removed and the front gardens were bounded with low brick walls. She had an image from her pre-war systems of what the suburban world had looked like – it certainly hadn’t looked much like this. These houses were mostly abandoned and devoid of bright colour. Only the buildings up ahead showed signs of any life whatsoever. Curie could see a man sitting on the edge of the roof of one of them, kicking his legs and smoking a cigarette as he watched them approach. As soon as they were close enough, he called, “Hey there, General!”

“Hey, Sturges!” Amarli replied easily. She stopped beneath the house, hands on hips, and squinted up at him. “Everything been going okay?”

“Nothin’s really happened, if I’m honest.” He flicked away his cigarette and then climbed precariously to his feet, balancing on the roof’s edge – Curie’s systems floundered in slight panic at this point – until his feet finally caught the rungs of a ladder and he began to make his way down to the ground. As soon as he had brushed off his hands, he turned to them with an easy-going smile and said, “How was the trip?”

“Good.” Amarli’s eyes darted away from him, as if she was suddenly awkward. “Didn’t manage to make it over to the Castle. Got a little caught up.”

He shrugged. “Happens to the best of us.”

The man was very tanned, with wrinkles around his dark eyes and wide mouth – Curie thought they must be happy wrinkles, as opposed to the wrinkles which came from constant frowning. He smiled at Curie now as if he knew her, and then politely extended his hand towards her. In alarm, she stared down at it, unsure of what to do. Finally, taking a risk, she reached forward to clasp his hand in hers and shake it gently.

“I’m Sturges,” he told her. “I take it you’re another of Amarli’s pet projects?”

“Pet?” Curie repeated. “Oh – I think you must be mistaken. My designation is-”

“He’s only kidding,” Amarli interrupted, shooting Curie a sharp glance. Quickly, she shut her mouth and dropped her eyes to the ground. Sturges only laughed at her reaction and then brushed his hands off on the oily overalls he was wearing. “Well,” he said. “If you need any help while you’re here, I’m your guy. I can fix just about anything. I’ve been renovating most of the houses in this place.”

“Thank you very much, Monsieur,” Curie said graciously, meeting his eyes again. She pointed up at the roof he’d most recently been working on. “You must be careful working at such heights. One little accident, and you could suffer a terrible fall! Don't get too close to the edge.”

“Oh… thanks.” Sturges smiled at her, though he seemed a little confused at her worry for his welfare.

Amarli’s hand reached to touch her arm but stopped just short of contact – it was enough, however, to catch Curie’s attention. She turned immediately to the other woman, seeing her nodding her towards the house opposite. “Let’s go.”

“Oh, hey-” Sturges abruptly turned towards Amarli to catch her attention, his smile suddenly gone. “Preston called through the other day, and he thought you should know the Castle’s been receivin’ a lotta distress calls recently.”

Amarli frowned. “Distress calls? From… settlers?”

“That’s the thing. Every Minuteman who’s gone on a search and rescue mission to find out what’s wrong has only found that whoever sent out the signal is already dead. Settlers, scavengers, traders. There’ve been five signals so far, and every person who sent ‘em has died in the same way.”

“Died how?”

“Energy weapon-fire, mostly. And a couple of the Minutemen said somethin’ about it always bein’ headshots and shots to the chest. If it really is the same person, they know exactly what they’re doing. Could even be a group of mercenaries workin’ together.”

“Hmm…” Amarli’s face grew hard, and her eyes flickered to the left, not seeming to be looking at anything in particular. Then she shuffled her feet and looked back at Sturges. “I think I might be able to modify my radio to match the Castle’s signal – maybe I can get those distress calls coming through to Sanctuary Hills, as well. If I can head to one of these locations before the killers leave, I might be able to catch them.”

Sturges nodded. “If you need any help, just let me know.”

“I will.” With that, she beckoned to Curie, who had been listening into their conversation very closely, and began walking away. Curie followed her as she crossed the street, glancing around her with stark curiosity. Sanctuary Hills looked much nicer the longer she looked at it – while it looked nothing like a typical suburban village, the strung-up lights and patched-up walls definitely made it look like a sanctuary. There was a black-haired woman working in the garden of a house further down the road, and she was gazing over at them suspiciously. An old woman in a blue coat was sitting on her veranda with a glass in her hand, and she had a faint smile on her face. Curie would like to greet them and get to know their perspectives on the wasteland and their lives here, but she knew that would have to wait. First, she needed to let Amarli get settled and see her son.

The house they had approached looked almost faded. The roof had been long-burnt off, or had been destroyed by the years of nuclear weather, however there were mismatched roof tiles nailed down to fill all the ceiling gaps. It didn’t look very aesthetically pleasing, but Curie was impressed at the dexterity of the job – perhaps that man Sturges had been the one to do it? The wooden skeleton of the building had survived the fire, though it was blackened and charred. It was like a memory, but gone. Forever. No one would ever know what had happened in this house before the war. Well… except Amarli herself.

She had given Curie a very brief rundown of what had happened to her here – this had been the home she lived in with her husband and son before the bombs fell; before she was cryogenically frozen in a vault for two hundred years and woke up to find that everything had changed. She hadn’t said much else about it, but Curie could remember the other half of the story from their time in Diamond City: Amarli had eventually infiltrated the Institute to find her kidnapped son and had found he was already an old man. With the help of the Minutemen, she'd burned the Institute to the ground and the old man with it, and then returned home with a synth rendition of her son. If Curie were able to understand the human preoccupation with fiction, she would like to see a story of this printed. Surely, if it had been sold before the war, such a story would have made a fortune. Amarli had all the makings of a conventional hero. 

A startling sound off to Curie's right made her stop walking and reach for her pistol instinctively. Amarli quickly held out a hand to stop her. “It’s okay,” she said, her voice light. “This is Dogmeat.”

The furry creature which had approached them looked nothing like the skinny, bloody-eyed mongrels that Curie had seen out in the wasteland. From the genitals she could ascertain it was a male, and from the shape of the ears and the muzzle, and the colours and markings of the fur, she could put a name to the creature: Canis lupus familiaris. A German Shepard. Curie’s body and emotions formed a reaction before she could decide what she thought of it – a sudden feeling of joy rose up inside her.

“Oh, it is a little doggy!” she said in delight.

The dog barked again and trotted up to her, allowing her to reach down and pet his soft head. He licked her hand, leaving a warm, slimy trail of saliva, but it only made Curie giggle. Realizing that Amarli was watching her with a surprised smile on her face, Curie said, “So many breeds of canis familiaris. But I think this may be one of the best!” She petted Dogmeat’s head again, crouching so he could reach her better with his probing nose. “Good dog.”

She heard a soft sound of laughter from Amarli. “He likes you.”

Curie smiled so wide that it made her cheeks hurt, and she wrapped both hands around the dog’s neck so she could hug him, not minding that he was a little rough and slobbery. When she finally straightened up, she felt dirty but contented. Amarli was still smiling at her with a sort of brightness in her eyes. “Done?” she asked.

“Yes,” Curie agreed.

They were about to head towards the door again when running footsteps caught their attention. There was an excited, “Mom!” and then a little boy appeared from the same direction as the dog had. Curie caught little snippets of his familiar appearance – the dark skin, the curly black hair, the exotic features – before he sprinted right past her and threw himself into his mother’s arms. Amarli was laughing for real now, lifting him up as if he weighed nothing and spinning him around. Finally, she set him down, still grinning. “Hey, kiddo.”

“You took ages,” he complained. And then, more shyly, “But I’m glad you’re here.”

“Maybe I can make it up to you?” Amarli unslung her rucksack and pulled a large jade-green object from it – a pre-war telephone – and handed it to Shaun. “This was what you wanted, right?”

“Yeah!” he said enthusiastically, taking the telephone from her. “Thanks, mom.”

Curie hadn’t recognized the significance of Amarli collecting it during their journey, but now it made more sense. And the way they looked together, mother and son, made her understand the reason why Sanctuary Hills was still Amarli’s home.

Home is where the heart is.

Dogmeat bounded over to them and pushed his wet nose into the back of Shaun’s thigh. Grimacing, the little boy pushed the dog away, turning slightly, and then saw Curie standing there. He smiled instantly. “Oh – hey. Who are you?”

Brightly, Curie began, “My designation is...” And then, like a machine clunking to a stop, she found herself pausing mid-sentence, suddenly realizing how it must sound, hearing the designation of a robot coming from a human woman’s mouth. All this time, and she'd never really seen any issues with it. It was only now, faced with the little boy whom her closest friend loved so dearly, that she felt the acronym CVRIE didn't suit her. That had been the name of the Miss Nanny bot - surely it didn't belong to her now, as she was caught up in the thinking, feeling, confusing humanity of this body. With more confidence, Curie took a step forward. “I am Curie,” she said. She glanced at Amarli for approval and saw the other woman smiling at her again.

“She’s a friend, Shaun,” Amarli said, fondly ruffling a hand through her son’s hair. “She’ll be staying with us here for a while.”

“Where did you come from?” Shaun asked Curie. “You sound like you’re French.”

“That is…” Curie blushed again. “I was once a robot. The French accent is a standard voice module for Miss Nanny models.”

The boy’s eyes widened, and he quickly looked to his mother for affirmation. “She’s a robot?” he asked, astounded.

“She was. But now she’s a synth,” Amarli corrected him. “Like you.”

Shaun quickly stepped forward, as if he wanted a closer look at Curie, his dark eyes examining her from head to toe. “I didn’t even know that was possible,” he marvelled. Quickly, he stuck out his hand. “I’m Shaun, by the way.”

Curie shook his hand hesitantly. “I have heard many wonderful things about you.”

He grinned. “So, is that why my mom took so long to come home? Because she was helping you turn human?”

“I… think that is accurate,” Curie confirmed. “She has been indispensable to me. My systems are still not accustomed to this synth body, so I required much assistance.”

Shaun smiled wryly. “That’s mom. Always helping people. She’s the Mother Teresa of the wasteland.”

“Mother Teresa…” Curie smiled, delighted to realize she still had data on this topic. “The founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. Helper of the poor. I like this reference.”

“How much do you know?” Shaun asked curiously. “Was there any data lost when you changed to your synth body?”

“I believe-”

“Curie, you don’t have to answer him,” Amarli sighed. “Shaun, maybe leave her alone until she’s settled in. We've had a long journey.”

The boy lowered his eyes abashedly. “Sorry,” he said to Curie. “I’ve just never met someone like you before.”

“I am happy to answer all of your questions,” Curie told him honestly. “It may help me to know what data I have lost in the conversion. And I also have many questions.”

Shaun smiled up at her. “Cool. Maybe I’ll come find you later. We could conduct all sorts of experiments here…”

“Shaun,” Amarli said warningly.

“… within safe parameters, obviously,” he finished.

“This is a sound plan,” Curie agreed.

Shaun patted Dogmeat’s head and then pulled something that looked like meat jerky out of his pocket, waving it in front of the dog’s nose. “Want this, buddy?”

Dogmeat barked and tried to snatch the meat from his hands, but Shaun only laughed and ran back around the house, calling, “Can’t catch me!” Dogmeat bounded right after him, barking and panting. Curie watched as they disappeared with an uncontrollable smile on her face, feeling delighted that her meeting with Amarli’s son had gone so well. He was just as wonderful as his mother was; a thought-provoking specimen.

Amarli led the way inside the house, taking off her shoes in the doorway and waving at a hulking metal shape in the kitchen area. As Curie followed her, she noticed what the shape was. “Oh, it is a Mr. Handy!” she said happily.

The robot butler hovered over. “Welcome home, mum,” he said to Amarli graciously. He examined Curie over her shoulder. “And to whom do I owe the pleasure?”

“This is Curie,” Amarli said.

“What is your designation?” Curie asked inquisitively.

He replied immediately: “My designation? They call me Codsworth."

"And your function?"

"I'm a domestic-model Mr Handy, designed to cater to Miss Lorenzen’s needs.” The eyes focused in on her further. “And the needs of her family and friends, of course.”

“A worthy function to have,” Curie commented.

Codsworth chuckled. “Certainly." He peered at her interestedly. "If you don't mind me asking, do you work for General Atomics? No one has taken such an interest in my workings before. Do they still operate somewhere in the Commonwealth?”

“I-”

“It doesn’t really matter, Codsworth,” Amarli said wearily.

Immediately, he said, “Of course, mum.” And the subject was quite forgotten. Codsworth took her leather jacket as she handed it to him and he hung it on the coatrack. He began to reach for her hat – a faded blue visor – but she waved him away and said, “No, thank you Codsworth. I’ll just put it back in my room.”

Codsworth turned to Curie. “Is there anything you need, madam? Would you like a bed set up in the living room?”

“She’ll stay in my room,” Amarli said. She glanced at Curie, faltering slightly. “You’re okay with that, right?”

“Of course.”

Amarli glanced at Codsworth. “Do you think we could have dinner quite early tonight? Both of us are pretty hungry.”

“I’ll get on it right away, mum.” Codsworth left them by the door and returned to the kitchen, already beginning to pull packets of food from the fridge – which, to Curie’s surprise, seemed to be fully functional. This neighbourhood didn’t look like much, but it was leagues ahead of any other settlement Curie had seen so far in terms of its technology and renovations. Amarli headed over to the corner of the house right next to the kitchen, where a large oval table had been set up, covered in files and odd objects. As she began removing holotapes and files from her bag and setting them down, Curie looked around the large room in wonder.

There were a few children's toys cast onto the floor in a haphazard fashion, but otherwise there was nothing of concern. From the sun baked dryness of outside, the cool air inside Amarli’s house was a blessing to the skin. Curie examined the working television which had been set up to her right, surrounded by comfortable couches and several potted plants that reached upward with broad and spreading leaves. The carpet was worn and motheaten, but had a wonderful blue-and-black pattern which caught the eye. There was a spinning rack of magazines and comics by the television, and a nice little vase of violet flowers sitting on a table in front of the window. Even the alcohol cabinet had a sort of homely allure, with nice carved wooden patterns and pretty crystal drinking glasses set upon it. To Curie’s left was a wall of shelves, upon which sat many books and sentimental objects. There was little carved wooden soldier, sat next to a pristine folded American flag; a dusty plaque with a law certificate inside; several Publick Occurences newspapers; even a framed picture of Amarli herself and a man who Curie took to be her deceased husband, standing over a crib. They looked very content for humans who must have been aware that danger was just on the horizon. Amarli looked very beautiful in a green dress that brought out the colour of her eyes, and her husband looked quite handsome, with dark features and an infectious smile.

An odd aching throb made Curie glance away – it seemed she was suddenly overwhelmed with pity. She did not think that Amarli deserved anything that had happened to her. That was an odd word to use; deserve. Curie was very much aware that humans did not have a claim over what they received in life. They had no right to make demands. But it seemed to her that Amarli had suffered so much more than was necessary, and she could not understand how the other woman remained so positive and genuine all the time. If anyone had a right to a good life, Amarli did. Curie was sure of it. After all the beneficial things she had done for other people - Curie included - she had the right to be happy. This picture... it made Curie wish that she had met the woman in a world where the bombs hadn’t dropped, when she truly was happy. But, then again, everything would have been very different. Curie would not be what she was now, and neither would Amarli. Yet again, the complexity of human nature had Curie stumped.

When Curie looked across the room at Amarli, she caught her smiling and was taken aback - she felt as if she had been doing something wrong. There was a natural softness and warmth to the other woman's smile, however. Curie quickly cast her eyes down to the shoes she was removing, not to be rude, but because staring into her eyes felt like some sort of professional mis-courtesy.

“Come on,” Amarli said when she was done. “I’ll show you my room.”

Curie followed her down a short corridor which branched off into four rooms. One was a laundry room, inside which there was a washing machine and a dryer which was currently working on a load of clothes. Another was a pristine-looking bathroom, with well-scrubbed tiles and shining porcelain. Shaun’s room was filled with science journals, contraptions and toys, and Amarli’s – on the left – had its curtains drawn closed and was very dark. It smelled wonderful, though, like flowery laundry, with hints of lavender; the same smell, come to think of it, as Curie could often smell on Amarli when it wasn't diluted with dirt or sweat. Curie suddenly thought that lavendula must be her favourite species of flowering plant in the mint family. It would from now on remind her of Amarli whenever she smelled it.

As Amarli entered her room, she walked over and opened the curtains, tying them to the corners of the windows. She stepped back and smiled at Curie. “What do you think?”

Curie was immediately drawn to the long table of components and scientific equipment, her eyes widening. “This is... a laboratory,” she said in surprise. 

“It’s more of a tech studio,” Amarli corrected her. “I’m no scientist like you, Curie. But I like to invent things. And fix things, I suppose. Though I'm not quite on par with Sturges when it comes to carpentry work.”

Curie suddenly understood the anomaly of the working fridge, the laundry machines, and the television. She didn’t really understand why Amarli had never chosen to reveal this piece of information about herself, but it wasn’t as if she had been asked, after all. Curie had always assumed that Amarli’s life only consisted of helping settlers and fighting evil. To see that she was in any way inclined to science made Curie feel very happy indeed. She walked over to the tables that were absolutely cluttered with equipment and placed her hand on a set of imperial scales, remembering that her lab in Vault 81 had contained an almost identical set. Not only was it exciting to see that Amarli was inventor, but Curie realized that all of this equipment could even benefit her with her own studies. How much of this was medical equipment? How much of it could be used for medical research?

Amarli dumped both of their bags on the bed and then began to unpack her own one, leaving Curie by the table. Curie was so absorbed in noting down each piece of equipment that she hardly noticed time passing. Amarli finally drew her out of her thoughts by walking over and plucking the baseball cap off her head. Curie flinched automatically, and then smiled up at the other woman. “I am sorry – I was just thinking about my research.”

“Think about it later,” Amarli said. “Unpack your things. I've made some space in the dresser for you.”

“May I use your washroom?” Curie asked.

Amarli hesitated. “Oh – yeah. Knock yourself out. The shower's great, but I don’t think there’ll be any hot water.”

“A cold shower would be refreshing,” Curie decided.

Amarli smirked at her. “Whatever you say.”

She had already taken off her armour and put it away, and now she left the room dressed in only her jeans and a white undershirt, whistling as she went. Curie watched her go, feeling more satisfied than she had in a long time. Not only had she made a good friend in the Commonwealth, but she now found herself somewhere extremely safe – the perfect place to begin her research. Tomorrow, perhaps with little Shaun’s help, she could start gathering information or planning out experiments. This human body would find scientific success in no time.

 ---

After dinner, Amarli followed Shaun out into the garden, sitting on one of the benches she’d set up out there and lighting a cigarette. The sky was bruised, darkening from day into night, and the humming of insects and cawing of crows made it feel like it was Halloween again. But it was too hot a day to be mistaken for October. The air was quite humid, buzzing with warmth, and the grass was soon to be covered in dew.

As she smoked, Amarli watched Shaun sitting on the grass and playing a short-lived game of tug-of-war with Dogmeat. He was forced to give up eventually and let the dog settle with his toy. He began playing with a baseball, tossing it idly from hand to hand. For Amarli, everything had changed completely since she last left Sanctuary Hills - already, after only being home for a few hours, she felt restless - and yet for Shaun, it was all the same. He had no idea that his mother no longer wanted to be here with him. She loved him, of course, but she also felt that he didn't really need her here all the time. He could take care of himself, and he had people here who he liked, who could keep him company. Was it so bad that she wanted to be somewhere else?

It was at this point that Curie made her way outside, hands in the pockets of the green mechanic’s overalls she’d chosen to wear, her dark hair still a little wet from her shower before dinner, and her face still red from spending so long in the sun.

“Did it work?” Amarli called to her, referring to the sunburn-cream she’d recommended.

“It is very soothing.” Curie walked over and sat next to her on the bench, making it creak slightly. She smelled strongly of Amarli’s lemon-and-sage shampoo and the coconut body wash she’d looted in bulk from the Super Duper Mart near Diamond City. While it was odd smelling herself on somebody else, Amarli quite liked how different the scent was when it came from Curie – less recognizable, somehow, but just as nice. “But I may make several modifications, if you do not mind? There could be a way to make the serum work much faster.”

“Go ahead. Mi casa es su casa, and all that. What’s mine is yours.” Amarli took another draw of her cigarette. “Oh – you can use whatever you want from my inventory, by the way, as long as you let me know what you take. It’s harder to get replacements for things nowadays.”

Curie’s cheeks went a little pink, and she nodded quickly. “Merci. You are very kind, Madame.”

Amarli studied her, taking in the smooth, refined shapes of her features and the dark of her hair and eyebrows. In only a week, she had made that human body irrevocably hers. The way she frowned and smiled was very Curie, and so was the intelligence and naivety in her eyes. Every movement was precise but hesitant, similar to how she had moved as a robot, and her voice was just as sweet and thick-accented as before. If anything, there was no way to tell apart the unconscious synth from before and the alive, questioning woman now. They were the very same being.

“You are staring,” Curie said curiously. “Is there something on my face?” She reached to wipe at it with her slim fingers, but came away with nothing.

“There’s nothing on your face,” Amarli said. “I was just thinking about how far you’ve come.”

“It has been a brilliant evolution,” Curie agreed. “I am much more comfortable in this body nowadays, even if I still struggle to understand it.”

“You’ll never fully understand it. I don’t, and I’ve had this body my whole life. That’s just how being human works.”

“But you seem very confident with yourself,” Curie pointed out. “And you do not seem so vulnerable to distractions.”

Amarli peered at her thoughtfully. “We’re all vulnerable to distractions.”

Curie shrugged. “I must learn to control them.” She glanced away, looking across the lawn at Shaun and Dogmeat. “My research depends on it.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a little while, Curie staring at the landscape around them while Amarli continued to watch Curie with interest. Curie didn’t realize that she was very distracting – in an unexpected way. Amarli couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she knew that she was very fond of the other woman now, even though she’d chosen to step back and give her space to develop on her own. Seeing Curie interacting with Dogmeat and her son earlier had made her heart melt; there couldn’t be anything sweeter. Whatever happened, she felt she would like Curie to stick around for a little while longer. And if Curie ever decided she would like to leave, Amarli would hope for the chance to go with her.

When her cigarette was finished, Amarli stood and ran her fingers through the loose curls of her hair. “Shaun, bedtime in an hour, okay?” she called.

He grumbled, but said, “Fine.”

“Do I have a bed time, Madame?” Curie asked.

Amarli chuckled. “It’s up to you when you sleep, Curie. I’ll warn you, though – that bed is so comfortable that you might never want to get out of it.”

“What a useful warning! I cannot possibly continue my research if I am bedridden forever.”

Shaking her head at the woman's naivety, Amarli headed inside, petting one of the cats as it tried to wind its sleek body around her legs. Codsworth was still drying dishes in the kitchen, and he greeted her when she came in through the side door. Amarli took a quick trip to her bedroom to grab her radio and some tools, and then returned to the living room.

When she was a kid, her father had shown her a really cool trick on how to hack normal radios to scan frequencies that were normally non-listenable. She’d been able to scan frequencies belonging to law enforcement, which had been profoundly entertaining during her teen years, when she'd been looking for a way to procrastinate with her studies. Since the world had gone to hell, this little hack had become very useful. It was how she had managed to connect all the Minutemen settlements together – there was nowhere in Boston where someone in distress could send up a signal and not have the Minutemen hear it and rush to the rescue. Amarli had innovated the entire communications system, making the Commonwealth much easier to handle.

Setting the radio on the coffee table before her, Amarli got to work, using her screwdriver to un-pop the screws and remove the radio’s back-panel. Radios changed which station they were listening to by adjusting a small, copper-looking wire coiled around a cylinder – the tuner. When adjusted, the gaps between the coils in the copper wire would become tighter or more separated depending on how the tuner knob was adjusted. Amarli reached into the radio’s internals and turned the tuner knob, observing the mechanism connected to it. After a few minutes of turning, she reached around to switch the radio on, immediately greeted by a loud burst of static. She winced at the sound, and then began clicking the button to turn the volume up. The static grew louder and Codsworth called, “Is everything alright, mum?”

“It’s fine,” she replied. “Sorry about the noise.”

She began to tug on the wire connected to the tuner, listening to the static as it warped and shifted. This could take a while, but she was certain she’d find the Castle’s radio station at some point. Bringing the radio onto her lap, she sat back against the couch and continued to pull the wire, the side of her head cocked towards the speakers.

Twenty minutes later, she still hadn’t managed to get ahold of any sound that was remotely human. Shaun came in, carefully shutting the garden door behind him, and leaned on the arm of the couch, watching Amarli while she worked. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Just trying to find a frequency.” Amarli winced as the static stuttered much louder and then died off again.

“Do you need my help?”

“I’ve got it.” She glanced at him momentarily. “Bed in forty, remember?”

“I know, I know…” He sighed and shuffled off to get ready for bed, waving goodnight to Codsworth on the way. Amarli returned her concentration to the radio, surprised when she heard voices for the first time – and then she realized she’d just accidentally hacked into an eyebot’s frequency. Sighing, she moved on, tugging on the wire again. There were a few more close ones; she managed to find Diamond City radio, some sort of comms that Gunners were using, a nautical radio signal, and then Trinity tower radio. None of them were what she was looking for. Curie came inside after a while and, like Shaun, walked over to see what Amarli was doing. She didn’t ask about it, however. Instead, she sat down on one of the other couches and watched Amarli work, seeming only curious. When Amarli found the classical music station that she’d set up herself after the collapse of the Institute, Curie’s eyes brightened and she said, “Ah – Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner! This is a beautiful composition.”

Amarli beamed at her, pausing so that they could both hear the piece blaring through the radio’s speakers. “You like classical music, huh?”

“It is so very complex,” Curie said enthusiastically. “A magnificent form of music, yes?”

“Some might even say it’s superior to other forms of music,” Amarli agreed. “I’ve always loved orchestral pieces. Sure, I sometimes have a bit of a craving for Nat King Cole or Ella Fitzgerald, but it’s classical music that I really appreciate. My friends think it’s odd.”

“Odd?” Curie frowned, not understanding. “To appreciate music is not odd. But to really appreciate it one needs to spend much time listening to it. I do not believe many humans in the world today have time to appreciate music.”

“Exactly.” Amarli grinned at her, suddenly marveling at how wonderful it was to have someone to talk to who shared similar thoughts to her. Someone who knew what life had been like before the war. It made her extremely grateful. Suddenly abashed, she glanced away and said, “Do you mind if I change the station?”

Curie shook her head. “But I may stay and watch while you work, yes?”

Amarli arched her eyebrows. “Do you even know what I’m doing?”

“You are making modifications to a radio,” she said. “But I do not know more than that.”

“Sturges said something about distress signals earlier, remember? I want to make sure I can receive them too, so I can go and help the next time one comes through.”

Curie smiled suddenly, glancing down at the radio. “Perhaps you have missed your calling. With skills like this, you could be a Mr Handy.”

“I think we’ve both found that being human is worlds better,” Amarli said.

“This is true.” Curie drew her white-socked feet up onto the couch and hugged her arms around her knees. “You may continue your work, Madame. I will only watch.”

So Amarli changed the station and the static returned, her fingers tucking around the wire so she could continue to tune the radio. Curie stiffened at the sound at first, but then seemed to grow calmer as the noise of static surrounded them. While Amarli worked, she glanced over several times to see that Curie’s eyes were heavy-lidded and she was leaning her head against the arm of the couch. It only took about ten more minutes for Curie to fall asleep completely, her limbs growing slack and her eyes closing. Amarli again felt that melting warmth in her chest as she thought about how adorable the other woman was. It was often that Curie suddenly felt the urge to sleep, though she had become much better at understanding her circadian rhythms. However, the moment she did feel tired, she would often fall asleep in the most unusual places, and Amarli would have to wake her up and make sure she got to bed. 

Amarli smiled to herself as she tugged the wire a little harder, flicking past stations she’d already checked.

While her search for the correct frequency took much longer than she'd expected, she refused to give up. It was about ten at night when she finally found the castle’s main signal (aside from Radio Freedom). There was a man’s voice talking about the Nordhagen Beach settlement and how they’d been having vermin problems for the past two weeks. The Minutemen on the Castle’s end were talking about sending some people down to check it out. It took a few minutes of conversation for Amarli to ascertain that she had reached the correct signal – she carefully set the radio down on the coffee table and began to re-attach its panel, tightly screwing it on. When she was done, the conversation had ended and there was silence coming from the radio’s speakers. If she left it in here on full volume, she’d be able to hear whenever a distress signal came through. Her job was done.

Amarli stood up and stretched out her spine and neck, sighing in satisfaction. When she glanced down at Curie, she couldn’t help but smile again, wondering if she should leave her to sleep or try and get her to bed. She finally decided on the latter, stepping over and crouching by her side. Very gently, she prodded the back of Curie’s hand, watching her shift abruptly before blearily blinking and lifting her head from the arm of the couch. When she saw Amarli had woken her, she smiled and said, “You have finished?”

“Yeah.” Amarli was still touching her hand, but the other woman didn’t seem to mind. She still looked half-asleep.

“Let’s get you to bed, shall we?” Amarli suggested.

Curie nodded daintily and began to climb to her feet, yawning. Amarli didn’t touch her, but she let her hand hover near her shoulder as she shuffled towards the corridor and Amarli’s room beyond it. Once they were inside, Amarli directed her over to the bed and then moved to shut the curtains and fluff the pillows. Curie gently ran her hands over the clean white sheets and blankets. “This is very nice,” she said.

“I told you, didn’t I? Best mattress in the Commonwealth.” Amarli grinned and walked over, helping her pull the sheets back so she could climb beneath them. With her head on the pillow, Curie sighed and relaxed completely, stretching like a cat. When Amarli made to leave the room, however, Curie very suddenly reached for her, grasping the fabric of her shirt. “Will you not sleep?” she asked, confused.

“I’ve got other stuff to do.” Amarli stared down at the small fist bunched in her shirt. While Amarli could sometimes sleep the whole night through, she’d been having trouble with insomnia ever since her time spent in Goodneighbor. Ever since she realized she felt displaced again. It didn’t necessarily interfere with her day, so she didn’t mind it much – sleeping odd hours was just part of her life now. But since she’d begun to take care of Curie, the other woman hadn’t stopped lecturing her on the importance of sleep. It was starting to wear on her. Gently, she pulled herself out of Curie’s grip and turned towards the door. “Don’t worry about me, Curie – you just get the sleep you need.”

Curie sighed again, though this time it seemed to be in disappointment. She curled up with one arm beneath the pillow, her eyes shining where Amarli could see them in the darkness. “Bonne nuit, Madame Amarli.”

“Goodnight, Curie.”

Amarli left the room, shutting the door behind her, and – as if by some weird irony – suddenly felt devastatingly tired. She peeked in on Shaun to make sure he was asleep, went into the bathroom to shower and brush her teeth, then returned to sit on the couch in the living room. The radio was still silent, and Codsworth had gone outside to work on the front lawn. She sat there in boredom for a while, feeling her eyelids droop, and thought about her bed with Curie in it. Switching on the television, she tried to distract herself from the tiredness with a re-run of some General Atomics documentary which Curie had been watching earlier. It was about as dull as a program could possibly be, and soon she was falling asleep. She couldn’t quite summon up the effort to head back into her room and climb beneath those warm sheets, even though it sounded wonderful; instead, Amarli curled herself up in the same chair that Curie had fallen asleep in and shut her eyes. In no time at all, she was drifting off.

Chapter Text

Shaun and Amarli both worked hard over the next couple of weeks to help Curie with her research. They accompanied her to talk to the neighbourhood’s inhabitants, helped her collect plant and water samples, tried their best to answer all of her questions, and even set up a training course in the ruins of one of the houses further down the street. Amarli put up some targets and encouraged Curie to practice shooting. She made sure that Curie knew how to buckle her own armour, and how to reload her own gun. She even tested Curie on the maintenance of different weapons, showing her how to clean her pistol without shooting herself. A quick study, Curie progressed even further while she had both Amarli and Shaun to teach her. She was grateful for their help and felt, for the first time since waking up in her synth body, that she was finally getting somewhere. Soon, she would even be able to survive in the Commonwealth alone.

Every morning, Curie would wake up in that magnificently comfortable bed, most often alone – although Amarli would sometimes be silently working at her desk, taking apart or re-building one of her contraptions – and then she would have some breakfast made by Codsworth (the food the robot butler cooked stimulated Curie’s taste-buds so magnificently that she worried she would start to consume many more calories than was healthy for a petite woman her age). After breakfast, Curie would get ready in the bathroom, put on her armour while Amarli watched critically, and head out to the training course for her daily practice. She absolutely loved this morning routine, and enjoyed the feeling of advancing her skills. She especially loved it when Amarli was proud of something she had done, and told her what a good shot she was.

Already, she was developing callouses on her ankles from her constant walking in her boots, and the skin of her palms seemed tougher. She still put in great effort to maintain her body, however, perhaps because she still felt as if she was borrowing it from somebody else. While the nuclear wasteland made it increasingly hard for her to stay clean, blowing in radioactive dust and dirt from the hills surrounding the suburbs, she nevertheless happened to be the neatest person in the neighbourhood. She kept her skin smooth and clean by moisturising it, washed her hair every two days with shampoo and conditioner so it remained soft and full, continued to trim and file her nails, brushed and flossed her teeth twice a day, avoided direct sunlight when she could, and made sure not to over-wear her clothes. She was very fond of the green mechanic’s jumpsuit, however, and she asked Codsworth to wash it often, so she could re-wear it several times throughout the week.

After lunch, Curie always went exploring, whether it involved examining the Longs’ mutfruit and razorgrain crops or heading down past the stream with Dogmeat to see what sorts of plants and animal species she could find beyond the town’s border. Sometimes she sat with Amarli in the living room, watching a holotape movie on the television while the other woman cleaned her weapons. They would talk about classical music, or scientific journals – most often, their conversations were about the world before the war. Amarli was surprisingly open with her now when it came to talking about her life as a young woman during the so-called ‘Golden Era’. She had grown up tinkering with things and had always enjoyed science, but she eventually decided – partly because her parents had encouraged her – to study law in university. While she got her certification, she never got to practice law. She met Nate in university, and as was expected by everyone who knew them, they got married and moved into a house together. He was a soldier, so he was rarely home. Amarli didn’t mind. Eventually, she got pregnant with Shaun. They were very happy, until the bombs dropped.

Amarli spoke about it all as if it weren’t even her life, but Curie could tell, due to her newfound ability to read micro facial expressions and body language, that Amarli would never stop being upset about everything she had lost. It was in the set of her shoulders sometimes, and the curve of her full mouth, and she often looked off into the distance as if reliving a time long ago. Human grief was so very complex.

Curie liked to spend time with Shaun, too. He was patient, and he asked her plenty of questions about where her life had begun and what she thought of the world. He was also very smart. Like Amarli, he seemed to love inventing things, and he even manufactured a laser rifle for Curie from scratch. This was her preferred weapon now, as it had less of a shocking recoil.

Actually, she didn’t necessarily have a favourite weapon. She preferred not to entertain the idea of fighting at all, especially if it meant fighting other people. As a robot, she had not needed to think much about what it meant to kill a human; now, the idea made her uneasy. Had she not been trained to assist scientists in protecting the human race? Was she not a fully-equipped combat medic, qualified to save lives instead of end them? The most confusing thing about being a human was that her emotions and her need survive seemed to completely contradict all of her programming. Was she supposed to stick to her job or deviate from the rules?

When she asked Shaun about this, he did his best to comfort her, reminding her that the Commonwealth was different to how it had been before the war. People killed nowadays to survive. When she was in a dangerous situation, she would know what to do. Curie was sure that he was correct – she would know. But by killing a human being, she would also know that she was a terrible medic, and all her skills and data on the topic would be rendered useless. Just when she had thought that she was beginning to understand the complexity of her conversion, she was hit in the face by yet another emotional dilemma. Curie tried to push it to the back of her mind so she wouldn’t have to think about it.

People like Sturges and Mama Murphy were always kind to her when they saw her wandering around the neighbourhood. Sturges would brew her a cup of coffee, even though she had told him she hated the taste of it. One time he apologized to her:

“I feel like I might’ve offended you with that ‘pet’ comment when you first arrived.” He scratched his chin. “Or seemed… ignorant, I guess. I only meant I’m used to Amarli bringing new friends back from the Commonwealth.”

“I did not take offense, Monseuir,” Curie reassured him. “So she has many of these ‘pets’, yes?”

Sturges smiled. “She’s come across all sorts while journeying out there. Before I knew her, she had that dog of hers – Dogmeat. Preston travelled with her for a little while, once she’d enlisted as General. Then it was people like Nick and Piper from Diamond City. And then Robert MacCready from Goodnieghbor. She just kept bringin’ them in. There was even a super mutant once.” He frowned. “I wouldn’t say he was exactly welcome here, though.”

Curie wasn’t necessarily jealous to hear that she wasn’t the first companion Amarli had chosen to travel with, but she did wonder about all these other people she had chosen to bring home to Sanctuary Hills. Had they been good friends with Shaun? Had they slept in Amarli’s room and talked to her about music and the world before the war? Curie hoped not.

Mama Murphy, when Curie visited her, would tell her odd – and very fictional – stories about the ‘future’. One of the stories which made Curie feel most uneasy was about a new wave of invaders in the Commonwealth and the destruction they would cause if nothing was done to stop them. When Curie told Amarli about it, the woman rolled her eyes and told her not to believe anything Mama Murphy said – “the chems have clouded her brain”, she’d told her. Curie decided to think nothing of it, after that. Whenever she visited Mama Murphy’s house, she would tune out and think of something else. Mama Murphy never seemed to notice. It was Curie’s first experience of being polite, of doing something for another human simply because she knew they enjoyed it.

Curie had reached a point in her humanity where she had learned to properly enjoy things herself. For example, she loved the feeling of being clean and smelling of Amarli’s soap, and she loved to watch her clothes tumble about in the dryer or stand by while Codsworth waxed the floors or washed the dishes. She loved to feed the cats and sit down by the stream with Dogmeat’s head in her lap. She thought, even though the Commonwealth sky was much more polluted than it used to be, that the sunsets were beautiful, and often tried to wake up early enough to watch the sunrise. Most of all, Curie loved to be anywhere close to Amarli, whatever she might be doing. If Amarli went for a walk, Curie would jump at the chance to keep her company. If she was working on that big oval table, sorting through files, Curie would shyly ask to help her. If she was chatting or playing with her son, Curie would watch from afar with a sense of awe, unable to tear her eyes away from Amarli’s face.

It was, she felt, a rather unhealthy fascination. She should be dedicating more of her time to science, but instead she found herself preoccupied with all manner of human distractions. Everything she enjoyed left her with feelings of elation and satisfaction – while she had appreciated things as a robot, she had never felt emotional incentives such as these ones. They made her want to do more, explore more, love more. If she did any of those things with Amarli, the feelings were multiplied by ten. It wasn’t even just that Amarli made her feel safe and at ease; she just thoroughly enjoyed her company. It wasn’t until Curie’s third week in Sanctuary Hills was ending that she suddenly realized Amarli might be taken away from her for a little while – and, at the same time, realized how much it would affect the emotions she was only beginning to understand.

They had all just finished breakfast, and Amarli was sitting at the bar with a mug of coffee, sipping it while she read a newspaper. Curie was gathering up some notes which she had recently made on wild strains of mutfruit. Shaun had gone into the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth. The sudden flaring of sound from the radio on the coffee table made everyone in the kitchen flinch. Amarli instantly twisted to stare at it, and then jumped up and walked over, very efficient in her movements. There was a male voice echoing from the speakers:

“…This is an emergency broadcast! We’ve got hostile robots on our tail – we thought we were safe, but I think they’ve tracked us down... I need some serious help!”

Amarli’s eyes hardened into jade, and she immediately straightened up, shooting Curie a solemn glance. “Don’t touch the radio – just keep listening. I’m going to go and pack.”

Curie wasn’t sure what to do, taken aback by how quickly everything was moving all of a sudden. She was still sitting at the bar, her notes before her, but now her heart had dropped – what a funny phrase, really, the “dropping” of the heart, but that was exactly what it felt like. As if her heart was beating somewhere near her stomach.

“…We’re just east of Wattz Consumer Electronics. If anyone in the vicinity can come help, now’s the time! Ada, loop this message!”

A mechanical-sounding voice replied, “Yes, sir.”

There was a click, a whirring sound, and then the message began all over again. “Oh, dear,” Codsworth said morosely, still cleaning glasses behind the sink with a dishrag. “Just another day in paradise, eh?”

Curie quickly stood up and strode to Amarli’s room, her notes clutched in both hands. She stopped in the doorway, seeing that the woman was hastily shoving clothes, first aid and ammunition into her travel pack. Her eyes were narrowed in distant concentration, and she looked just as formidable as she did when she was facing down an enemy – Curie swallowed uncertainly, suddenly feeling as if she knew very little about her. This was the sole survivor of Vault 111, the General of the Minutemen; she’d taken down the Institute and saved the Commonwealth almost single-handedly, and was known by all for her tragic story and heart of gold. She was also, Curie knew, one of the most fearsome people in all of Boston. A well-trained killer. Why did Curie not trust that she could fight her own battles and survive?

But Curie had very rarely been wrong about her calculations before, even in this human body. The way she saw it, Amarli only had a sixty percent chance of survival if she went to the rescue all on her own. Curie felt as if it were her responsibility to make sure her friend did not go out and get herself killed. It wasn’t just a mechanical, robot duty – in this case, if Amarli died or got hurt, Curie would feel it. And she was slightly worried about how that might feel, even if it could provide her with a useful insight on human emotion.

“You must follow this distress signal?” she asked cautiously. “Surely it is not advised to head into danger without assistance.”

Amarli didn’t answer her, crouching momentarily to unlock her safe and pull a large pouch of bottlecaps from it. Hesitantly, Curie entered the room and put her notes down on Amarli’s desk, straightening them out automatically. She struggled to find something to say to transform the situation. Would it not be good for her to experience this sort of danger herself, now that she had completed sufficient training? It would be like an experiment of sorts, teaching her to work under pressure. Wasn’t that what her survival counted on?

“One of my duties is to serve,” Curie said, finding her voice. “Madame… you must take me with you.”

Now, Amarli suddenly stopped with her rapid whirl of movement and turned rigidly to stare at her. “You want to come?”

“But of course.” Curie took a small step forward. “I find myself wanting to set out again and see the world. It would be beneficial to see you at work and test my survival skills. I still have so much to learn.”

Amarli considered her, eyes raking over her from head to toe. “It’s not safe,” she said finally, her voice curt. “I don’t think you’re ready for this sort of danger.”

She turned back to her bag and continued with her packing. Curie felt a surprising – and completely un-robot-like – surge of defiance.

“I assure you, my defensive capabilities are quite formidable,” Curie retorted. She walked around the bed so that Amarli was forced to face her again, and then added, “I also have considerable medical knowledge. You are aware, of course, that I am skilled in administering first aid?”

Amarli had paused again, staring at her. And then, like sun peeking out from behind clouds, she smiled and said, “Even in your synth body? You’ve still got those skills?”

“I have been practicing,” Curie told her with pride. “As I have said, this body is capable of great precision. If you become injured in our journeys, I can administer whichever aid is necessary.”

Amarli twisted her mouth in thought, straightening up, but she looked more as if she was fighting back another smile than considering whether Curie could come or not. In the end, she just shook her head and sighed. “You’ve gotten much more persuasive recently.” She crouched to pull Curie’s travel bag from under her bed and tossed it onto the mattress. “Pack. Quickly. We need to head out as soon as possible.”

“It is near Wattz Consumer Electronics,” Curie told her helpfully, remembering the location from the broadcast. “From my study of the Commonwealth map, this does not appear too far. It is in Cambridge. It will take half a day if we travel quickly on foot.”

“We’ll be moving very quickly. Can you keep up?”

“I will do whatever is necessary,” Curie said unwaveringly. “This course of action minimizes harm. This is a good thing, yes?”

Amarli was smiling again, as if she couldn’t quite believe how bold Curie had gotten. She gathered up all her things and reached under her bed again, this time for one of her many hats. Bringing out a yellow fedora, she placed it on her head. “Yes, it is. Now hurry up so we can go.”

 ---

They did indeed set off at break-neck speed, starting off at a jog as they crossed the bridge and headed towards Concord. Amarli couldn’t help but praise the feeling of freedom now that she was outside of Sanctuary Hills. The further away she got, the more that rough sting of excitement made her want to skip with joy. But she held it in, knowing that wherever they were headed, there were people in serious danger, and she needed a straight head if she was going to help them. For sure, the Minutemen were sending out soldiers as well to deal with the latest distress signal, but they would arrive much too late. This was all up to her. And… Curie. Surprisingly. But perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised; Curie had been doing very well in her training, and had learned – perhaps from Shaun – how to be defiant when she wanted something. If she wanted to come along, even just to keep her friend safe, Amarli could hardly force her not to.

Amarli wasn’t sure what to make of this distress call. “Hostile robots” could mean anything at this point. These people could be running from protectrons and sentry bots, or they could be running from synths. Amarli would just have to hope it wasn’t the latter, because that would mean that she and the Minutemen hadn’t solved the problem of the Institute after all, and they would need to do a second full-Commonwealth extermination to ensure everyone’s safety. She was starting to regret her decision to leave her power armour behind yet again – she’d thought it would slow her down – because it had been a while since she’d been in combat with synths. Robots were much harder to kill than humans.

They passed through Concord, headed right beneath the old crumbling motorway, and left the clear-cut trail as they ran through knee-length grass, hoping to take a short cut. All the while, the sun continued to rise overhead and make everything much harder for them. Amarli felt a sheen of sweat on her forehead and upper lip, and her clothes were sticky and wet. Fighting in these conditions certainly wasn’t recommended, but what was a survivor to do?

She checked in on Curie several times, asking her if she needed to stop, but the other woman was as determined as ever, spewing numbers and figures relating to the likelihood of the victims’ survival the longer they took. She genuinely seemed to care about rescuing them, which made Amarli feel proud of her. Already, she had come so far, and yet her adventure as a human had only just begun.

The hills were little more than a layer of poor soil over rock. They were clothed in scrubby grass and dottings of shrubs and withered trees. Insects especially liked this part of the wasteland, because there were ponds between the hills, in the little valleys, where they could lay their eggs. They could also blend into the grey, colourless landscape without too much trouble, exploding out of nowhere the moment some silly, vulnerable human stumbled upon them. After exterminating several bloodbugs, bloatflies and radroaches, Amarli and Curie eventually found themselves on another wind-stepped path that led down into the town of Cambridge. They began to jog again here, aware of how little time they likely had left. Amarli hadn’t been able to find the signal on her Pip-Boy radio, so she could only hope that either these people had managed to escape their robot adversaries or were amidst a firefight which they could be helped to win. If they were already dead, all of this would seem as if it were for nothing. At least they would have a better idea of who the killers were.

When they slowed to a walk so Amarli could check the location of Wattz Consumer Electronics on her map, Curie’s cheeks were pink from exertion and she seemed very out of breath. “Madame – may we stop for a moment’s rest?”

Amarli nodded, though she looked determinedly ahead through the buildings, a little frustrated. She didn’t want to miss a fight, especially if there were innocents caught in the fray. Perhaps she should have expected that Curie would slow her down.

“Do you hear something?” Curie had straightened suddenly. Twisting to look at her, Amarli saw that she was staring off to their left, apparently focusing very hard. “There is something nearby. Identity unknown.”

“What?” Amarli looked in the same direction she was, taking a deep breath to calm the pounding of blood in her ears. For a few moments, all she could hear was the hum of the wasteland – and then she suddenly found she could pick out very distant gunfire and rattling metal. The unmistakable sounds of battle.

“Curie, you genius.” She grinned at the other woman’s surprised expression, clapping her shoulder and making her jump. “Let’s go. Stay behind me.”

Amarli set off at a jog again, this time feeling like a bloodhound chasing a scent. She heard Curie’s footsteps behind her, but didn’t turn back to make sure she was following. The further back she was, the safer she would be. She already had her shotgun – Justice – in her hands, but the closer she got the scene of the battle, the less certain she felt about going in guns blazing.

The robots were everywhere. Swarming, like giant metallic insects, painted bright garish colours and seeming built from a jumble of machine limbs, beeping and whirring and speaking in mechanized voices of every pitch. The battle was bright with the red and blue colours of lasers, and the shocking orange of explosions. Amarli ducked instinctively behind a copse of trees, waving at Curie to get behind her. Her heart was suddenly hammering wildly in her chest.

What the hell was this?

“RobCo did not make robots such as these,” Curie said over the deafening noise, echoing her thoughts. She was wincing, as if the sounds of full-blown war were hurting her ears. “Are there more robots left than man? Sometimes, it feels as such.”

“From what I just saw, I’d say you might be right.” Amarli grimaced, peeking around the tree. She couldn’t even see the people they were supposed to save through the chaos – how could they even still be alive in all of this? Many of the robots seemed to be flying, much like eyebots did, but with the upper bodies of automatrons, and fired off rounds of deadly machinegun fire. There were robots on great big track-wheels, with thick metal bodies and tiny heads, firing lasers and explosives. Some of the robots had the arms and legs of protectrons and seemed only to be lashing out towards the heart of the battle.

“Curie, this is much worse than I thought it’d be,” Amarli said tensely. “I need to you to be very careful, okay? Stay here unless I need you.”

Curie opened her mouth to protest, and then shut it again immediately. Her eyes were bright with what Amarli thought might be fear. But then she frowned and said, “You will most definitely need me, Madame.”

“I know,” Amarli sighed. She straightened. “But stay here.”

And then she was running straight towards the robots, her shotgun slung over her chest and two plasma grenades in her hands. She pulled the pin from one of them, tossing it hard into the fray, then ducked and rolled as the closest robots spun immediately to face her, a wave of gunfire passing overhead. She was suddenly surrounded by aggressive beeping noises and snatches of robotic voices:

“…Do not be alarmed…”

“Attention, people of the Commonwealth!”

“…your allies, protectors, and they will not…”

“…Commonwealth is saved…”

She was too deafened by the noise of their voices – and the bullets that were tearing up the soil around her – to even hear the sound of the explosion her grenade made. Instead, she felt the heat and power of it wash over her as it sent her attackers flying in all directions.

Amarli didn’t wait a single moment. She pulled the pin of her next grenade, gasping and rolling to her feet, and then threw it hard at the rest of the robots before ducking down again. This time, she felt several bullets whistle past her body, one of them even tearing a long line in her leg. She hissed her pain, already holding her shotgun in her hands as she shuffled across the grass on her stomach, waiting for her sight to stop blurring. This time, she heard the explosion – a great BANG! and a humming sound – before there were answering beeps and crashing metal. One of the flying robots slammed into the ground to her left, spinning wildly out of control, and exploded into a cloud of flames and smoke. Amarli whipped a hand up in front of her face to protect it from most of the heat, but she felt as if her eyebrows had been singed off, and she was certain her yellow fedora had been turned into a smouldering rag.

Gritting her teeth, she leapt rapidly to her feet. Three of the walking robots had already reached her, clawing at her with serrated limbs. Amarli fired instinctively with her shotgun, backing away as another wave of bullets was sent in her direction. While it hadn’t exactly been her original plan, she had effectively managed to draw the whole crowd of robots away from their original victims and onto her. Most of the flying bots had been blown up, but there were still plenty of robots with lasers – there was no way she could possibly dodge all of them at once.

She ducked and weaved, throwing herself behind trees and bushes as what seemed like twenty machines began quickly moving towards her, all of them speaking and beeping at once. One, then two lasers struck her directly, sending her flying backwards, winded from the impact. She felt a deep burn mark on her arm, while her chest plate had managed to prevent the other shot from charring her chest.

She stumbled to her feet and then fell again as there was an explosion to her right, her shotgun torn from her hands. Although she could hardly breathe through the pain in her chest and her vision was hazy, Amarli found the effort to crawl rapidly on her hands and knees to a jutting rock and crouch behind it, wincing as flecks of stone and dirt stung her skin. She tore her bag from her shoulders and struggled with the zipper, cursing at herself for not having thought of putting the pistol at her hip.

“…bring about an age of peace…”

“…Do not be alarmed…”

“Curie!” she yelled over the noise. “I could use a little help right now!”

Two of the great big sentry-like robots rounded the rock, firing at her, and Amarli was forced to lift her backpack as a makeshift shield, one hand inside her bag and wrapped around the stock of her pistol. With the bag still raised, she pulled the trigger and bullets burst through the bag’s material, rattling against metal armour. She had no time to think about all the supplies she was destroying or the fact that she’d need a new bag after this fight. One of the robots started shuddering and sparking, and then collapsed. The other one managed to get quite a few shots in before following suit.

Amarli gasped for breath, lowering her bag and retracting her hand from inside with the pistol still in her grip. Her fingers were sticky with her own warm blood – one of the lasers had gone right through her palm. The pain hadn’t hit her yet, but it would soon. Grimly, she switched the pistol to her left hand so she could shoot at the other robots now rounding the rock, and, using her injured right hand, began searching through her tattered rucksack for her small bag of chems. When she felt the plastic against her fingers, she tugged it out and picked out some Jet. For months now, she had been clean from chems – she’d had no need for them in Sanctuary Hills. Hopefully, this one time wouldn’t send her spiralling out of control.

Here goes.

She lifted the inhaler to her lips and pressed the applicator with her thumb, sucking all of the medicine into her lungs and feeling it instantly take effect – a wave of tingling heat that made her heart flutter wildly and her vision warp. With a sharp battle cry, she jumped nimbly to her feet, rounding the side of the rock, and threw herself at the first couple of robots. With her pistol, she aimed for wires, engines, joints, viciously tearing them apart piece by piece. She rolled, instinctively sensing that she was being shot at again, and reached gracefully for her shotgun, which was laying in the grass. Her pistol was tossed aside.

Bringing the shotgun up, she aimed directly at the last two robots with guns, her mark sure and true. Still, she had to empty the rest of her incendiary shotgun shells in order to make the two robots to explode like their comrades. Finally, with those robots gone, she could no longer hear their terrible mechanized voices. With the Jet drained from her system and her heart still beating out of control, Amarli began swinging with her empty shotgun, keeping the last of the robots at a distance. She was hardly able to climb to her feet anymore, too injured and out of breath to bother trying. Instead, she did her best to remain beyond the approaching blades and claws as the remaining robots surrounded her. Five, perhaps six of them. Was it too late to chance a run back to her bag?

Where the hell was Curie? Hadn’t she been able to hear her over all the noise? Perhaps she’d taken that last order too seriously.

Amarli yelled, “Curie! Where the hell are you?”

One of the robots managed to scrape her arm between the plates of her armour, and she felt her skin open up. With a grunt of exertion, she kicked the robot’s bladed arm away and it swung back behind the others, but another was quickly there to replace it, this one with wicked-looking saw-blades covered in a sticky sheen of blood.

“Shit!” she hissed. They were on all sides now – either she came up with a plan now, and fast, or she died.

“Cease hostilities!” And then Curie – finally – was sprinting up behind the robots and battering them with gunfire. The laser rifle that Shaun had given her was good, very good, because only a few shots seemed to short-circuit a couple of the robots. They shook, electricity dancing over their armour, and then collapsed. The other three seemed to forget about Amarli very suddenly, all of them moving at a quick pace towards the other woman.

“Curie, watch out!” Amarli shouted.

Spinning around, Curie turned just in time to rather expertly dodge a serrated-blade swing, but one of the other robots immediately managed to get a jab in – while Amarli had spent so much time teaching her about how to attack over the past few weeks, she had taught her nothing about defence. Huge mistake. Curie cried out, hunching over and stumbling out of the way, but she was smart enough to keep on shooting despite the pain. One of the robots straightened suddenly, fizzling with electricity, and then collapsed into a pile of metal. The other two approached her doggedly.

With a grimace of pain and effort, Amarli forced herself unsteadily to her feet, her shotgun raised, and began to limp to Curie’s aid. She came up behind one of the robots and wacked it hard over the head with the barrel of her gun. While this did absolutely nothing, it did manage to turn the attention from Curie onto her. With an aggressive beep, the machine spun and sliced her across the front of her armour – thankfully leaving no damage. Amarli stepped back, almost falling over, and lifted her gun as a bar to ward off the rest of the robot’s advances. It was tiring, and the muscles in her arms were aching, but she managed to hold it off without too much trouble. Just when she felt like she was about to collapse again…

“Yyaagh!”

 Curie suddenly appeared by Amarli’s side, slamming her laser rifle into the neck-joint of her attacker as if she’d been in combat many times before. And then, lifting the barrel, she delivered two very precise shots into the robot’s bared torso, seeming to know exactly where it was most vulnerable. It jerked backwards, swayed, and then fell unceremoniously to the ground. The other robot which Curie had been duelling was already resting in pieces.

Amarli could hardly believe it was over. She released a deep sigh, letting her shoulders slouch, and turned to glance into Curie’s face. The other woman was covered in smudges of soot from the battle. One hand was wrapped around her left side as if protecting a sore wound, but she otherwise seemed to be in one piece.

“Better late than never,” Amarli muttered.

Curie averted her eyes. “This is for you.” She was holding out a stimpack in her sooty right hand.

Gratefully, Amarli took it and injected it into her thigh, breathing out another sigh of relief as she felt the medicine flooding through her veins. She tossed the empty injector onto the floor and then looked up at the other woman critically. “What happened, Curie?” she demanded. “Did you not hear me? Didn’t you see that I needed backup?”

“I…” Curie hesitated. “I am sorry.”

Amarli repeated, “What happened?”

“My primary purpose is not combat,” Curie said quickly. “There is a lot more of this up here than I was led to believe. But… that is not an excuse. I have failed you.” Her face twisted into a grimace. “I think I was very… scared.”

“Scared?” Amarli’s frustration faltered slightly.

Curie nodded hesitantly, looking both mortified and upset. “It will not happen again. You are my priority, Madame. If you had been seriously injured…”

“I’m not,” Amarli said abruptly. She looked around, saw her pistol lying on the grass a few feet away, and walked to pick it up. When she’d rounded the rock to collect the rest of her supplies and check how damaged her bag was, she was pleased to see that it would still be able to carry her things. Reaching inside, she found her first aid kit and drew out a bandage, wrapping it tightly over the still-open wound on her hand. It was healing, but would take considerably more time than her other wounds, and she didn’t want it getting infected. When she was finished, she turned and saw Curie standing in exactly the same place, an arm still wrapped around herself and looking as if she was about to cry. Amarli softened automatically, feeling bad for getting so worked up. “Curie, it’s fine. I understand,” she said.

Curie said nothing.

“This is your first time doing proper battle in that body. The first time is always the worst time. I shouldn’t have expected you to be like any of my other companions.”

Looking even more embarrassed, Curie sighed. “I lack knowledge, Madame – like a child. How will I ever keep you safe? How will I keep myself safe?”

Amarli walked over. “Look, I shouldn’t have gotten angry at you just now. You saved my life. You took down five of those robots all on your own. Sure, perhaps you could’ve been there sooner, but at least you still had my back. And I brought you along as a combat medic, remember? Not as a soldier.”

Instead of answering, Curie stared past her at something on the battlefield. Her face changed completely, eyes darkening. “There is another robot, Madame.”

“What?” Amarli turned quickly, pistol in her hand, but saw only a blue-painted bot standing where the caravaners had been. She felt a throb of sadness in her chest as she realized she could see none of the humans who had sent out the distress signal. They were probably all dead.

Deciding to leave her conversation with Curie for later, she holstered her pistol, slung her shotgun and her tattered rucksack over her shoulder, and approached the blue robot. It was standing still, apparently waiting for them.

The area that all the robots had been swarming looked like some sort of campsite – there was a fire in the centre, surrounded by sleeping bags, and some crates and boxes stacked near the trees. One of the people who had sent out a distress signal, a woman in a blue jumpsuit and a pair of goggles slung around her neck, had died leaning against a tree, her head lolling and her eyes closed. Another body was lying on the ground a few feet away from the campsite, but it was soaked with blood and missing a few limbs. The more Amarli looked, the more bodies she noticed – this was much bigger than a normal caravan group.

“My friends… did not survive the attack,” the robot said in a female-sounding voice. “Thank you for assisting. I was certain to meet my end here as well.”

Amarli looked at it in surprise. “Are you okay?”

“Physically, the damage is minor. But I am registering sadness and anger at the loss of my friends.” The robot shifted. “It may sound strange coming from a robot, but they were my… family.”

Slowly, Amarli turned to look at Curie. No, it didn’t sound strange at all. This robot sounded just as sentient as Curie had when Amarli first met her in the vault. Was it possible that it had gone through the same process of evolving on its own?

“Again, I thank you for your efforts,” the robot said. “I know they would have thanked you as well.”

“What kind of robot are you?” Amarli asked curiously.

“I am heavily modified, but at my core, I am an assaultron. My name is Ada. This was the third time we’d been attacked by robots like these. Even with the weapon and detection upgrades Jackson gave me, I was unable to defend them.”

“Who’s Jackson?”

“He was the leader of this caravan. He had a great mind for technology. In many ways, he is my creator.”

Much like Doctor Collins was Curie’s creator. How odd it was that Amarli seemed to be discovering such intriguing technology all of a sudden – she’d certainly felt that Curie must be the only one of her kind. If this robot started requesting a human body too, she’d have her hands full.

Grimly, Amarli said, “Tell me about these robots.”

“They roam the Commonwealth and claim to be restoring order,” Ada explained. “We’ve seen them fighting raiders, but they’ve also attacked innocents. Settlers, merchants… and caravans like ours.” The robot paused, her systems whirring. “We knew we ran the risk of encountering more of these hostile robots if we stayed in the Commonwealth. If only we had made the decision to leave.”

Amarli couldn’t believe that the robots had been causing damage in the Commonwealth for so long and this was the first time she was hearing of it. Had the Minutemen not been informing her of what they were supposed to? Would there be any reason to keep something this terrible under wraps? She’d need to have a word with Preston Garvey.

“You couldn’t have known something like this would happen,” Amarli said reassuringly.

“The probability was high. I should have forced our departure,” Ada disagreed. “In recompense, I will seek justice for my friends and stop these robots from causing further harm. It’s time to uncover the source and confront their leader: the Mechanist.”

“The Mechanist?” Amarli repeated derisively. “Sounds ridiculous.”

“Perhaps, but the name does not change the level of threat.”

True enough. Still, it sounded as if Ada had pulled that name straight out of an Unstoppables comic. The idea of there being one person behind all of this destruction was implausible. But Amarli knew well enough that any normal combat robot would not try to attack people unless it had been programmed to do so. Whatever the “Mechanist’s” motives were, they would likely end up causing human extinction in the Commonwealth. Once they were done, there would be nothing left but bones.

“You have shown willingness to aid others,” Ada said. “I ask that you please assist me in stopping this Mechanist. In return, I can give you the schematics to build your own robot workbench, so you have additional resources in this undertaking.”

Amarli instantly felt her eyes light up. She could just imagine being able to build her own robots, her own technology – that would keep her occupied for days, maybe even weeks! Maybe months. It would be a welcome new addition to her tech lab. And could even be a cure for her dissatisfaction with life in Sanctuary Hills.

“I’ll do it,” she said immediately.

“I wish I had the proper vocal registry to express my gratitude.”

“That’s okay, Ada.” Amarli smiled. She glanced back over her shoulder at Curie, realizing she was still brooding and silent, and sighed. “I think you should come back home with us. It’s safe there, and we can figure out what to do next.”

“Of course.”

“Is there anything here that you’d like to take with you?” Amarli looked around the campsite uncertainly. “Anything… personal?”

“I have already taken what I need.”

“Right.” Amarli took a final glance at all the dead bodies, knowing that when the Minutemen arrived they would bury them and take all their belongings back to the Castle. She felt another pang of sadness. How many people had died like this already? How many more would die before she managed to make the Commonwealth safe again?

The Minutemen were about to have the hell of a lot more work to do.

Chapter Text

It was night when they got back to Sanctuary Hills, and Curie felt as if she no longer knew how to talk. She hadn’t spoken a word throughout their journey, even when prodded by Amarli, and instead spent the entire time re-imagining their battle against the army of robots. If she had run in the moment she saw Amarli being overwhelmed – if she’d followed her sense of duty instead of her feelings…

Well, there was no going back now. Curie was aware of her own flaws, now more than ever. She had never had these issues as a robot. As a human, she was weak, vulnerable, unable to make suitable judgements. Blinded by emotions and morals. How could Amarli ever trust her with anything? How could Amarli continue to be her friend if she could not trust her?

Curie said nothing about the wound on her side, where a sharp blade had scraped past the leather straps of her armour and left a rather deep cut in her flesh. Her first ever battle wound. It hurt terribly, but she thought it would be better to feel it and remember what she’d done wrong rather than heal it and forget. Such a show of cowardliness must never happen again. The pain, while distracting and significantly more shocking than anything else her body had felt, was very useful in clearing her mind.

As they arrived in Sanctuary Hills under the cover of darkness, Ada made varying comments on the homeliness of it. Amarli sounded pleased. She was too interested in that robot, Curie thought. Ada was just a modified assaultron – a work in progress – with an emotionless voice and a slow, creaking way of moving. What was so interesting about her? Perhaps it was because she had fought until the end for her friends – because she was a robot and fear didn’t prevent her from following her function. If Curie was like that, she was sure Amarli would like her more.

Before they retired to Amarli’s home, they left Ada outside on the porch of Sturges’ house – she claimed it would be better for her to be alone so she could consider their next step in the battle against the Mechanist. While reluctant, Amarli eventually agreed, and they went inside. Codsworth was hovering in the kitchen, but he greeted them cheerfully when they entered, coming over to collect their jackets. “How was the trip, mum?” he asked.

“Absolutely terrible.” Amarli winced as she handed him her jacket, and Curie noticed that blood was seeping through the bandage on her hand.

“Keep your arm still. Otherwise, the injury could get worse,” Curie said immediately.

Amarli looked at her as if surprised to hear her voice. She smiled faintly. “I’ll do my best.”

Ducking her head, Curie instantly felt embarrassed again. She guiltily turned from the other woman and strode down the hallway to her room. Putting her bag on the bed, she sat down beside it and stared at the wall, chewing on her lip. Amarli didn’t seem angry at her, but she still wondered…

Curie began to unstrap her armour. Arms first, then legs, then her chest piece, having to stop several times as the pain in her side flared worse than before. Once it was all off, she walked to the dresser and set her armour neatly inside. Her mechanic’s overalls were completely soaked with blood – the amount surprised Curie, because her evaluation of the wound had been that it would clot quickly if she left it. Instead, it still seemed to be open. Curie wondered if it was too late now to ask Amarli for some of her first aid equipment.

She gently unzipped the mechanic’s overalls and pulled them down to her hips. Lifting the bloodied white t-shirt she wore underneath, she quickly examined the wound. The more attention she paid it, the more it seemed to hurt. The pain throbbed in her gut, deep and warm, but not in a nice way. She was surprised to feel heat prickling at her eyes – tears.

With a heavy sigh, Curie collected some clean clothes and hesitantly left the room, stepping out into the hallway to check Amarli wasn’t there before entering the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. There, in front of her mirror, she lifted her shirt again and checked her wound under the brighter lighting. The edges of the cut were surprisingly clean, but the skin around it was puffy and red. She opened the tap, cupped some water in her hand, and began to splash it over the cut. She winced as it swirled without mercy, penetrating to the cells that should be protected by smooth skin but lied open and raw.

With a feeling of determination, Curie stripped the rest of the way and stepped into the shower, drawing the curtains shut around her. When she switched on the water, it was surprisingly hot – perhaps Shaun had switched the boiler on earlier. She tilted her head back into the flow and let the rush of warmth calm her body. Eventually, while her wound continued to throb and sting, she got used to the pain. She lathered herself all over with soap, scrubbed shampoo into her hair, softened the ends with conditioner, and then switched the water off. The bathroom was now misty with steam, and the mirror had been fogged over. Curie grabbed a towel to dry herself with, ensuring she didn’t get the white material all bloody, and then drew a circle in the mirror-fog with her fist so she could see her face. She looked pale and upset, her lips turned down at the corners and her hazel eyes dark.

It really did seem that for every short period of feeling comfortable and happy with her humanity, something happened to cause an imbalance and make her feel uncertain again. Would she ever learn?

Opening the mirror, Curie took out some of the first-aid items. There was a surgical needle and some thread for stitches, a stimpack, bandages, antiseptic cream, and cotton buds. Curie set it all out on the sink and then sat down on the toilet seat, naked. Her teeth were chattering now as her body reacted to the much colder air outside of the shower. The pain in her side was returning. Curie expertly injected the stimpack needle directly into the skin beside her wound, feeling the pain get washed away by the medicine. And then, deciding not to wait too long for the agony to return, she gritted her teeth and threaded the surgical needle. At first, when she tried to insert the needle, her fear of the pain wouldn’t let her push it hard enough to break the skin. Her heart was starting to pound. But then she thought rationally of all the bacteria that could get inside while the stimpack was healing it – she thought of it bleeding openly and irreparably staining more of her clothes.

Finally, she managed to slide the needle under her skin, but it made her whimper. Nausea rose in her chest. She pulled the string through, her eyes watering, and then inserted the needle again. And again. She imagined she was just stitching up a rip in clothing. Just fabric. Her eyes stopped watering and she grew numbed to the pain, overcome by her sense of duty. Close the wound, apply antiseptic, cover with a bandage, wait a day for it to heal. Sever stitches or wait for them to dissolve. Even when using stimpacks, Curie felt it was essential to follow basic rules. Stimpacks could take a while to work, or they could only heal a wound part-way. This was the only way of ensuring a full recovery.

When she was finished, the stiches were blood-red but neatly pulling the edges of her wound together. After securing the string, Curie used a pair of bandage scissors to cut it and then let out a sigh of relief. Her side now felt tight, but at least it wasn’t openly bleeding everywhere anymore. She was just applying the antiseptic cream and preparing the bandage when there was a knock on the bathroom door.

“Curie? You in there?”

Quickly, Curie reached for her spare clothes, knowing that Amarli was uncomfortable with her carelessness with nudity, and began hastily pulling them on, replying, “Yes!”

When she had buttoned the flannel shirt up halfway, she opened the door. Amarli was leaning against the doorframe with one hand, her eyebrows lowered. She stared down at Curie’s still-bloody hands, then at the blood in the sink, and finally raked her eyes over her body. She appeared suddenly worried. “Curie... what’s going on?”

“I had sustained some damage.” It seemed like an understatement at this point. Curie lifted the hem of her shirt to show the other woman the neatly-stitched wound. “But I have evaded all possibilities of infection.” She glanced down at Amarli’s bandaged hand. “You should do the same, I think – that is a very serious injury.”

“Stimpacks always heal me pretty well. I’ve never really bothered trying to stitch myself up… well, unless there’s a doctor nearby. Healing was never something that came naturally to me.”

“A stimpack is only a temporary solution,” Curie informed her.

Amarli met her eyes, seeming as if she was searching for something. She looked almost horrified that Curie had gone through that pain and said nothing about it. “Did you seriously just stitch yourself up? You couldn’t have asked for help?”

“I have the skillset needed. No assistance was required.” Curie shifted on her feet, uncomfortable. “Perhaps you can allow me to treat your wounds, Madame? You have enough that you require assistance, I think.”

Amarli still seemed troubled, but she nodded and stepped into the bathroom. She’d taken off her armour, her long hair down in all its curly glory. While she was still soot-covered and sweaty from their day of walking, she looked remarkably casual and at ease. Her eyes swept again over all the medical supplies, and then she said, “Could you just do my hand? None of the other wounds are really that serious.”

Curie nodded and got to work, making her sit on the toilet and picking up her hand, unwrapping the bandage so she could see the wound better. Very ragged, with charred edges, but by some stroke of luck, all of the bones were still intact. After a few more moments of examination and scanning all the different healing techniques that could be used, Curie grabbed some new surgical thread and another needle and went through the same process as she had with herself, feeling Amarli watching her the whole time. There wasn’t a single sound of pain, which was quite impressive. Curie wondered how long it would take her – how many wounds it would take her – to no longer react to such a shocking sensation.

Finally, she was done and they were both bandaged up. She left Amarli to shower and exited the bathroom, feeling as if she had at least made herself a little bit useful today. Discarding her bloody clothes in the bin inside the laundry room, Curie returned to Amarli’s bedroom and put her rucksack beneath the bed, not bothering to unpack any of her things. Ada had made it seem like they would be setting off again sometime soon. She didn’t want to be left behind.

Curie sat on the end of the double bed and swung her feet idly, her clothes feeling scratchy against the irritated wound on her side. She stared over at all her notes on the desk – the little corner in the clutter that she’d built for herself. Already, she had a Bunsen burner and some test tubes set up, and plenty of ingredients that were in the fridge. But it still seemed she’d gotten nowhere with her scientific research.

Through the still-open curtains, she could see the porch of the house opposite, where Ada was standing, motionless. Curie watched her for a long time, eyes narrowed and arms folded, until a presence in the bedroom interrupted her. She turned to register that Amarli had finished her shower and had a towel wrapped around her wet hair like a turban. She had a toothbrush sticking out of the side of her mouth and seemed to be searching for something. When she saw Curie sitting dejectedly, however, she removed the toothbrush from her mouth and sighed.

“We need to talk about today, don’t we?”

Curie glanced away. “It is not necessary, Madame.”

“Yes it is.” Amarli left the room temporarily to finish cleaning her teeth, and then returned, her hair still in the towel. She sat down on the bed beside Curie. “I’m sorry I made you upset earlier,” she said quietly.

While Curie wanted to protest, she could not come up with anything suitable to say. Instead, she remained silent.

“Are you really okay, after the battle?”

“I am only worried,” Curie sighed. Miserably, she asked, “Madame, do you still trust me?”

Amarli frowned. “Of course I… trust you. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I did not come to your aid when you needed me. As far as the data I have on friendship tells me, this makes me a dreadful companion.”

“Oh, Curie…” Amarli smiled slightly. “It’s not that easy to lose my trust in you. We’re still friends.”

“But if I-”

“I promise,” Amarli said, cutting her off. “A promise is unbreakable, see? Therefore, I promise that we’re still friends and we’ll continue to be friends, no matter what happens.”

Not understanding, Curie asked, “Why?”

“‘Cause that’s how friendship works,” Amarli said flippantly. “Look, we can even shake on it.” She held out her uninjured hand. “You can make the promise, too.”

Curie stared at her slim brown hand. It was a hand capable of constructing intricate technology and fixing even the most broken machines. A hand which had shaken many other important hands in the Commonwealth and had held weapons which had slayed many monsters. Did Curie really deserve this opportunity? With trepidation, she reached out and shook it.

Amarli grinned. “Great! Now you’ve got nothing to worry about.” Her smile weakened and she drew her hand back into her lap. “Unless… there’s something else making you upset?”

“No!” Curie said quickly. “Nothing more.”

“Really?”

Curie grimaced. “I… I have been thinking. About things.”

“Go on.”

“I have been thinking what a contradiction a human is, to be lacking in so many capabilities, but being blessed with such a tapestry of emotions…”

“Oh, I see. You’re struggling again.” Amarli sighed.

“I do not think I will ever overcome the hardships of becoming human,” Curie said honestly. “Today was a jarring experience. But…” She looked hopefully at Amarli. “No matter how extreme the odds, together I think we will prevail.”

“You’re right. We will.” Amarli beamed at her. And then she did something completely unexpected. She reached over to loop her arms around Curie and pull her close.

Curie stiffened at first, her skin prickling at the unfamiliar feel of Amarli’s light touch around her shoulders, but inevitably her body began to relax. There was something so warm, something that felt right, smelt right. She let her body sag, her muscles become loose, her eyes fluttering shut. Amarli seemed to sense that she was calming down, because her grip tightened and her fingers lifted to stroke gently through Curie’s hair, brushing the longish strands off her forehead. Her light touches were making the hairs on Curie’s arms stand on end, but she only found herself sighing at the sensation.

“Better?” Amarli asked softly.

Her voice seemed to vibrate through Curie’s chest. Reflexively, Curie tucked her hands beneath Amarli’s arms and wrapped them around her waist, moving in as close as she possibly could, burying herself so securely against Amarli’s chest that it was as if they were one organism. She was too overwhelmed to answer, but she had a feeling Amarli understood the effect she had on her. While she still felt humiliated and little sore from earlier, she now realized that everything would be all right. Each experience was a step closer to understanding her own humanity – each bullet wound and moment of helplessness would teach her to be more careful and vigilant the next time. At least she had Amarli’s promise to protect her from ever feeling again like she had today; like she might lose a friend if she wasn’t careful.

Amarli was the first to pull away, surprisingly, and Curie let her with a happy smile on her face. “Merci,” she said. “I feel much better.”

“Good.” Standing up, Amarli stretched and began to unwind the towel from her hair. “Get some sleep and let that wound heal, all right?”

Curie nodded. She watched fondly as Amarli left the room, thinking about the hug and wondering about her reaction to it. Human forms of endearment were very fascinating; they had many ways of communicating non-verbally which Curie hadn’t really bothered trying to understand. She hadn’t been converted into a human for that purpose. However, she now knew she quite liked hugs. Especially if they were from Amarli. The comfort and peace it had given her was astounding – she suddenly felt like sitting down at the desk and continuing her work, revitalized. She felt hopeful again.

Perhaps Curie was focusing on the wrong things, after all. She should definitely put more emphasis on learning about non-verbal communication. When she felt confused or upset with herself again, it would act as an indefinite cure. Maybe Amarli could help her out? Apparently, this was what friends were for.

Curie walked to the desk, sat down in Amarli’s swivel chair, and grabbed a pencil. Quickly, she scribbled down her notes on everything she had learned today and added it to her pile. As with her internal note-making when she’d been a robot, Curie still recognized the importance of writing entries every day, just so she could mark turning points in her evolution or go back and look over research she had conducted previously. Amarli had given her a folder to put all her notes in, and she had neatly filed them all in order, from her first days in the Commonwealth until now. She liked that she could actually hold knowledge in her hands. It was different from simply drawing facts from the depths of her internal systems; it was more tangible. And she had memories and emotions attached to each page of her writing, reminding her of how she had felt that day beyond her learnings.

Curie stood up, lining her pencil neatly beside the folder of her notes, and gazed out of the window at the darkness outside. Ada was still standing on the porch of the house opposite. Curie pitied her now. Ada had nobody to serve. What was her function, without that crew of mechanics to guide her? She had said she felt sad, that she was missing her family, but Curie wondered if that was just what her systems were telling her. Most robots were programmed to protect and even avenge their masters. Ada was as hopelessly bound to her robot nature as Curie had once been, unable to make decisions for herself; unable to do anything other than follow orders.

Curie felt her throat grow tight, and looked away. She stared at the doorway, still hearing Amarli in the bathroom next door, and again thought about that hug. It had anchored her to this sentiment: that humanity, at least, had given her complete freedom. Just a few minutes ago, she’d been scared about going against her orders in the first place, in letting her human emotions get in the way of her better judgement. But now she felt that she’d never been more wrong. She knew that she would always seek to serve and protect her master, but also that she was free to make mistakes – Amarli had told her so.

Those human mistakes could often have a deadly price, but it was a price she was glad to pay in exchange for her freedom.

 ---

Amarli hardly slept during the night, grimly sitting by the radio and waiting for an answer from the Castle. She’d sent word for Preston Garvey, hoping to urge him to visit Sanctuary Hills so they could talk face to face. He had a lot of explaining to do.

The Minutemen didn’t reply until the early hours of the morning, first giving her an update on what they had found once they’d reached the battle ground, then telling her that Preston Garvey had continued on to Sanctuary Hills after exploring the site. Apparently, he’d guessed that Amarli would want to speak to him.

Satisfied at least that she would finally be on the same page as the rest of the Minutemen, Amarli left the radio alone and exited the house to go on a walk. She strolled right to the border of Sanctuary Hills, Dogmeat trotting by her side, and stared off past the bridge at the road in the distance. She thought about all the settlements she’d cleared out herself, and all the people whose names she had struggled to learn, all the complaints she had tried to deal with. With the Mechanist now planning to destroy the Commonwealth, how much time did all those people have left? How long until the Minutemen had vanished once more, leaving them helpless?

She clenched her jaw, glancing down at Dogmeat. He cocked his head at her, questioning. As always, he seemed to know exactly how she felt, more so than many of her human friends. Reaching down, she ruffled her fingers through the soft fur between his ears and allowed herself to take comfort in his presence for a moment. Everything had happened so fast – she’d barely had time to think.

When Preston arrived, she would get all the facts from him and introduce him to Ada. And then it would be time to come up with a plan. The sooner they dealt with this problem, the better. Amarli didn’t want to wait until the next attack before she did something. She was also sure she didn’t want robots anywhere near Sanctuary Hills, not with her son here. Not with Curie here.

“Come on, boy,” she said softly, turning on her heel and beginning to walk back home. “I’ll give you some breakfast.”

Dogmeat whined softly and sped up to trot by her side again.

 ---

“We’d never received calls quite like this one,” Preston was saying, frowning down at the table. “Most of them were just your typical radio signal. I guess people didn’t normally have the time to send a voice message and tell us what was going on. And they were dead before we could ask them in person.”

Amarli sighed. “That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me the Castle’s been getting so many odd distress calls in the first place. Surely that’s a matter of concern? You didn’t think the General had a right to hear about it?”

With one hand, Preston removed the worn fedora from his head and placed it on the table-top. He looked grave. “I did send word for you, if you remember. I told Sturges to let you know what had been happening. Everything he told you was everything we knew. We were aware there was something off about it, but we’d figured it was a group of mercenaries or Raiders – nothing on this scale.”

Amarli knew he had no reason to lie to her. But it just seemed too impossible that they’d had no idea about the Mechanist and his army of robots. If Ada had been right, and the robots had been attacking people for a while now, the Minutemen should definitely have heard something about it. Still… it was time to move on. It wasn’t the Minutemen who were endangering the Commonwealth here. She needed to start focusing her attention on the matter at hand.

“Fine,” she said shortly. Glancing down at the table, she began moving files and pieces of paper out of the way, grimly making space for her new mission. Preston watched her silently. And then, with slight trepidation, he asked, “What you told me, about this ‘Mechanist’… do you really think he’s real?”

“He’s a real threat, that’s what he is.” Amarli put her first piece of evidence on the table – a holotape which she had salvaged from one of the robots she had killed during the battle. “You need to listen to this.”

He glanced up at her, his dark eyes searching her face, and then nodded. Amarli lifted it to the Pip-Boy on her wrist and inserted it, flicking through the interface. Once she’d pressed play, she saw Preston’s face begin to darken.

“Attention, people of the Commonwealth! I, the Mechanist, have come to bring about an age of peace. Do not be alarmed. These robots are your allies, your protectors, and they will not rest until the Commonwealth is saved.”

The voice was disturbingly modified to the point where it sounded fragmented and inhuman, but with a heavy passion to it that left Amarli with chills.

“Together, we will restore justice and bring about the dawn of a new age.”

The holotape ended with a click and Amarli glanced up at Preston to gauge his reaction. “So?”

“This guy has a sick sense of irony. Allies and protectors, huh? Does he figure that saving the Commonwealth means killing everybody in it?”

“It seems so.”

Preston heaved a sigh and glanced, for the first time since arriving, over his shoulder at Ada. The robot was standing patiently by the kitchen counter, waiting to join the conversation. “So, you have an idea of how to stop this guy?” he asked tentatively.

“We last saw a group of the Mechanist’s robots at the General Atomics Factory,” Ada said immediately. “You may find information there that will lead us to the Mechanist.”

Preston turned back to Amarli, searching her eyes. “If you’re willing to try, go ahead,” he said. “You know how to get things done. If anyone has a chance of stopping this, it’s you.”

“What will you do?”

Placing the hat back on his head and straightening it, Preston said, “The Commonwealth’s protection is my priority. I’ll work with the Minutemen on trying to prevent attacks on our settlements from now on. Just… keep me updated. I have a feeling this is an issue that could escalate very quickly.”

“Sure you don’t want to stay for lunch?”

With the flicker of a smile, Preston gallantly tipped his hat at her and said, “Thanks for the offer, General. But I think I’ll be on my way.”

As he walked out, he passed Shaun and Curie, who were sitting by the television. “Nice seeing you both.”

“It was pleasant meeting you, Monsieur,” Curie said happily.

Once he was gone, Amarli removed the holotape from her Pip-Boy and put it back on the table. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand, trying to decide where to begin. Ada walked over slowly, her robotic limbs clunking and whirring.

“I will follow and assist with your permission,” she said.

Amarli glanced up at her. “You sure about that?”

“Stopping the Mechanist both protects the Commonwealth and allows me to avenge my fallen friends. I won’t rest until this threat is resolved.” A short pause. “I owe it to them.”

Curiously, Amarli narrowed her eyes at the robot. She couldn’t quite piece together exactly what it was that made Ada seem almost as human as Curie. She wanted to know how Jackson and his team had made her this way. It almost seemed wrong – irresponsible, even – to create something so sentient inside a body that was made only to follow orders for eternity. Curie had been locked inside a vault for two hundred years despite the fact that she knew exactly how to get out. Ada would continue to serve the memory of her ‘family’ even though they were gone. There was something unethical about both of their fates.

“Fine,” Amarli said. “I’d be happy to have you along. The more help, the better.”

She turned, momentarily catching a frown on Curie’s face, but didn’t stop to question it. “General Atomics, huh? Any reason you think the robots would be hanging around there?”

“General Atomics has valuable salvage,” Ada explained.

“So the Mechanist is making them run errands as well as kill innocent people? Figures.” Amarli walked over to the kitchen counter, grabbed a mutfruit out of the bowl on the edge, and bit into it. She gazed out of the window at the sunny day beyond. “There’s no point in waiting, is there? We’ll set off after lunch.”

“Affirmative,” Ada said.

Both Shaun and Curie jumped up from the couch. “Can I come?” Shaun asked excitedly.

“May I accompany you, Madame?” Curie said almost at exactly the same time.

Amarli couldn’t help but smile at their eagerness. “No,” she said, pointing to Shaun, and, “Yes,” while nodding at Curie. Her son huffed and stalked off to find Dogmeat; Curie, meanwhile, beamed and immediately headed down the corridor to Amarli’s room, presumably to pack. All the neuroses of the day before seemed to be gone, and she was back to being her cheery old self. Amarli was glad. While she was certainly having second thoughts about bringing Curie along with her into another battle, she knew there was no point in keeping her away from danger. She’d have to face it at some point. And if Curie couldn’t back her up this time, she’d have Ada.

When she’d finished the mutfruit, Amarli went to her room, too. She’d gotten Codsworth to help her fix the tattered mess of her travel pack so it could hold all her items again. Unfortunately, it now looked like a bundle of duct tape and loose string.

Curie was leaning over her notes on the desk, scribbling something down very hastily, biting down on her lip in concentration. She looked up when Amarli came in, however, and shot her a bright smile. A smile like a ray of sunshine, leaving Amarli feeling like she had sunburn. For a few seconds she stared at the other woman, wondering at how just a smile from Curie could make things seem perfectly all right. Even if the world around her started collapsing, her heart wouldn’t get crushed as long as she was looking at that smile.

“All packed?” she asked lightly.

“I am ready,” Curie affirmed. She turned, her eyes lighting up. “I have looked through some data on these robots, Madame. Although the machines which attacked us were heavily modified, they have the same weaknesses as old models. The circuity should be our target.”

Amarli lifted an eyebrow. “That’s… actually very useful, Curie. Thank you.”

“Protectron and eyebot models have circuitry contained in the head,” she rushed to continue. “The sentry bot models have a core in the back but they move very fast so perhaps you must disable them first. With a mine, yes?” Curie frowned. “The assaultron models are very tough. I believe you must aim for the head–”

“I’ve killed assaultrons before. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Curie nodded meekly. “I am aware,” she said. “These tactics are more for me than for you, Madame. I do not wish to… fail. Again.”

“You didn’t fail in the first place,” Amarli said chidingly. “Give yourself a break.” She reached under her bed, coming out with a yellow rain slicker. Once she’d pulled it down over her head, she heard a small laugh from Curie. She glanced over in surprise. “Is there something funny?”

Curie hesitated. “The hat, Madame,” she said finally.

“What about it?”

“It is… ridiculous.”

Amarli opened her mouth to shoot back some witty retort, and then changed her mind. She grinned instead. “I know.”

“You like these hats very much,” Curie said, walking over and peering under the bed. “How many do you have?”

“Thirty-five, including this one.”

“Is this… what do you say – a ‘hobby’?”

“Yes.” Amarli kneeled to retrieve another hat – the baseball cap that Curie had worn on their journey to Sanctuary Hills – and then straightened again. “Actually, thirty-four.”

“What?” Curie stared at her in confusion.

“I want you to have this one.” She held out the hat. “You need it more than me.”

Curie stared at the hat. “But-”

Amarli reached over to pull it down over her head, brushing her black hair beneath the brim to the side with her fingertips. Curie looked at her with slightly rounded eyes. For the first time, she wasn’t flinching at Amarli’s touch, instead remaining as still and subdued as a lamb. Feeling oddly satisfied, Amarli let her fingers linger against the other woman’s skin before pulling away and smiling down at her. “Looks better on you, anyway,” she said softly.

“…Merci,” Curie murmured. Her eyelashes fluttered, and then she turned away and walked back to the desk swiftly. It was an odd reaction, but no more odd than Amarli’s own satisfaction with her newfound comfort. Nothing more was said after that. When Amarli had finished off packing her things, Curie had finished writing whatever she’d been writing in her notes.

They left the room together, Amarli in her ridiculous rain slicker and Curie in her new baseball cap, finding that Shaun and Ada were waiting for them out in the living room. Codsworth had already made lunch: radstag sandwiches and homemade tato chips.

They ate the sandwiches mostly in silence, however Shaun attempted several times to punctuate it with questions directed at Ada. Since Ada was focused only on the mission at hand, he was finally forced to give up trying to interrogate her about her friends. Perhaps he also realized the significance of her ‘grief’ for them. Curie, meanwhile, seemed uncharacteristically lost in thought, and said hardly anything besides her usual please’s and thank you’s to Codsworth. It was a very odd meal, and Amarli was glad to be leaving it behind twenty minutes later.

She buckled the rucksack tightly over her shoulders, slinging her newly cleaned shotgun over her chest, and checked all the straps of her combat armour. Curie did the same, looking a little pale in her determination. Ada went outside to wait on the porch.

“I get that you have to go,” Shaun said. “But I wish you didn’t.”

“We’ll all be back,” Amarli reassured him. She ran her fingers through the dark curls of his hair and smiled. “A few robots aren’t gonna keep me away from you, kid.”

He nodded somberly but wouldn’t meet her eyes. While Amarli felt a rush of guilt run through her, it wasn’t enough to stop her from turning away and leaving the house. As they walked to the bridge, Curie waved back at Shaun through the window and Ada began to talk tactics. Amarli reverted to business, thinking about the mission ahead: find some of those robots, destroy them, scrap them for parts, and find more clues on where to find the Mechanist.

It couldn’t be too hard, could it?

Chapter Text

The journey east took a while, as had been expected. The General Atomics Factory happened to be close to the Castle, meaning it was several days away from Sanctuary Hills. At first, Amarli had been worried that they wouldn’t make it in time to catch any robots there; Ada, however, reassured her that the factory was full of useful salvage and the Mechanists’ robots would not be leaving until it was all gone. Even Curie seemed certain of this, claiming there was a 78% chance that they would at least find some useful clues upon arrival. Amarli supposed that was the good thing about travelling with two extremely intelligent minds; not only did they seem know everything, but they could back it up with quantifiable evidence.

The three travelling partners moved fast during daylight hours and camped in safe locations at night. While Curie and Amarli would set up camp and unroll their sleeping bags, Ada would stand idle, guarding them. Curie took nightly opportunities to learn how to cook and prepare her own food. Not only that, but Amarli made sure she understood how to rig up traps as well – all things that would benefit her if she ever travelled alone. By the third night, Curie was doing most of the jobs by herself, refusing to let Amarli help her. She moved as efficiently as clockwork, following her instructions step-by-step. When she was done, she would always sit herself down right beside Amarli and look very pleased with herself.

They would sleep side by side, close to the fire so they could resist the night’s chill, and wake up at sunrise. While Amarli sorted out their breakfast, Curie would take in the traps and carefully put on her gear. They would be walking again within an hour, setting a steady pace. Ada would clunk along a few feet behind them, silent for the most part.

On the fourth morning, they were only a couple miles away from their destination. Amarli and Curie both displayed anticipation in how slowly they walked on this day compared to the others, neither of them knowing what to expect – another battle like before? Would either of them be fatally wounded this time? Or killed? By the time they could see the factory on the horizon, sitting on the coast, Curie had gone just as silent as Ada. While Amarli felt she should be doing something to comfort her, she realized she had no idea what to expect from this mission. No point making false promises.

As they neared the factory, it started to rain. Pleased with her choice of hat, Amarli pulled it further down on her head and walked a little faster, fat drops of water splashing all around her and already dampening her clothes. The sky above had developed into one big brown-tinged bruise, the clouds swollen so much that it seemed they would explode and flood the Commonwealth until there was nothing left. Curie, who had not yet seen the rain, seemed shocked by it. She stared at the sky with wide, incredulous eyes, and let the drops fall wetly into her open palms. Before entering the factory, they stopped just on the edge of the sea wall and stared out into the mist that was quickly spreading beyond. Ada, stating that she wanted to avoid the rusting that often came with water in contact with her metal parts, left them and went towards the factory entrance so she could stand beneath the jutting roof.

“This is… so wonderful,” Curie said, as the rain picked up. She had stopped trying to catch the raindrops in her palms and instead looked up at Amarli with a brilliant smile. “It is almost pretty in a toxic and radioactive sort of way.”

“Radioactive storms definitely aren’t healthy,” Amarli agreed.

She stared down at the murky seawater below them, trying to compose herself, wondering what was inside the factory. There were no robots outside – nothing moving to be seen, in fact. If there was anything waiting for them within, it certainly wasn’t looking for trouble.

“I like the rain,” Curie decided.

Rain was now falling in crazy chaotic drops, the gusting wind carrying them in wild vortices one moment and in diagonal sheets the next. It ran down Amarli’s yellow slicker, not as cold as it would be when November came, but without the warmth of summer showers. She glanced sideways at Curie, seeing how the rain had soaked through the baseball cap, plastering strands of inky hair to her forehead and temples, sticking her shirt to her body so that her skin could faintly be seen through. She looked less pale, less thoughtful, than she had a few minutes ago. Her glittering eyes met Amarli’s and she smiled again – wide and cheerful and innocent.

“Me too,” Amarli said after a moment. “It’s refreshing, isn’t it?”

“Exhilarating.” Her accent made her struggle with the word, but somehow it sounded better coming from her than it would from anyone else. She was like a child expanding her vocabulary.

Carefully yet surely, Amarli reached for Curie’s hand and held on to it, feeling the wetness of rain between their palms and fingers. Curie didn’t immediately pull away, and she looked at Amarli much like she had earlier, like a deer caught in headlights. After a few moments she smiled and glanced back out over the sea.

It had been an odd urge, to want to hold Curie’s hand, but right now it felt right. Amarli had thought she’d run out of innocent gestures when it came to anyone besides her son. Curie, however, was somebody who seemed to attract them. She made Amarli want to extend a hand, to wait with endless patience, to be thoughtlessly compassionate. Without even trying, she had brought out an incredibly old side of her – a side that had crashed and burned long before the war. Curie had discovered her innocence.

“I suppose we should get to work,” Amarli said, after several long minutes of standing in the heavy rain. She released Curie’s hand and turned away from the sea. An inexplicable warmth burned inside her chest now like a beacon, a sort of bravery, and she abruptly felt that she was ready for whatever they would find inside the factory.

They walked back towards the entrance quite rapidly, both trying not to swallow the radioactive rain, and then stood undercover trying to squeeze water out of their clothes. Ada watched them silently, standing by the doors. When Amarli saw how soaked the leather of Curie’s armour was, she grimaced.

“We’ll need to get you something better the next time we’re in the city,” she said. “Armour like mine is easier to maintain.”

Curie didn’t seem to know what to say, so she just nodded instead. She was shivering now, her arms clasped across her chest. A little bit of fighting and adrenaline would warm her up.

After emptying water out of her boots and re-tying the laces, Amarli straightened and glanced across at Ada. “Right. Let’s go.”

 ---

Stepping into the old factory building was like stepping into a whole other world. Amarli tipped back the rim of her rain slicker as she looked around, the doors clanging shut behind them. Just as it had been outside, the inside looked like something out of a dystopian movie, the walls as rusted and useless as the equipment they housed. Through the rips and tears in the ceiling, Amarli could see the building’s roof several floors above. Beams stretched high overhead, and rain dripped down through cracks, puddling on the floor. It wasn’t cozy, but the building was still in surprisingly good condition.

She stepped further in and glanced back at Ada and Curie. “So far, nothing,” she said.

“My sensors have detected the presence of others in this area,” Ada informed her. “And I doubt they are living.”

Swallowing down a lump of momentary fear, Amarli unslung her shotgun and adjusted the straps of her armour. She removed the rain slicker from her head and tucked it in her bag. The factory was eerily quiet with the exception of rain pounding the metal roof, and the beams and pillars creaking under its weight. Was Ada right? Were those robots still here? Time to find out.

Deliberately, and with a sense of protectiveness, she said, “Curie, stay behind me. And find cover if you need to.”

“If you-”

“Today, your job isn’t protecting me. You’re my medic, nothing more than that – got it?”

Curie looked confused, but she nodded. “Yes, Madame.”

They began walking, passing machinery and crates of unused building supplies. This was the entrance room, with a reception and rows of benches for waiting – but all of it had been so thrown apart that every piece of furniture was splintered and broken. The glass observation windows to one side had been smashed through completely, and Amarli could see the room beyond. At the faint sound of beeping she thought she heard, she clutched her weapon tighter and ventured towards it. As she passed just through the doorway, she caught sight of a bright red light and she heard the sudden pause of clunking footsteps. She held her breath. The faint red became bright as it turned towards her, and Amarli instantly raised her shotgun and fired.

The robot had only taken a step towards her before one of its legs was blown off and it collapsed to the floor. The high-pitched beeping noise it released signalled the true start of the battle – every robot in the place must have heard it. Amarli burst into action, jogging over and shooting the robot through the chest to silence the jarring sound. She reached past the wires and circuitry and removed a holotape much like the one she’d salvaged from the last battle. It was labelled Junkbot, but she figured it would hold the same message.

A spray of bullets almost hit her straight-on, and Amarli dove out of the way as Ada instantly returned fire for her. Two of those flying robots had entered the room, hovering over the conveyor belts above them – their machine-fire, deadly as it was, seemed unable to hit them from such a height. The robots had a tactical disadvantage. They were confined by whatever program the Mechanist had built into them. They were taught to be hostile towards her and to pacify any threats, but they could not deviate from set paths. They could not think outside the box.

Determinedly, she pulled the pin from one of the pulse grenades she had brought with her and tossed it onto the conveyor belt just above her, ducking to avoid more rapid fire. When it exploded, both robots were flung against the far wall and smashed to flaming pieces. A quick victory. When it came to the fight there was never any honour, and no code. Perhaps that was why Amarli had figured herself so incompatible with the Brotherhood of Steel, and why she had always been so good at travelling and fighting alone. All that mattered to her was the win, and she would do whatever it took to get there.

Curie leaped out of the way to avoid being pelted and then hurriedly returned to her safe spot behind Amarli. She was breathing heavily and had her gun clutched tightly in her hand. “Madame, do you require-?”

“I’m not hurt,” Amarli interrupted. “Yet.”

She caught sight of Ada climbing up onto the conveyor belt and heading into the room above, where she could hear more gunfire. “Come on,” she said.

Straining the toned muscles in her arms, Amarli pulled herself onto the bottom of the conveyor belt and turned to help Curie up after her. Still clutching her wrist, she crouched and led the way up the belt, shooting at another Junkbot one-handedly as it reached to tear at them. Her nerves were on fire, and she was filled with energy – her reflexes, at this point, would be unbeatable. “Stay here,” she said to Curie.

Climbing out onto the second floor, Amarli began to assist Ada with the numerous machines waiting for them, shooting with as good an aim as she could muster, ducking behind obstacles, tossing grenades. This was one of the big assembly rooms in the factory, and every robot in the surrounding area seemed to know where they were. As one after another died, several more would appear to take their place. Gritting her teeth against a painful arm wound, Amarli maneuvered herself so that she was crouched behind a steel banister and shot blindly down at the robots in the assembly room below.

“Mada- Amarli!” Curie called.

The use of her name shocked Amarli into looking over, and she managed to reach out just in time to grab the stimpack Curie had tossed at her from her hiding place. With a grin, she nodded her gratification and injected it into her shoulder. And the fight went on.

As the last robot fell to the floor, circuitry fried, and Ada seemed to sense no more immediate threats, Amarli allowed herself to straighten up and reload both her shotgun and her pistol. Curie crawled into the room and joined them, looking around in awe. “So many,” she said.

“It’s not over,” Amarli said grimly.

Curie turned to examine her. Her eyes searched her face carefully, and then the rest of her body. With gentle fingers, she inspected the bloody sleeve of Amarli’s shirt and probed the still-broken skin beneath. “You have been shot.”

“Your stimpack helped.”

“The bullet must be removed,” Curie said.

“No time. Later.” Stepping away from her impatiently, Amarli lifted her shotgun again and nodded at Ada. “Lead the way – I trust your sense of direction.”

The blue-painted bot immediately began clunking into a hall on their right, and Amarli followed close behind. Curie, who a moment ago had been frowning as if in annoyance, trailed them reluctantly.

The factory, on the second floor, was like a maze. They passed large pipes and crates, and walls which had crumbled and blocked their way. There was no lighting – no electricity – so Ada’s built-in torch and Amarli’s Pip-Boy light were all they had to illuminate the passage. If they were to be ambushed here, they wouldn’t fare well at all. Amarli’s shoulder had begun to bleed again, and the pain was quickly returning – the little piece of metal lodged in her arm felt as if it was searing hot and burning through her flesh.

As they climbed a set of stairs, heading up towards the top of the building, there was an electric crackling overhead and then the appearance of a familiar voice:

“…have come to bring about an age of peace. Do not be alarmed…”

Accompanying it was the shock of flickering lights and the sudden illumination of the hall around them. Amarli brought them all to a stop, her heart pounding. Carefully, she switched off the light of her Pip-Boy and glanced around. The only way to restore power to the entire building was to access the mainframe in the control room. Someone – or something – with knowledge of electrical apparatus, had been hard at work. And they were expecting their three visitors to make their way to the control room for another battle.

“Can any robot do something like that?” Amarli asked flatly.

“It is not a standard General Atomics program,” said Curie, the first to reply. “But this ‘Mechanist’ does not seem to use standard programs.”

“There is a very low likelihood that one of the robots we have been fighting was capable of manipulating the building’s power,” Ada added.

“Perhaps it’s another type of bot, then. Maybe what the Mechanist really wanted from this place was something in its systems…” Amarli thought for a moment. “Access to all of General Atomics’ files on robotics, perhaps? Then he would be able to build every model imaginable and create an even bigger army – his robots wouldn’t be in bits and pieces like they are now. All he needs is one robot to restore power here and enter the system, and the rest to act as scavengers and security. Pretty smart, in theory.”

“And we have unknowingly been distracted,” Ada agreed.

“Still, it must have taken them days to get this far. We’ve arrived just in time to see their success.”

“So we are too late,” Curie said grimly. “This robot may scan the files and share them immediately with the Mechanist. We cannot stop such a thing, even by destroying it.”

“We may still achieve something useful,” Ada clarified. “If the robot can share directly with the Mechanist, that means it must have some sort of beacon, some way of easy contact.”

“Right! It has access to his location, otherwise how would it be able to share?” Amarli said, catching on.

“Oh!” Curie smiled. “Which is what we need, yes?”

“Yes.”

They continued through the hall and up some more stairs. “Can you tell where the control room is?” Amarli asked.

“We are already close,” Ada replied.

“Do you think damaging this robot will ruin our chances of finding out where the Mechanist is?”

“As long as the circuitry and internal components are undamaged, we will have what we need. Avoid aiming for the head.”

“Excellent.”

They reached a room that was blocked by a wall of grating and a security gate with a terminal. Amarli was about to peer through, but stumbled back as a burst of bullets ricocheted off the other side, the sparks burning her eyes. She scrabbled for her gun, but Ada and Curie were already returning fire the best they could through the gate. Urgently, Amarli glanced towards the security terminal and grimaced. She was a techie for sure. She could build intricate, intelligent things and fix just about any machine if she knew how it worked… but that didn’t mean she was brilliant with computers.

She grabbed Curie’s arm. “Any chance you know how to hack a security terminal?”

“Not exactly, Madame, but I can try.”

That was no definite answer, but Curie seemed to take on an air of determination nevertheless. Stumbling back from the gate and towards the terminal, she hunched over the keyboard and began to type frantically. Her first few tries for the password appeared unsuccessful, and she jumped every time a bullet struck the other side of the gate. As Amarli returned fire and watched out of the corner of her eye, she realized Curie was following some sort of procedure. She called, “Curie? Any luck?”

“Yes, Madame – I have cancelled out the other possibilities…” Curie typed in another code, and this time there was an audible click and a slam as the door swung open. She picked up her gun and darted through into the room beyond.

“Wait – Curie!”

Amarli sprinted after her, spinning out of the way as what looked like a giant metal can sprayed a wave of bullets at her. She shot back, and then looked frantically around for Curie. What the hell was she doing? Amarli continued to return fire until Ada had joined her, and together they drove back their adversaries. The biggest robot moved on track wheels and had an odd glassy head filled with greenish liquid – it was only once Amarli had disabled its weapons and Ada had silenced the other two Junkbots that she realized there was a brain suspended inside. A real, organic human brain. She glanced around and then saw Curie crouching beside the mainframe computer. Barely suppressing her anger, she stalked over and said, “What the hell were you doing?”

“Checking for files and programs the robots may have been using,” she replied matter-of-factly. “They were in the process of downloading something, but I have stopped it at ninety-six percent – you see?”

“You couldn’t have checked after the battle?” Amarli demanded.

“I noticed on the terminal at the security gate that the download was close to finished. There was a high chance you would not have destroyed the robots before the download was complete and they sent the files to the Mechanist.” Curie pointed at the screen, childishly triumphant. “Now he has nothing.”

Amarli opened her mouth and then closed it again. Finally, even though she was still a little angry, she admitted, “That was a very smart idea, Curie. Close call.”

Curie smiled as if surprised. “I am glad I helped.”

“But you were also very stupid. You put yourself in danger. I told you to stay behind me.” Amarli turned away slightly, realizing that Ada was watching them. “Hey, can you search that big robot for a beacon? Looks like it might be the one we want.”

“Of course.” Ada turned away, giving them privacy.

When Amarli turned back to Curie, she was frowning. “This will seem hypocritical of me to say considering I was angry at you last time for not opposing your orders and backing me up… but the only way this sort of thing will work, Curie – you coming with me on dangerous missions – is if you do exactly what I tell you to do. If I tell you to back me up, then back me up. If I tell you to stay back and find cover, you do exactly that. Okay? No matter the cost.”

With her cheeks pale, Curie nodded. “But there was a sixty-seven percent chance I would not be in harm’s way, Madame.”

“Those aren’t good odds,” Amarli said. “A thirty-three percent chance you could have been shot and killed? Not good at all. You’re not a robot anymore – you need to be careful.”

“Not a robot,” Curie repeated. Her dark eyebrows drew apart, and she suddenly appeared quite sad. She turned away from the mainframe computer and looked over Amarli’s shoulder at Ada. With a voice so soft that Amarli could barely hear her, Curie muttered, “Then it is decided. I must not travel with you anymore.”

Amarli stared at her. “What?”

“You have been upset with me twice now for improper conduct in the field. I am not made to be a companion. This body is vulnerable and has no strong skills in combat. It is better, I think, for you to travel with a more adept companion.”

“Curie, that’s not what I meant.”

“It is,” Curie insisted. “With you, I am a weakness. But you have taught me many things, Madame, and I believe I would be strong if I journeyed on my own.” Her eyes were still fixed determinedly and somewhat enviously on Ada. “Stopping the Mechanist is not my function. My research is more important.”

Amarli was shocked. And concerned. She didn’t know what else to say. Her anger was completely gone at this point, and she wished it had never come in the first place. Yes, she had been very worried to see Curie running headfirst into battle; previously, she had been irked to find that Curie was too fearful to back her up. But while it was clear that Curie still was not suited for this sort of mission, that didn’t mean Amarli didn’t value her presence. The other woman had proven her usefulness in other ways, as a combat medic and now even with her limited knowledge with computers. She needed better armour and weapons, more training, and more experience. That was all. Had Amarli really made her feel this way? As if she was too weak to travel with her?  

“Curie-”

“Ada has found the beacon,” Curie said quickly, stepping past her with a very uncharacteristic sort of coldness. Amarli let her go but still couldn’t stop reeling from the shock. Had she been too harsh, or too protective? Was this actually for the best?

At the very least, they had something to talk about on the way home.

When she approached Ada, Amarli noticed there was an odd-looking contraption clutched in one metal claw. She took it from the robot and examined it in her open palm. “So this is it?”

“If my analysis is correct, this is a specialised radar beacon,” Ada explained. “I suspect it is how the Mechanist was keeping track of the Robobrain you destroyed. And how it was planning to communicate with him.”

“Huh.” Amarli glanced at Curie, but the scientist was purposefully looking away. “So what’s our next step?”

“Logically, I will need you to install this beacon within me so we can use it to our advantage.”

“Sounds like a solid plan.”

“I’m glad you agree,” Ada said. “You’ll need to use a robot workbench to complete the installation, and my presence will be required. To maintain peak efficiency, I recommend that we remain together until the radar beacon is successfully installed.”

Amarli could feel Curie looking at her sharply. She swallowed. “Yes, of course. The materials I need to build the workbench are in Sanctuary Hills, anyway. So you’ll just have to come back home with us.”

“Yes.”

“You can travel with me until the problem with the Mechanist is solved, Ada,” Amarli added.

“Thank you. I appreciate your help.”

“We must leave,” Curie said curtly, suddenly impatient. “I have wiped the files from the terminal, but the Mechanist will likely send reinforcements here.”

“Affirmative. We should get as far away as possible,” Ada agreed.

“All right, then…”

Curie had already begun walking, apparently refusing to wait for either of them. As she followed, Amarli grimaced and tried to think past her usual surge of protectiveness. Curie had been very useful so far, but if she wanted to travel alone, that was her choice. Amarli had always known she would have to accept that at some point. And Ada was a more likely companion for this work, anyway. Was it really so bad that Curie felt hurt and inadequate? She’d be safer in Sanctuary Hills, far away from danger. Like Shaun. They could keep each other company, and Curie was unlikely to venture far while she was conducting her research. The furthest she would travel to was probably Concord – maybe even Cambridge. Amarli wouldn’t have to worry about her so much.

But there was something about always having Curie by her side that made her feel much better. She’d grown so used to it over the past month that she was unsure if she’d be happy without it. Curie inspired in her a sense of adventure and contentedness that she’d been missing before.

“Curie.”

“Yes, Madame?”

They were at the entrance now, passing through the big doors and out into the Commonwealth. The rain had stopped, but the ground was thick with water. “Whatever you want. If you’d rather stop travelling with me, then it’s your choice. But I don’t want any hard feelings, all right? You’re very important to me, and I’m only worried that you’ll get hurt. You know that, don’t you?”

Curie finally looked at her for the first time, and Amarli was pleased to see her expression was softer. She could never really look angry – she was too sweet for that – but hell if her being upset wasn’t heart-breaking to look at. “Yes,” she said shortly.

“We’re still friends.”

“Yes,” she said again.

“There isn't anything wrong with being human, Curie. There's a whole lot that's right about it. You’re not lesser, you’re more.”

“But not as much as you,” Curie sighed.

“I’ve had my whole life to become like this. You just need more time to evolve and learn. Experience is what makes you stronger.”

Blinking up at her, Curie stopped walking. The returned sunlight was casting dappled patterns all over her face and hair. She smiled, and it was immediately beautiful and warm – Amarli was transfixed.

“You are very inspiring, Madame,” she said shyly.

“Thanks.”

“This is for the best, I think.”

“Yes, it is. For now.”

Curie smiled wider, and then somewhat awkwardly reached forward for a hug. With vigor, Amarli returned it and felt as if a weight had been lifted from her chest. After momentarily stroking her fingers through Curie’s hair, delighting in the affectionate closeness of her, she pulled away and said, “Let’s go home.”

And they did.

Chapter Text

Curie had a white lab coat, now. She was pleased with how it looked on her, seeming to add several years onto the youthful face and slender body. Amarli had given it to her on their second day back in Sanctuary Hills – she’d been searching through her things anyway, looking for tools and equipment she could use to build the robot workbench. The lab coat had been folded in one of the tool boxes beneath the metal table in her bedroom. Curie put it on straight away and now, nearly two weeks later, she had hardly taken it off since.

There was something about being dressed like a scientist which helped her prime her mind for hard work. On a typical day, she would move in choreographed silence as she drew pipettes of fluid from one tiny tube and transferred them to others. There would be a hum of machinery like a soft whisper in the background, as she’d have the centrifuge and the microscope running, constantly separating and inspecting new samples. The aroma was mostly of the setting agar plates but there was an undertone of bleach – Curie didn’t normally spill anything, but there were times where she was so involved in her work that she’d forget she had something on the Bunsen burner, and she’d allow a beaker to overflow and stain the countertop. Amarli was always understanding about this, even as Curie went to her in a panic, thinking she’d ruined the other woman’s workspace. Last time, she simply gave Curie a cloth and a bottle of bleach and told her to wipe it up.

This morning, Curie could hear machinery beyond the window where she sat, a soft, rhythmic clattering. She stood from her chair so she could see better. Across from the house was an empty plot of land where a large metallic contraption was slowly being built. It looked like a bizarre, complicated machine – Curie couldn’t even imagine how it worked. But Amarli certainly had an idea. The other woman really had a one-track mind when it came to creating something new. She worked nonstop all morning, came in for lunch, and then worked for the rest of the afternoon as well. Ada was constantly by her side, passing her tools or giving her advice on how to operate the machinery.

Ada’s presence was still a hard pill for Curie to swallow. She’d given up on trying to be by Amarli’s side all the time, if only because she would never be as efficient in her human body as she’d once been within that Miss Nanny bot. But she didn’t like that Ada was the new second-in-command and had taken her place. She didn’t like that Amarli spent more time with Ada than with her.

In fact, she hated it.

But Curie had her own work to do, and the distraction of her irritation at the robot would do no good. Neither would her desire to be around Amarli all the time. She’d made a good decision in terms of her work, and she was determined that she find success with it. Soon.

Sighing, Curie looked at the dozens of test tubes set before her, a few wet with condensation, as they’d recently been removed from the fridge. She had just spent a whole morning rotating them, counting them, labelling them, and finally delivering them into each rack. She had samples for every strain of vegetation she’d found in the area surrounding Sanctuary Hills. Shaun had been helping her snip leaves and pick fruits; he seemed to think of it like it was a game. Either way, Curie was glad for his help. He was an intelligent child, more intelligent than the Longs, Mama Murphy and Sturges. Curie could tell him about the tests she was running and expect him to understand and offer advice. She still visited Sturges and Mama Murphy after breakfast or her weekly training sessions (which she now carried out on her own) but neither of them could hold her interest for very long. She was always thinking about her jobs for that day, or gazing over at Amarli, deep in thought. The only thing close to how stimulating Amarli was happened to be her beloved son, so Curie often sought him out so she could speak to him. They talked about science, about robotics, and sometimes went down to the shooting range together so they could practice aiming at targets.

Today, Curie wanted nothing more than to keep her mind off work. It was tedious and bothersome, and she hadn’t had a single breakthrough in weeks. She expertly removed the rubber gloves from her hands and tossed them in the trash can beneath the desk. Standing up, she stretched her whole body, arms above her head. There was a crick in her neck from looking down so often, and it just wouldn’t go away.

She left Amarli’s bedroom and glanced through Shaun’s doorway. He wasn’t in his room reading like he usually was before lunch. Curious, Curie left through the kitchen door and went out to the garden.

The longer she stayed here in Amarli’s home, the more she grew to appreciate the beautiful space out back that looked towards the creek and the hills beyond. There was a gate of white picket-fence which Amarli had repaired long ago and which Codsworth repainted every month; still, ivy cascaded over the wood, growing tendrils in every direction. The stone path was punctuated with weeds after every stone. The dishevelled, un-manicured lawn was more moss than grass and was overshadowed by a huge oak flowing down onto the dank and squishy ground. Clusters of defiant daffodils reared their golden heads amidst the gloom and there were smatters of fuchsia alongside the scarlet and saffron hued primroses. The garden certainly wasn’t picturesque, but Curie had learned through her evolving humanity that she loved irregular, unique beauty most of all. The garden always smelled the best after the rain, when the sun heated the wet mud and brought all the odours of the grass and the ground into the air. And she loved how the morning light filtered through the branches and dappled everything with a golden colour. Yes, it was the irregularity that made the garden such a singularity. Curie had never been more satisfied with nature.

Today, the ground was baked hard and dry, and the grass looked a little withered. Curie could feel the summer humidity like a layer of moisture on her skin and knew that the moment she came into direct contact with sunlight, she was likely to get a burn. Still, she wouldn’t let skin damage get in the way of finding her second favourite resident in Sanctuary Hills.  

“Shaun?” she called.

There was a faint answer past the trimmed hedges, and Curie decided he must be playing in the stream again. She walked slowly across the garden to the gap in the fence and then smiled down towards the little curly-haired boy sitting amongst the stones in the water. He waved up at her, Dogmeat by his side shaking off droplets in every direction. “Will you come and play?” he asked.

“I was taking a break,” Curie replied. She walked carefully down the steep hill to the stream and then sat down on the grass, breathing in the fresh scents of vegetation and wild flowers. It was unbelievable how she had grown accustomed to all of this – all her senses. Sometimes she still felt awestruck by how it felt to be human, to know absolutely everything around her without needing to look or touch. Mostly, she was at peace with it. She had felt pain, she had felt anger and sorrow, and she had experienced beauty and ugliness. There was so much more to experience about being human, but Curie was happy with what she knew now. She loved this little paradise on the edge of the Commonwealth, where she lived with her friends and was given free reign to carry out however many experiments as she liked. She liked the routine, and the safety, and – as usual – she liked that Amarli was always there.

Shaun stood up, his clothes soaked, and came to sit next to her on the grass. He grinned at her cunningly, then shook his head like Dogmeat had, spraying Curie with water from his hair.

“You – monstrous child!” Curie exclaimed, though not with any real anger. She could never be angry at Shaun, even when he was bad. She wiped water off her face and soared to her feet, taking off the lab coat so she could set it aside where it wouldn’t get wet. She was at once caught with a childish playfulness, wanting to make the most of the beautiful day and her need for a break from work.

“Come catch me!” Shaun yelped, splashing back into the water and crossing to the other side. Curie gave chase, slipping and falling almost immediately, and getting a mouthful of water when she laughed. She tensed, and then jumped up again and grabbed Shaun by the ankle, pulling him back into the creek. “I have you!” she cried triumphantly.

He wriggled like a large fish, but Curie held on with all her might until he splayed his arms out, playing dead. “You win,” he permitted, giggling. He rolled onto his belly in the cool water and smiled at her. “Watch out.”

Curie frowned, and then felt the whole weight of a furry body barrel into her back, knocking her face-first into the water. When she surfaced, gasping and raking water out of her eyes, she found Dogmeat standing over her proudly and Shaun laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. She glared at Dogmeat, but she knew she didn’t look very scary. “Naughty doggy,” she chastised him.

The German Shepard nuzzled the side of her neck as if in apology and she stroked his back. “Eugh – you smell horrible,” she complained.

Dogmeat whined.

“You need a bath. With a lot of soap.”

“Let’s give him one!” Shaun decided, eyes brightening. He faltered. “Or… are you busy?”

Curie hesitated. “I am not getting much work done today,” she admitted.

“Good.” He was excited again. “Just wait there!” In moments, Shaun was up on his feet and running back to the house, wringing water out of his clothes as he went. Curie laughed at the sight and then went back to stroking Dogmeat’s neck. She planted a kiss on his nose. “Swimming is a most excellent cardiovascular exercise. But perhaps not so good in water such as this.” She beamed at him. “Maybe we should all have a bath.”

Dogmeat barked, surprising her, and splashed her in the face all over again as he maneuvered himself and ran out of the creek towards the house, stopping just short as he met Amarli’s open arms.

“Hey, boy,” the other woman said, chuckling. She gazed past him at Curie, and her smile widened to one of affectionate amusement as she saw her sitting in the stream. “What’ve you gotten yourself into?”

“I was playing with Shaun,” Curie explained, feeling self-conscious. She stood up, aware that her clothes were clinging to her in every place on her body. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but Curie was sure she saw Amarli’s eyes give her an appreciative once-over. She walked over hesitantly, dripping onto the grass, and then gave Amarli a tentative hug to say hello, slipping both arms around her waist. The other woman returned it carefully so as not to get too wet, and then smiled down at her, one hand picking a leaf out of her hair.

“And where did my troublesome son go?”

“To get soap and a towel.”

“What for?”

“Dogmeat must have a bath,” Curie informed her seriously.

“Really?” Amarli pulled away and frowned down at Dogmeat. “Do you really smell that bad, boy?”

He whined his disagreement.

“Hmm.” She grinned at Curie, then held out an arm, gesturing for her to come closer once more. “How’s your work been going?”

“Today, very well,” Curie lied. She would hate for Amarli to question her about why she felt so unmotivated – in truth, she had no idea why. She felt the pressure of Amarli’s hand against the small of her back and automatically leaned into it, squinting against the sunlight as she peered up at her friend’s face.

“Good to hear.”

“How is your work, Madame? Do you know when it will be finished?”

Curie almost added, Because when it is finished, you and Ada will go off on another of your adventures and leave me here. And I will miss you very much.

“No idea. But it will be.”

Amarli’s eyes looked out over the garden at the creek, seeming even greener than normal – in fact, the sun made them look a soft washed out green, like a favourite sweater that had been washed too many times. Curie had seen such a sweater in Amarli’s dresser, and she loved it more than any of her other clothes. Green happened to be Curie’s favourite colour, and not only because it was the colour of Amarli’s eyes. It was also the churning, passionate colour that the ocean turns during a storm; she remembered it from that moment outside the General Atomics Factory, when she and Amarli had stood hand in hand in the rain. It was the colour of tadpoles making ripples in a pond, the colour of tree-hugging ferns, the colour of freshly cut grass, and tiny baby leaves just sprouting from a twig. Green was the colour of life itself, and Curie had grown to appreciate life very much.

“It’s hot today, isn’t it?” Amarli said.

Curie blinked, realizing she had been staring deeply into her friend’s eyes, and averted her gaze. She stepped away so she could look down at the stream instead, finding a smile automatically drawn to her face at the sight. She was filled to the brim with love for this place and all the people in it. How could she ever bring herself to leave? But she would need to, at some point, if she couldn’t find the samples she needed for her research here. And if she got caught in the chaos out in the Commonwealth, it was unlikely she would ever return. What a terrible thought!

Amarli began removing the grease-stained overalls she was wearing. Curie glanced over and then down at her feet, for some reason feeling a sort of quickening inside her at the sight. Once Amarli was wearing only a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt, she placed her overalls beside Curie’s lab coat and ventured down towards the water. She untied her hair and let out a sigh of pleasure, looking very much at home in this world she had created. The same home which had belonged to her for over two hundred years. Sometimes, Curie forgot that they were just as old as one another.

Curie watched as she stood with her feet on the rocks and glanced back over her shoulder, black curls obscuring half of her face. She looked like a woman out of a fairy-tale, some alleged lady of the lake. Her skin shone with gold in the sunlight, and there were honey-hued highlights in her hair. She was very athletic, very Amazonian-looking, very tall. Curie partly wished she had a strong body such as that; another part of her was pleased that she could admire it from afar.

“Curie?”

“Yes?” Curie had completely missed whatever she’d been saying.

“Are you coming?”

“Yes.” No other word came so easily to her. Curie stumbled down the grassy slope into the water again, sitting down so she was half-submerged. Amarli lounged across from her, stretching her long legs out and tilting her head back towards the sunlight. Again – and, though she’d felt it before, it still surprised her – Curie felt her heart speed up a little at the sight. She couldn’t draw her eyes away from the smooth curve of her throat, or the angle of her jaw, or the dip of that white shirt over her cleavage. Was it only Amarli who could make such things look so aesthetically pleasing, or had Curie ever admired other people? First it had been her hands, and then more recently her legs, and now it was the splendour of her chest and neck bared to the sunlight. The more Curie looked, the drier her mouth felt. It was only when she heard Shaun’s running footsteps that she was able to glance away and see him approaching.

“Mom!” he said happily. “You’re gonna help us?”

“Sure. I’ll warn you, though – I tried washing Dogmeat once and he made it so hard for me that I ended up deciding it was better to let him stink.”

Shaun grinned. “You’re strong. You can hold him down while Curie and I wash him.”

“Perfect.” Amarli turned to the dog who was drying himself on the banks and called him over. He ran to her immediately, completely oblivious to her plans for him. “Sorry, boy,” she muttered. Her arms clamped around Dogmeat’s mid-section in a vise, making him bark in surprise, and Shaun immediately lunged at him with the soap. Curie, finding the image comical, couldn’t help laughing as she crawled over to help. They lathered his fur with soap that smelled like lavender, and all the while he growled and whined and viciously struggled to escape. Amarli held on while she laughed, trapping him with her legs so that she was basically drowning herself in order to keep the dog pinned. Several times, Curie found herself lathering soap on Amarli’s limbs instead of Dogmeat, because the whole thing was a bit of a mess. The other woman’s skin was hot from the sun and very, very smooth.

Finally, after splashing wave after wave of water at Dogmeat, Amarli released him and he went bounding off like a race horse, circling them madly before disappearing off into the bushes. Wryly, she sat up and wiped water out of her face. “He’ll probably go and roll around in the garden now, knowing him. Just to be an asshole.”

Curie giggled. “But we have tried, yes?”

“Exactly.” Amarli smiled fondly at her. Her son, who until now had been washing soap off his hands, tugged at her arm. She frowned. “What is it?”

“I’m bleeding – look!”

A hint of panic edging into her expression, Amarli grabbed his knee so she could look for herself. Upon realizing it was only a graze, her face softened in relief and she sighed. “Go inside and get a plaster. No more swimming for today.”

“But-”

“Shaun.” There it was – a commanding tone that had seemed to come from nowhere. The more frightening side of Amarli making an appearance, completely at odds with her normally amiable personality.

“I can go and help him clean the wound,” Curie offered. “It is my duty, after all.”

“No, Curie – it’s not.” Amarli shot her son a look. “Go now.”

He huffed and stood, already running back to the house. Curie watched him go, feeling a little bit sorry, but then she noticed Amarli was gazing at her and completely forgot about his grazed knee. She swallowed, turning back. “Perhaps we should return to our work,” she said after a moment.

“I should take you to the beach sometime.”

“What?” Curie was at odds with the conversation.

“The beach,” Amarli repeated. “There are some that are cleaner than others.” She dipped her head back to wet her hair and then wrung it out, still looking at Curie thoughtfully. “I’m sure you’d like it.”

Curie nodded in agreement. “Converting the ocean's waters to portable radiation-free water would greatly improve the life of all. I must study this.”

Amarli rolled her eyes. “Not to do research. It’ll be like a holiday. You, me and Shaun – and a picnic or something. It’ll be very… domestic.”

Curie did like the sound of that. Her initial reaction of excitement told her holidays were wonderful – but did they really have time for such a thing? Amarli was building a machine, and then she would be off to kill the Mechanist, which would surely be very dangerous. And Curie was still doing research for a new, possibly ground-breaking medicine.

Still, Amarli hadn’t mentioned Ada. If Ada weren’t a part of this holiday idea, then it was perfect after all. It meant Amarli wanted to spend time with Curie; Curie and her son. And the Lorenzen’s were Curie’s favourite people in the whole wide world.

“Maybe I should get some swimming trunks?” Curie suggested lightly.

Amarli shook her head. “You wouldn’t have to worry about that. I’ve got plenty. And skinny dipping is always a treat, as well.”

This was – if Curie’s data was correct – something that youths did. Swimming naked. Surely… Amarli was joking, wasn’t she? Curie did not think it appropriate to ‘skinny dip’ while Shaun was around. But Amarli was looking at her again with a gaze that seemed decidedly heated, more so than usual. Curie wasn’t sure if she was seeing things or if there really was something different about the dynamic between them.

Her emotions were malfunctioning. That must be it. It happened for every human being when put under pressure. She was feeling stressed from work, and she was still upset about her own decision not to travel with Amarli anymore, so of course she was reading into things. Her odd feelings towards Amarli today were nothing to be worried about, because they would pass.

“I must get back to work,” Curie said, this time with more force. She stood up and squeezed water out of her clothes. “I will see you at lunch, yes?”

“Of course.” Amarli smiled up at her, still sitting in the creek. “And for dinner.”

Curie paused only for a second, her eyes again finding the curve of Amarli’s throat, and her chest, and her long legs. “Au revoir.”

“Bye.”

She picked up her lab coat on the way back to the house. Once she was inside, Curie still felt terribly hot – she sweated all the way into the shower, and stood under freezing water for a full five minutes before she felt all right again. It had been an odd sort of flush; it had come and gone, out of nowhere. But her body had certainly detected it, and she knew at once she hadn’t imagined anything.

Curie found it hard to get back to work. She sat behind that desk with all her test tubes, but her mind would not let her concentrate. Instead, she kept on looking out of the window and seeing Amarli hard at work. She felt the flush slowly return, but this time it wouldn’t go away no matter how hard she tried – she put on the fan, splashed water on her face, even stood with the fridge door open. Most of the heat was in her cheeks, her chest, and her groin area. It was unfathomable, and she wasn’t sure if she was getting sick or if this was a fluke. Could she talk to Amarli about it?

No, not if she was the cause.

At lunch, Curie focused only on her food, ignoring the pooling of heat in various parts of her body, and threw herself into work during the afternoon, pushing past the distractions. She managed to label a few more test tubes, but very soon found herself staring unguardedly out of the window again. At dinner, she carefully avoided joining the conversation while Amarli asked Shaun about his day. She felt there might be a cure later, once dinner was over and Shaun was in bed – maybe she could find some time to talk to Amarli about what an odd day it had been.

Dinner was cleared away by Codsworth, and Amarli returned out into the darkness to talk with Ada. Shaun went to brush his teeth and get ready for bed. Curie, feeling completely out of place and confused, went to Amarli’s room and sat down at the desk, wondering if she should even write about her day in her daily log. She was just deliberating, pencil in hand, when she heard Amarli entering the house. There was the sound of her next door in Shaun’s room, kissing him goodnight, and then the rushing of shower water as she cleaned herself up after a long day of work. Finally, she knocked on the door and came into the bedroom Curie was in.

“Mind if I join you?”

She asked every night, even though this was her bedroom and Curie was the guest. Still, Curie loved that the woman respected her enough to feel the need to ask her. And she adored her company.

“Of course,” Curie said softly, swivelling around and watching as Amarli came in to sit on the bed. As usual, she had her hair in that towel turban, letting it dry, and she was wearing a soft grey cotton shirt and some comfy trousers – her sleepwear, even though she never seemed to sleep.

“You all right?” Amarli asked, concerned. “You’re a little pale.”

“It has been… an odd day,” Curie said. She wasn’t sure how to begin a conversation about how she felt, so she resolved to avoid the subject entirely. Was this what being human was really about? Hiding small truths to protect the big picture?

“My day’s been pretty terrible,” Amarli told her. “Turns out we don’t have all the supplies we need – I’m gonna have to head out to Concord tomorrow, or to the Red Rocket down the road. They’re sure to have something.”

Curie felt a momentary jolt in her chest, as if inspiring her to protest and encourage Amarli to stay here. Forever. With her.

“Of course, Madame,” she said instead.

“You still call me that.” Amarli peered at her thoughtfully. “Even after all this time, you can’t call me by my name?”

“I do, sometimes.”

“But not all the time.” Apparently unaffected, Amarli unwrapped the towel from her head and then went to hang it on the back of her computer chair. “I had an epiphany this morning, when we were down at the creek. You’re basically part of the family now. Shaun loves you.”

Curie felt her cheeks warm – and her heart, too. “And I love him,” she said without hesitation. And then she added, “I think. If this is what ‘love’ feels like.”

“You’re always playing with him, teaching him new things.” Amarli’s smile was warm, but a little sad. “You have no idea what that means to me, considering I’m so busy nowadays.” She paused, and then rushed to add, “Not that you aren’t busy. I just mean…”

“I am never too busy to enjoy your son’s company,” Curie said brightly.

Amarli nodded. “Thank you.” She said it quietly enough that the feeling seemed to emanate from her words – and Curie felt it like a physical touch. With more warmth in her cheeks, she lowered her head.

“But he loves you more,” she said honestly. “More than any other human being. He always talks about you.”

Amarli sat on the edge of the mattress again. She looked slightly less sad, but there was that familiar tightness to her features that Curie knew meant she was thinking about her past, before the war. Perhaps she was thinking about her husband, Nate, and the family she’d used to have. Was this one an even match?

Curie ached for Amarli – that was the only way to describe it. Aching. Because it was like a continuous tension in her chest, in her throat, as she thought of the other woman’s sorrow and wished it had never existed. This wonderful, beautiful person; her friend; her hero… how was it possible that the world had made her so miserable? If fate existed, why did it work in such cruel ways? Curie wished her knowledge of science could help her explain it, but she knew it was beyond her most extensive understanding. She hadn’t been human long enough to comprehend what grief and loss really meant.

“I am sorry,” Curie found herself saying.

“For what?”

With no answer planned, she said nothing. Amarli gazed at her for a while with those soft, warm green eyes, and then glanced away. “I wish everyone was like you, Curie,” she said quietly.

“Like me?”

Amarli thought for a long moment, carefully finding the right words. “You know how there’s that fabled centre of the storm? Well, that’s you.” She smiled suddenly, shaking her head. “Sounds very cliché, doesn’t it? But that’s the only way I can describe the effect you have on me: the gentle, calm, peaceful centre inside the chaos. You’re… wonderful.”

Wordlessly, Curie stood from her chair and stepped to grab Amarli in a hug, clinging on more for her own necessity than to comfort her friend. She had not had many people say nice things to her, but she knew that this was the nicest compliment she would ever hear. And one she would remember. Her wave of happiness at hearing those words seemed to rise up like a tide within her, and she was at first too overcome to let go. While the other woman had been caught by surprise by the hug, she returned it almost immediately, bringing her close like Curie had seen her do with Shaun.

Hugs could never be long enough for Curie. Now she’d grown used to Amarli’s touch, she sought it constantly, bathing in her warmth and the smell of freshly laundered clothes. In Amarli's arms she was safe and her worries disappeared like rain on summer earth. It wasn’t as if they hugged without reason, but when they did, it was absolutely the best feeling Curie could imagine. The moment Amarli entered the room at night, Curie would be itching to wrap her arms around her waist, to pull her close. This need had been growing ever since they returned from the General Atomics Factory, since she’d said she didn’t want to travel with Amarli anymore – since Ada took her place. All Curie wanted to do was prove that she was more important. Now, Amarli had told her just how important she was.

Curie’s head lolled onto Amarli’s shoulder and the other woman chuckled, the sound and the feeling vibrating into her chest. “I bet you're tired,” she said softly.

Curie sighed. “Exhaustion has been following me all day,”

And heat – sweltering, confusing, inexplicable heat. Perhaps she was even feeling it now. She retracted her arms and sat down on the bed beside Amarli. Unsure of how to approach the issue of her current inability to work, she said, “It seems I am only met with failure with every new discovery.”

“Everyone fails at some point. Einstein once said-”

“He once said, ‘I have tried ninety-nine times and failed, but on the hundredth time came success’,” Curie interrupted.

Amarli grinned. “I was gonna say ‘failure is success in progress’, but that works, too.” She nudged Curie’s shoulder with her own. “So, you know how it works, don’t you? How are you going to try anything new without making some mistakes?”

“You are surely correct.” Curie chewed on her lip. This was not anywhere near the conversation she had been wanting to have with Amarli. But she knew this would make her feel better nevertheless. “If there ever was a failure when I was a robot, this was something which did not bother me. I felt nothing about the ninety-nine times of failure. I simply waited for the hundredth time of success. Now that I am human, however, I begin to have doubts about my capabilities. What if it is not ninety-nine tests I must undertake to find that one success, but nine-hundred and ninety-nine? It is not so easy to measure the probability anymore.”

“Then you do one thousand tests if you have to,” Amarli said after a moment. “I’ve failed plenty of times since I got out of Vault 111 – you know that, right? There have been people I couldn’t save because I made a bad decision. But that didn’t stop me from trying.”

Curie smiled. “Imagine, Madame, if you saved only one person for every one hundred you tried to save. That would be a disaster.”

Amarli’s face fell. “Fine. I guess it’s a little different.”

“Your argument is valid,” Curie reassured her. “You have just used an inaccurate example.”

“Some kind of lawyer I’d be if I couldn’t even make a valid argument.”

“The role of the lawyer varies greatly across legal jurisdictions,” Curie said, citing from her old data banks. “A valid argument is not always necessary.”

Amarli rolled her eyes. “Back to your problem – just keep on going, no matter how many times you mess up. You were given this body for a reason, remember?”

Curie suddenly felt embarrassed. “I have not forgotten.”

“You’re an incredible breakthrough, Curie. A robot in a human body. If there’s anyone who can succeed in anything, it’s you.”

Curie nodded slowly, hiding a pleased smile. She had been silly, she realized. All these weird feelings today were not important – not when she had a friend as good as Amarli. That was how it always was now. As a human, she only felt as if she could succeed with her work and her life if she had stimulus – motivation – and Amarli was that motivation. It wasn’t even just the hugs anymore. Only Amarli’s presence was needed, and Curie’s mind would be magically clear. Sometimes, when she was sitting at the desk and struggling to come up with a new path her experiments could take, she would glance out of the window and see the other woman working across the road. She’d see the glow of cocoa skin, a shirt plastered to the curve of her spine with sweat, another ridiculous hat perched on her head to protect her face from the overbearing sun. Often, Amarli would have Sturges or Ada with her, and she’d be talking with a wonderful easy-going smile on her face. She epitomized warmth, Curie thought. Amarli was one of those rare people who seemed too good to be true. Maybe that was the reason for the heat flushes Curie had been feeling today. Amarli’s warmth had somehow become a part of her now. Her friend was certainly a distraction from her work, but she had proven to be a good one.

Part of the family. Yes, Curie liked that a lot.

“It’s probably time you get to bed,” Amarli suggested.

“Will you stay?” Curie had said it without thinking, but she didn’t regret it – she had become more and more daring in this body, and she had learned not to back down from what she wanted.

Amarli looked at her in surprise. “Do you need me to?”

“I know you prefer not to sleep,” Curie said. “But I think I would like you to try. For me.”

“For you, huh?” Amarli sighed. Sardonically, she said, “Fine, doc – I guess I could try. Just this once.”

Curie smiled wide. “Formidable!”

As they cleaned up Amarli’s workspace and switched off the desklight, Amarli remarked, “I learned French in high school, you know. But some of the things you say still go over my head.”

Pleased to have learned this about her friend, Curie nodded eagerly. “Perhaps I could teach you again the language. I have managed to keep my data intact.”

“That’d be nice.” Amarli, looking surprisingly uncertain, pulled back the covers and climbed into bed. Her body was resting right on the edge, as if she felt she’d be crossing a line if she moved into the centre. She looked expectantly at Curie. “You’d better not steal the blankets in the night.”

“I have learned to sleep with maximum efficiency, Madame,” Curie clarified. “I do not need blankets to maintain my temperature.”

“Huh.”

“You are surprised?”

“Didn’t realize that was something you could control.”

“There are many ways to control various aspects of the human body. It seems only I am eager to find them,” Curie said. She clambered onto the mattress and lay on her back, sighing with fatigue. Tilting her head to the side, she smiled at Amarli’s presence, feeling that distinctive quickening inside as she felt the other woman so close.

Amarli switched off the bedside light, plunging the room into darkness. She moved around quite a bit before she seemed to find a position that was comfortable enough, and then she murmured, “Goodnight, Curie.”

“Goodnight.”

But then, even though Curie closed her eyes, she realized how wide awake she was. As if she had just swilled down a large cup of caffeine. As if she had just been running outside in the darkness and her body was full of adrenaline. Her face and her hands felt hot.

Curie rolled over so that she was facing Amarli, but this only seemed to make it worse. How far away was she? Curie could hear the soft breathing that was already beginning to deepen – had Amarli really managed to get to sleep, after all this time avoiding it? Why did she never sleep, anyway? What was the point of preventing her body from doing something it so sorely needed to do?

Again, Curie tried to shut her eyes and drift off, but now – as if her body was mocking her for what she’d said earlier – she felt much too warm. It was a heat that intensified when she looked towards Amarli, so she rolled over with her back to the other woman. Her heartbeat could be felt in all of her body, too, which was a little odd. She didn’t feel scared or sick. She’d thought that after her talk with Amarli she would be perfectly fine and the strange sensations would go away. Instead, they were becoming even stronger.

She rolled over again. Amarli was definitely sleeping now; her breathing was slow and steady. Curie, the scientific curiosity inside of her prodding for information, made herself inch a little closer until the fine, strong bones of an arm and fingers were pressed up against her own. She remembered earlier, trying to rub soap into Dogmeat’s fur but smoothing her hand down Amarli’s arm instead. She remembered how the warm muscle had moved beneath the soft skin, firm and powerful. And then she thought about how delightful Amarli had looked leaning back in the stream, with her face tilted up towards the sun, baring her neck and her lovely collarbones.

Curious.

Again, Curie moved a little closer, and found herself thinking about the soft chest which rose and fell with each breath hardly centimetres away; the warm thigh inches from that tender place between her own legs. The heat flared much worse than before, and Curie suddenly felt scared – very scared. What was this? Why was she feeling this way?

Head spinning, Curie sat up and climbed out of bed. She walked to the window and looked out at the night beyond. She sat at the desk and tried to look at her notes in the darkness. Everything seemed magnified to her, but all she could focus on was her unfamiliar urge to climb back into bed and wrap her arms around Amarli’s sleeping form. Or to do… something else. To quench this heat, for one. It was definitely pooling in her groin area – Curie knew this meant she was stimulated somehow. She just didn’t understand why. After all her years of collecting data on the human body, she just couldn’t seem to decipher what was happening to her. There must be something she was missing.

Curie left the bedroom quietly and ventured into the bathroom. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and was surprised to see herself looking so flushed, but in a way that made her seem as if she were glowing. She was itching to release the growing tension somehow, to dispel the heat in her lower body. With a tentative hand, she stroked her lower belly and then carefully pressed her fingers over the area between her legs. A flicker of something warm and stirring raced through her, and she quickly drew her hand away. Was it… was it lust she was feeling?

Curie was aware of what made humans attracted to each other; man to woman, and vice versa. She couldn’t possibly avoid the fact that her body was reacting to an external stimulus of sorts. Of course, there were a number of factors that went into attraction, including personality traits, interests and values and physical appearance. But when it came to immediate, knee-jerk physical attraction, it was impossible to pinpoint why exactly humans were drawn to another. Even as scientific research had shed more light on the factors that contributed to selection of a sexual mate, the biology of attraction was complex and not yet fully understood – and it didn’t help that attraction was particularly difficult to replicate in a lab. How could Curie strive to understand something now which no scientist ever had before? What was she feeling attracted to? Who? Why?

Pheromones were known to be involved in sexual attraction in animals, and old research suggested that they may also play a role for people. So Curie’s strange emotional state today amounted to this: the pheromones of some person in Sanctuary Hills had made her feel this way. It wasn’t stress or emotion which was putting pressure on her body; it was arousal.

Her eyes felt dry, and Curie realized that, even though she had been unable to sleep, she was still nevertheless exhausted. The only way she would be able to sleep now was if she released the heated tension – and wouldn’t it do her good to learn more about this? She was a scientist, after all.

With a sigh, Curie gave in and sat down on the lid of the toilet, closing her eyes. She let her hand flutter over the waistband of her shorts again. Her excitement rose, and she tried to recall any data she had on female masturbation. There was basically nothing. Any information which had seemed unlikely to be useful before her conversion to humanity had been left behind. So, what should she do? Curie daringly slipped her fingers beneath her shorts and firmly touched the very centre of her, surprised when both the slick heat and the pleasure flared. She moved her hand over the same spot, her breath catching, and then did it again more softly. And again.

Her legs were trembling with such force that Curie had to grip the toilet seat with her other hand to keep herself steady, shocked at the intensity of these sensations. She knew, of course, that she was touching an area which was particularly dense with nerves – of course the feelings would be powerful. But she hadn’t thought they would be so… good. She felt confused, and uncertain, and vulgar somehow. She didn’t stop.

Curie felt the sensations ramp up very quickly as she touched herself, expanding like a bubble that was inevitably going to pop. After all, she had seemingly been aroused all day; she reasoned it should take hardly any time at all to release the tension inside her. She braced herself, shutting her eyes tightly and holding her breath, feeling as if she were preparing for a particularly good sneeze. She pressed down much harder, with more force –

And then she fell to pieces.

That was how it felt. Like her whole body had torn itself apart and then been fixed back together again. She felt herself tremble, and shake, and jerk, every sense seeming distant to her, until finally the wave of stunning feeling was gone and she was left sitting there with one hand frozen down her pants. She was breathing raggedly, and she was sure she had let out a groan amidst her moment of complete ecstasy. Never before had she so enjoyed completely losing control of this body – it must have been the most stunning discovery yet. And also, at first, terrifying.

Oh, but that was so marvellous! she thought in wonder. Now, she felt as light as a feather, and decided she might be able to sleep for a year. She went to the sink and washed her hands, then looked at her face once more. Her eyes were sparkling with this new finding, and she smiled at herself. She knew love and pain and friendship – but now she had been introduced to human sexuality. And how wonderful it had felt, just exploring it on her own. Such a primitive, animalistic urge, and yet… there was no guilt, anxiety or fear. It felt as natural as anything. She no longer felt so uncomfortable; she could finally go to sleep.

Feeling pleased with herself, Curie switched off the light and left the bathroom, eager to return to Amari’s bed. She knew this was not something she could tell her friend – they normally shared everything with one another, but her arousal felt much more taboo. Especially since it was impossible to deny that Amarli had something to do with it.

As she climbed back into bed and took up the covers, she found herself snuggling into the pillow and drifting off very easily. Before she fully fell asleep, however, Curie felt Amarli’s arm pressing against hers and thought she imagined the barest echo of her excitement from before – but she was out like a light soon after. She certainly didn’t remember it the next morning.

 ---

Amarli awoke to the steady patter of rain upon her window, droplets yet to scatter the promising rays of rising sun. The sound brought a calmness to mind, a soothing melody, a natural lullaby. She didn’t realize why until she opened her eyes and realized that she was in bed, and that she had slept the whole night through without waking up once. Any morning sound at all was bound to make her feel relaxed and serene. How long had it been since this had happened?

She tilted her head on the pillow, stretching out her legs so that her feet hung just off the edge of the mattress, and smiled at the back of Curie’s head. Her hair – which had been getting quite long – was messy from what must have been a night of tossing and turning. She was curled up like a baby with all of the bed’s blankets clung around her. Wryly, Amarli gave them a light tug, and then gave up. “Sleep with maximum efficiency, my ass,” she mumbled.

She sat up gently so as not to move the mattress too much, stretching out her neck. She felt very good this morning – almost like a new woman. So, Curie had been right about one thing, at least: all she’d needed to do was actually try sleeping. And perhaps the other woman’s presence had something to do with it, too.

Amarli took her Pip-Boy off the nightstand and was surprised to see how late it was. Ten in the morning. Hurriedly, she climbed out of bed and went to the dresser, pulling out her clothes for the day. With Curie still sleeping, she had no qualms about getting dressed. She tied her hair up and left the room as silently as she could, already smelling coffee and breakfast.

Shaun was sitting at the counter when she approached, and he arched an eyebrow – no doubt something he had learned from her. “Interesting,” he said, in rather decent impression of her voice.

“Don’t give me that.” She hopped onto the stool next to him and kissed the side of his head. “When did you get up?”

“The time I normally do.” He smiled. “What happened to you, Mom?”

“The doctor convinced me to get a good night’s rest.”

“And it worked?”

“Oh yeah.” She bowed her head in gratification as Codsworth delivered a cup of coffee into her hand and a plate of toast in front of her. “I’m a bit late to start the day. Has Ada been waiting, do you think?”

“She’s still standing on Sturges’ front porch.”

“Huh.” Amarli tried to gaze out of the window behind her, but she was too far inside the house to see the robot. Ada was incredibly patient, however – perhaps the type of patient that Curie had been while she’d been stuck in that vault for two hundred years. Soon it would start to wear on her.

“So, I was thinking…” Shaun began. “Curie’s been talking about her work with me, and I don’t think she’ll find what she needs here. She’s said she doesn’t want to leave, that she loves it here, but I think it’d be good for her.”

Amarli stared at him and then, through a mouthful of toast, asked, “What?”

“I want to take her to Diamond City.” Before Amarli could shut him down, he quickly continued, “They grow loads of crops there which could be useful for her research. And Doctor Sun could help her out, too. It is a medicine she’s trying to create, after all...”

Amarli gaped at him. A nagging feeling deep in her gut told her to deny his request instantly, if only because she was a protective mother and she didn’t want him anywhere near danger. She also thought about how nice it was to have Curie here by her side, and how much she’d dislike having the other woman far away. Sure, she’d been planning to leave soon herself, but maybe… maybe she didn’t like the idea of Curie being so independent from her. It was different, wasn’t it? And maybe she didn’t want Shaun and Curie having fun without her, like they had been doing so often over the past few days. It was wrong to be jealous, of course. And sometimes Amarli couldn’t even tell who she was more jealous of – her son, for being able to spend time with someone as wonderful as Curie; or Curie, for being able to connect so easily with her cherished son.

Grinding her teeth, she took a sip of coffee. She could tell that Shaun was waiting for an answer from her, and that he wanted her to undeniably say yes.

So – to her own absolute surprise – she did.

“Sure.”

Shaun stared at her with round, dark eyes. “Did you just… you’ll let me go to Diamond City?”

“Please don’t make me second-guess myself,” she said curtly. “If Curie wants to go with you, then you can go. And you’d better take Dogmeat.”

Her son still looked as if he was in shock. She turned back to her breakfast and tried to ignore the rising feeling of dread inside of her. No more Shaun playing games with Dogmeat in the yard, eating breakfast with her like this, watching documentaries in the living room. And no more Curie checking in on her, working away in her bedroom, sleeping in her bed. But it would only be for a little while, wouldn’t it? Her son deserved a trip like this. If she forced him to stay in Sanctuary Hills for the rest of his life, he would only begin to hate her and eventually run away.

“But you’ll be back at the end of the week,” she added quickly. “Or I’ll come and find you and there’ll be hell to pay.”

Shaun nodded so quickly that he looked like a bobble-head. He let loose a whoop so loud that it summoned Dogmeat and all the cats in from the patio outside. Then he hugged Amarli tightly and skipped off to his room.

“Ask Curie first!” she shouted after him.

It would do him good. For sure, it could get boring here. She knew that more than anyone.

Sighing, Amarli lifted a piece of toast to her mouth and took a bite. As she chewed, she couldn’t help but feel like she was eating cardboard. Dull, tedious, disgusting cardboard.

 ---

Curie hadn’t known anything about Shaun’s plans to go to Diamond City – that much was obvious when he asked her. She stared at him, blinking sleep out of her eyes, and then said, “I am sorry… could you please repeat?”

“Diamond City,” Shaun said slowly. “There are other doctors there, plenty of equipment you could buy, and they have loads of crops and animals. I was thinking it’d help a lot with your work.”

Amarli couldn’t help but smirk when she saw that Curie was still confused. She walked over and placed a warm hand on her shoulder – to her surprise, the other woman seemed to flinch away, but only momentarily. Then she was smiling up at her with apparent guilt.

“You are okay with this plan, Madame? Do you trust me to take care of Shaun?”

“Of course I do,” Amarli said, even though she felt she definitely did not. She was aware that Curie had continued to train, and had heard from multiple people in Sanctuary Hills that she was becoming something of a marksman. But she knew from experience that the other woman didn’t do so well under pressure. And she was extremely protective of both Curie and Shaun to the point where she felt they would crumble to pieces without her supervision. This world was still not safe for synths. Certainly, with the Mechanist’s robots wreaking havoc, it wasn’t safe for anyone. But something told her that if she didn’t give them space, she would regret it. “You’ll have Dogmeat, too, and I’ll let some of my friends in Diamond City know you’re coming.”

“But-”

“You should go, Curie,” Amarli said, trying her best to sound encouraging. “I… think it would be good for you. And Shaun’s been wanting to go there for so long. I certainly don’t have the time to take him.”

Curie’s hazel eyes lowered and turned to look at Shaun. “Well…” she said hesitantly. “I suppose I have said I will complete my own journeys now. At some point, I must take a step. With little Shaun with me, what could possibly go wrong?”

Everything, Amarli thought.

“We must pack, I suppose,” Curie said. “My calculation of the journey from previous experience is that it will take two days of travel and we must camp in the city.”

“Yes!” Shaun grinned excitedly. “So we’re going? Today? You want to go?”

“Yes,” Curie said with a smile.

Amarli forced down another pang of dread. “I’ll help you pack,” she said to Curie.

“Thank you, Madame.” Curie faltered. “But if you need to work, I can-”

“No, no… I’ll do plenty of work while you’re gone.”

Curie dipped her head in gratified acknowledgement of her kindness. They walked together to Amarli’s bedroom. Leaning against the doorframe, Amarli watched with growing defeat as Curie retrieved her large rucksack and began taking clothes out of the dresser. She worked with efficiency, every movement smooth and quick. Her hair was really long enough now that it could fall into her eyes; every few moments she was brushing it absently aside. And then there were the full dark eyelashes, the serene smile consistently set on full lips, the nimble and delicate-looking body which moved with practiced elegance. Nothing physical about Curie left Amarli with hope that she’d be fine out there in the Commonwealth. She looked so fragile, like the last of the flowers in the Autumn, clinging to life. But her mind was definitely a force to be reckoned with; over time, it had grown formidably strong. She regarded things with an almost aloof curiosity, and less of the world seemed to scare her. When it came to her work with science, she was absolutely unbeatable. Her consistent optimism, too, was impossible to contest.

“You’ll be all right, won’t you?” Amarli found herself asking. “I know it’s not fair to ask you to babysit Shaun on a trip across the Commonwealth, but he’s been wanting to go to Diamond City for a long time.”

“I have been training.” Curie brought out her laser rifle that Shaun had made for her a month ago. She set it on the bed so that Amarli could stare uncertainly down at it.

“Right.”

The other woman looked at her with distinct curiosity, as if reading past the words and looking for some truth in her expression. She nodded slowly. “Madame, I promise no harm will come to little Shaun. For him, I would risk my life.”

Amarli didn’t think that sounded good – not at all. “I don’t want you risking your life for anything,” she said sharply. Then, with growing understanding, “Somehow, I think I’m more worried about your safety than Shaun’s. I’ve seen you in battle, and I know…”

“If I get hurt, there are other doctors in the Commonwealth who may help me,” Curie said positively. “And I have already taught Shaun basic first aid.”

Amarli raised her eyebrows in surprise. She had? So much she didn’t know… what kind of mother was she? With some stiffness, she said, “If you die…”

“I shall avoid it at all costs.” Curie beamed at her. “This is a only week, yes?”

“Yeah.”

She walked over and took Amarli’s hand as if to comfort her, pulling her further into the room. After hauling her down to sit on the bed, Curie wrapped both hands around her arm and pressed herself close, clinging on and pressing her face into her shoulder. “Then I shall be back and tell you all that has happened,” she said, her voice muffled.

“…Not a day later.” Amarli smiled down at her, amused at the show of affection.

“No,” Curie reassured her. She lifted her head. “I will miss you very much.”

I’ll miss you too, Curie, Amarli thought. But the words didn’t seem adequate enough to say out loud. She believed that what she’d feel about Curie’s absence would be much more than that; truly, she had never met another person like her. Her friends in Diamond City and Goodneighbor could not compete, and neither could all those people she had met in high school and university before the war. For Curie, she felt a fiery sort of protectiveness which she had only ever reserved for people like Nate and Shaun in her lifetime. In two months, the young synth woman had become just as important to her as her real family – perhaps that was why she was so afraid for her. She was afraid to lose another person who mattered. She was terrified she’d lose both Shaun and Curie at once.

With a shaky sigh, Amarli pressed a kiss to the top of Curie’s head. It was not like kissing Shaun, or even kissing her husband, but a whole new sensation entirely. She wasn’t sure she would ever begin to understand how much Curie meant to her. Or why.

“I’ll know when you reach Diamond City, anyhow,” she said. “Piper or someone will contact me by radio.”

“This is good,” Curie decided. She stood up, her mind back on task, and resumed her packing. Amarli began to help her, needing to keep her thoughts away from previous grief and fear for her family’s future. When she was satisfied with Curie’s packing, she went into her son’s room to make sure he had everything he needed. She took out all of the weapons straight away, shooting him a firm look, but allowed him to keep the combat knife tucked in his trousers.

He won’t need it, she promised herself.

And then, since she needed to make a trip to Concord today anyway, Amarli packed a day bag and met both of them by the door. Her spirit had slowly been sinking as the morning progressed, but she refused to show it. For God’s sake – it felt like she was dropping her kids off for their first day of school. She was being ridiculous.

“All ready?” she asked them brightly.

“Of course, Madame.” Curie affectionately squeezed Shaun’s shoulder as if to remind Amarli he would be taken care of. He grinned, apparently over the moon about this opportunity to leave the haven of Sanctuary Hills. Hopefully, he’d see enough danger and corruption out there that he’d want to come running back here and stay forever. Amarli smirked a little at that. Shaun may be naïve, but he wasn’t a coward; he took after both her and his father.

“I’ll walk with you till Concord,” she said.

Chapter Text

5 DAYS LATER

Loneliness had never scared Amarli, but it made her constantly wary. She hadn’t been in Sanctuary Hills without Shaun since before the Institute had been destroyed. It almost felt as if she’d gone back in time to those terrible, difficult days where her son was an old man and she was just re-learning to be a young woman. He was the Commonwealth’s mortal enemy. But would anyone in Diamond City know that when they saw him? Among them he was just a little black-haired boy in a striped shirt and a pair of immaculate jeans, his eyes bright and intelligent, a spark of humor and liveliness in his gaze. At his side, a petite woman dressed in combat clothes but with the gentlest countenance, her eyes soft and doe-like. An odd pair, for sure. But no one would likely guess who they were and how much they meant to Amarli.

Without Shaun and Curie to form a part of her routine, to distract her when she was too tired to work, her whole schedule fell to shambles. She skipped meals, didn’t sleep except for very short naps and threw herself headfirst into hard labor. It was being in Sanctuary Hills without her family that was bothering her, so her primary aim was to get out as soon as possible.

Today, she had finally finished building the robot workbench using Ada’s schematics. She surveyed it with an icey bottle of Nuka-Cola in one hand, wiping sweat off her forehead. It had been hooked up the town’s main power and the terminal screen was flickering as it rebooted, but otherwise it didn’t look at all like it was going to work.

“It appears complete,” Ada commented. “Are you ready to install the radar beacon?”

“Yeah, let’s get this over with.” Amarli downed the rest of the Nuka-Cola and set the glass bottle carefully to the side. She directed Ada to step on the rounded platform and then approached the terminal she had built. While she wanted to be proud of her work, the amount of effort which had led to this final piece had put her off. And she had no one here who she could really celebrate her success with.

“Time to operate…” she muttered wryly.

Ada warned her, “Just be certain you don’t disconnect anything essential while you’re rummaging through my circuitry. Install the beacon and I’ll do the rest.”

“Are you worried?”

Ada’s head swivelled as she regarded her. “I am not capable of worry.”

“Right. Of course.” Amarli shook her head, thinking automatically of Curie. She typed in a few commands and then stood back to watch the machine at work. It was a wonder – mechanical arms detaching and holding Ada in place, several others using drills to unscrew her posterior plate. There were sparks as they began to remove several components, reaching her navigation which was nestled near her core. Ada didn’t move or speak. Amarli tried not to imagine what this would be like if Ada were more human – if she could feel pain and fear. Curie had changed her whole perception of robots now, and she was unlikely to see them like she had before ever again.

Finally, there was a long and piercing beep as the radar beacon was inserted into Ada, the mechanical hands beginning to patch her back up again. The beacon jutted from one of her shoulders, flashing red.

Amarli quickly stepped back to the terminal and shut down the processors, looking expectantly up at Ada as she stepped off the platform and did a quick internal scan of her systems.

“All good?” Amarli asked.

“The modification was successful. New hardware has been detected and my software is updating…” She whirred. “Installation complete.”

“Perfect,” Amarli said, pleased. She shut down the workbench and then stood with her hands on her hips, regarding Ada with curiosity. “So?”

“Analysing Mechanist hardware,” Ada said. “The radar beacon is receiving a strong encrypted signal, but I can’t determine the source.”

With slight concern, Amarli asked, “Do you think the Mechanist knows that we’re tampering with the beacon?”

“I’ve already added failsafes to ensure my location is secure and to prevent any unintended commands the signal might issue.”

“Well… it’s a good start, at least.”

“Absolutely,” Ada agreed. “With some additional assistance, I should be able to decrypt the signal and locate the Mechanist.”

“Additional assistance as in other radar beacons? We need to track down more robots?”

“Affirmative. Fortunately, I’m currently detecting another Robobrain in the Commonwealth that’s receiving the same signal.”

“We have an advantage.”

“Perhaps. The encryption on the source signal is complex but not beyond solving.”

“So you won’t need many more radar beacons,” Amarli said, gaining momentum and understanding as she spoke. “Maybe two more. And they can provide the keys and the algorithms that your system needs to enhance your decryption routines.”

Ada beeped to confirm her theory. “Let’s get started. I’m uploading the location of the Robobrain to your Pip-Boy now…”

Amarli lifted her wrist and quickly bypassed the security to let Ada’s location come through. She nodded as she saw where it was – worryingly, the marker seemed to be only a few blocks away from Hangman’s Alley in the main part of the city, one the smallest Minutemen Settlements.

“We’ll set off in the morning,” she said, glad at least that she would be leaving the dull loneliness of Sanctuary Hills. “I need to get some Minutemen down to the settlement to guard it, just in case it happens to be the Mechanist’s next target.”

“Perhaps, as we know to expect a lot of resistance, the Minutemen can also help us collect the radar beacon,” Ada proposed.

“Yeah, maybe.” Amarli was already walking across the road and back into her house. She saw Codsworth cleaning glasses in the kitchen, and the cats bathing on the patio outside. Two houses down, Marcy and Jun Long were sitting on deck chairs on their front lawn and taking a break from farming. Mama Murphy was in her house watching television, and Sturges was keeping her company, no longer busy building his roof. Everything was as it should be in Sanctuary Hills – but Shaun wasn’t there to excitedly ask her what she’d been doing all day. Dogmeat wasn’t going to jump up from his favourite place in front of the television and trot over to greet her. Curie wouldn’t be in her bedroom, staring down the lens of a microscope. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was all alone here, even surrounded by people she knew well.

The sooner I’m out, the better.

 ---

Curie didn’t much like Doctor Sun, even though she knew he was well respected as one of the best doctors in the Commonwealth. He always smiled in the cold and distant way professionals do. She could never relax around such expressions. She needed a genuine face, preferably a smile, but if not she’d really rather they didn't fake it.

When she’d asked him where he went to university, he was defensive and evasive – who reacted so aggressively to such a simple question? Surely, without the correct medical training, he was very poorly qualified for his job, so she felt she’d been right to ask. At least now she knew he was certainly not qualified to help her with her research. His partner, Doctor Crocker, appeared worryingly eccentric – he was the city’s plastic surgeon. The idea that his job was cutting up and re-shaping people made Curie nauseous. She stayed well away from him and made sure Shaun did, too. In fact, whenever she wanted to meet with the doctors or go shopping for equipment, she would make Shaun stay in Dugout Inn, literally locking him in their shared room.

Today, although Doctor Sun had known that Curie was coming to pick up some medicine samples and equipment, he reacted as if her arrival were an unpleasant surprise. When she stepped into his extremely tiny open-walled clinic, he barely glanced up with a frown and then returned to his work: carefully filling orders, pouring tablets into brown glass bottles, screwing the caps on. The smell had never left the place – a slight but distinct sulphurous odour, and the metallic scent of blood. Curie hated it. She also hated how unsanitary all the equipment was, and how Doctor Sun’s lab coat was always stained and dusty, and how he had little to no bedside manner when he was conversing with his patients. She definitely hated how imprecise he was with his hands, as if he had never even held a scalpel in his life. How he got his job, she had no idea. The lack of hygiene and care would have been enough to shut down his clinic and put him out of practice had he been working over two hundred years ago. Today, however, he was esteemed and treasured by his patients, regardless of the conduct he lacked. The ignorance of the Commonwealth people was astounding.

“Monsieur!” Curie called, brushing off her shoes on the welcome mat.

Doctor Sun straightened up and turned to stare at her.

Patiently, she smiled at him. “I have come for the samples, as we discussed yesterday – I trust they have been prepared?”

The man huffed impatiently and grabbed a tray off of one of the shelves. “Of course they have.” He held out a couple in the palm of his hand: two tiny syringes full of pellucid emerald liquid. “Do you know how to use one of these?” he asked, his tone patronizing.

Curie stared at him blankly, a shocking rise of frustration heating her insides. Perhaps what she disliked most of all about this man was how he persevered in treating her like an idiot, whether it be because she was a woman, because she was young, or because she appeared and acted childlike. She had already explained to him that she had over two hundred years of medical experience, had worked with top-tier Vault-Tec scientists in a secret laboratory, and had previously produced an antiviral drug which had saved a little boy’s life – would have saved many more lives, had the other versions not expired. She was the most qualified that a doctor could get, even by her own standards.

Of course, Doctor Sun hadn’t believed a word she’d said. Perhaps it didn’t help that she looked barely a day over twenty-five.

Snapping the samples out of his hand, Curie replied, “Of course I do, Monsieur. I am going to poke these in the eyes of my patients – because that is what they train students to do in medical school.”

Her penetrating sarcasm must have caught Doctor Sun off-guard (truthfully, she had caught herself by surprise as well) because he looked at her with a slightly wide-eyed gaze and then – perhaps fleetingly – with a hint of respect. After a moment, he coughed and said, “I also have some samples of pre-war opioid medication, like you asked for. There’s dilaudid and morphine here, in both solution and tablet form. Both, however, would have to be taken orally-”

“Of course,” Curie interrupted. “I am not planning to take the painkillers myself, Doctor. These are for research I am conducting.”

“Is that so?” He frowned at her as he passed over the tray. “Research for what?”

“My primary function has always been to search for a cure. However, as I do not have any particular diseases or disorders which I can counteract, my focus is now to produce a drug which may have more widespread effects.”

“So… like a stimpack?”

Curie thought for a moment. “A stimpack has a widespread effect in theory, Monsieur, but does it cure cancers? No, surely not. Does it immediately heal broken bones? Non. I would like to discover a medicine much more powerful.”

Doctor Sun didn’t look convinced. “Well, I don’t know how the opioid samples will help you. Painkillers aren’t in the same branch as healing medicines.”

“I am aware,” Curie said. “But even the creation of the stimpack began with the simple opioid-based drugs which were used before the war. And I will be testing drugs such as penicillin, as well. Antibiotics, antivirals, diet supplements, painkillers – all such medications shall help me investigate what it is that accelerates healing most in the human body.”

“I suppose, when you put it like that, it sounds conceivable,” Doctor Sun admitted reluctantly.

“We shall see.” Curie balanced the tray on her left arm. “Did you know, Monsieur, that morphine is found naturally in a number of plants and animals?”

“No.”

“I believe my breakthrough is waiting out in the Commonwealth. There is a plant, or an animal, which contains exactly the strain I desire for my work. It will make all of this possible.”

He huffed again. “So that’s why you’ve been wandering around the crop fields. The farmers thought you were planning to steal something.”

“Stealing is an illegality I do not condone,” Curie said.

“Of course it is.” He rolled his eyes. “Well, good luck with your research, I suppose. I take it you don’t need anything else from me? Are we done?”

Tilting her chin up with finality, Curie said, “Yes, we are done. Goodbye, Monsieur.”

She walked away from the clinic with a cool, even stride, not wanting him to think his rudeness was affecting her, and headed immediately towards Dugout Inn. Now with all the medicine samples she needed, and after having taken several samples from the crops and animals here as well, there wasn’t much need to stay longer. They were supposed to return in two days, but Curie wanted to get back to Amarli and the serene beauty of Sanctuary Hills as soon as possible. She also wanted to get on with her work. While she was slightly deflated about her lack of findings here, she felt she’d at least found a new starting point with all these drugs. And Shaun wasn’t having much fun, anyway. Diamond City wasn’t all it cracked up to be.

“Good morning,” Curie said cheerfully as she entered the room and locked the door behind her. Shaun was still in bed, but he was awake and ogling at her when she came in.

“Morning,” he replied.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I don’t remember.” Shaun grinned wryly. It lasted only a few seconds, however, before it began to fade and he looked uncharacteristically pained. Seeing his forlorn expression, Curie hurriedly set down her tray of samples and walked over to sit on the edge of his bed. “What is wrong, little Monsieur?”

He wriggled around a bit, eyelids lowering. After a while, he finally blurted, “I miss my Mom. A lot. I thought it’d be like all those times she left me in Sanctuary Hills before – that all the days would blur together and I’d get used to not seeing her. But it’s not the same at all. Maybe because we’re here and she’s there.”

Curie nodded emphatically. She couldn’t agree more.

“Do you think she misses us?”

“Of course,” Curie said softly. She squeezed Shaun’s hand and then looked away, towards the door, envisioning Amarli bursting in at any moment. Her mind made a quick connection. “Is this why you wanted to come to Diamond City? To punish your mère for leaving you alone so many times?”

“Maybe.” His voice was quiet. “I think she gets bored of me, and of living there. It’s like I’m not enough.”

Curie looked at him in dismay. “Oh, but this is not true at all!” she exclaimed. “I think… I think she is very complicated, yes? She has been reformed by her experiences and it is not so easy to settle down. But you – you are her son. She adores you.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You must not think it,” Curie said seriously. “For your mother, you are always enough.”

“How do you know?”

A little surprised, Curie remained silent.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Shaun said quickly. “I just… you were a robot before this, right? How do you know about mothers and sons? How do you know anything?”

It was true, of course. Curie was human… but not in all the ways that counted. She had once been made of cold, hard metal. She had not thought of all the things she thought about now. While she now valued her own humanity above anything else, what did it really cost? Did she really know anything about humans after having become one artificially?

“I believe what I have seen,” Curie said after a while. “And I have seen how much Amarli cares about you. There is nothing I am more confident about.”

Shaun nodded, watching her face. Very quickly, he sat up and threw his arms around her in a tight and overwhelming hug. Curie returned it as best she could. Perhaps she wasn’t a real human and she didn’t know much about how they worked, but if she was able to comfort this child with the truth, then she had all the humanity she needed. Hopefully, Amarli would be proud.

Breaking away from the embrace, she stood and walked to their bags. “We must pack,” she said. “I think our stay here has been too long.”

Shaun’s eyes brightened. “You mean, we’re going home early?”

“Yes, mon loulou. Let us return to your mother.”

He climbed out of bed immediately and strode over to help her, running his fingers through untidy bed-hair. “What does that mean?”

“My little one,” Curie translated with a smile, reaching out to help him with his hair. It was quite stubborn this morning, refusing to flatten down no matter how hard she combed with her fingers.

“I’m not that little,” he grumbled, batting her hand away. “How do you say, ‘my favourite’?”

“Mon chouchou.”

“Then that’s what you are,” he said with a bashful grin. “Mon chouchou… other than my mother.”

Curie didn’t think there could be a sweeter little boy in all the world. She drew him in for another hug which he impatiently struggled out from, and then corrected, “Ma chouchoutte is better. I am a female.”

“You are?”

Realizing he was joking with her, she swatted him lightly on the arm – she had seen Amarli do it once. “This is not a very nice thing to say.”

“All right. I’m sorry.” He reached for the piles of clothes on top of the dresser. “I’ll help you pack, and then we’ll call it even.”

“You are as diplomatic as your mother.”

“That’s a compliment, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

They bantered back and forth as they packed their bags, Curie eventually having to take over with her more strategic skill of folding clothes while Shaun went out to fetch Dogmeat from the fields. When he came back, he was covered in mud and Dogmeat was soaked to the bone. They both looked decidedly guilty.

“You smell horrible,” Curie sighed. “How did this happen?”

“He wanted to play chase.” Shaun wiped some mud from his arm and then rubbed it into Dogmeat’s fur, jumping away as the dog playfully snapped at him in retaliation. “It didn’t go so well.”

“You must go and wash.”

Shaun took her command seriously, dragging Dogmeat off to the bathroom down the hall. When they came back, both of them smelled distinctly soapy. Satisfied, Curie helped Shaun comb his hair and then put on all of her armour. She peered at herself in the mirror shortly before they left, glad to see how much better she looked in this new set – gone were the worn leather straps and pouches; now, she had plates made from synthetic material which hugged her body and protected all of her vital organs. Amarli would be impressed.

She was very excited to see Amarli.

Maybe, in terms of her research, she had not found much in Diamond City to satisfy her. But she had spent several hours at night – not that she could really help it – in the Dugout Inn bathroom, exploring herself. She knew now how to more easily drive herself to orgasm; she knew that when she thought of that day down at the creek, when she’d been awed by the sight of Amarli, she felt evermore flushed and stimulated. The mystery of her awakened sexuality seemed to lead almost directly back to that day, so it was rather easy to put two and two together: evidently, Curie’s wiring was all wrong. Her databanks told her plenty about attraction towards the same sex – in history, there were numerous records of relationships, eroticism and romantic attitudes between members of the same sexual category – but she certainly hadn’t expected that she herself would deviate from what was considered the norm. In terms of evolution and human survival, it was man and woman who were supposed to be attracted to one another. It was only logical. Curie was also aware of how many people had reacted badly to same-sex relationships before the war – surely, they would think the same now? Being homosexual was considered taboo and could even be dangerous in the wrong type of society. It was best for Curie to avoid danger at all costs. Even Amarli would say so.

But if she really was so physically attracted to her friend, could she pretend that she wasn’t? Could she stop thinking about that day down at the creek, and what drove her to touch herself for the first time? Impossible. Curie had never felt something so emotionally and physically powerful in all the months she had been human.

As a sort of personal experiment, she had spent one day in Diamond City people-watching. She had tried to feel attracted to the buff security guards, or the tall men with facial hair, or the youths with more trendy clothing. Curie did feel a little bit of stirring when she caught sight of an attractive woman in the market, but it was still more of the same – a momentary flicker, and then nothing. It wasn’t that many of them weren’t aesthetically pleasing. She just couldn’t generate a personal reaction to them. Her body was so loyal to her attraction to Amarli that she had physically shut every other temptation out. It was as real as anything. Curie felt a little guilty about this when she returned to the hotel afterwards and found Shaun waiting for her. She had struggled to act normal around him. He could not find out about her irrational attraction; no one could. Still, Curie could not stop thinking about Amarli when she touched herself, and each time it seemed to get better and better.

So… yes, she was very excited to see her friend again. After such a week of exploration, she wanted to know if anything had changed. She wanted to know just how real this attraction was, and whether it was something which could be stifled. Or, maybe, if it was something that could be fed into a roaring flame. After all, Curie was not opposed to Amarli in any way. Her friend meant the world to her. She knew that Amarli was very beautiful, very kind, and very intelligent – attractive aspects in any human being.

Curie was getting ahead of herself.

She didn’t want to jump to conclusions before even seeing the other woman. This attraction had blossomed into a massive part of her life in only a few days, but that didn’t mean it needed to dictate everything she did. She didn’t want to make herself look like a fool. Rationality was something she normally prided herself in.

Return to the task at hand, she thought.

With a deep sigh, Curie turned away from the mirror and saw Shaun staring at her. She stared back worriedly. Had he seen something in her reflection, in her eyes, that hinted of how she felt for his mother? She shouldn’t have been thinking about it – she should have reined herself in when she had the chance.

But Shaun didn’t look scandalised. Instead, he uncertainly asked, “You okay?”

“Of course.” Curie felt her cheeks turning a little bit pink. “I am only admiring the armor. It is well-made, yes?”

“Yeah, sure.” He patted Dogmeat’s back. “Let’s go!” And then he was off, running through the door and out into the bar.

Curie let out a breath of relief and glanced once back at her refection in the mirror before following him, bottlecaps jingling in her pocket.

---

When they arrived back in Sanctuary Hills a day later, it was hotter than hell itself. The ground smouldered and sent up a disorientating haze. Even the birds were silent and the grass stood still as if too hot to move. Curie and Shaun were struggling at a snail’s pace, breathing heavily and sweating so much that it looked as if they had gone swimming in their clothes. Dogmeat jumped from one patch of shade to the next.

As they walked up the road, Curie was surprised not to see Amarli outside on that spare plot of land, a pile of scraps and tools beside her, building the robot workbench; instead, it looked shiny and complete. Ada wasn’t stationed on the porch of Sturges’ house, idly awaiting commands or searching through blueprints. Sturges wasn’t up on his roof hammering down new tiles. As they approached what Curie now liked to think of as ‘home’, there was no sound of classical music or even the familiar vocal twang from Radio Freedom emanating from within. There was only Codsworth whistling as he polished surfaces, and the odd meow from one of the cats outside. Everybody was inside their homes, avoiding the heat as best they could – no one was there to welcome them home.

With a sudden dry-mouthed feeling of loss, Curie understood the lack of response: not only was it a deathly hot day, but Amarli was not here. Sometime during their absence, she had completed the robot workbench and decided to set off to find the Mechanist with Ada, leaving barely a message behind. For some reason, just the idea that Amarli wasn’t here waiting for them, and that she hadn’t bothered to let them return first before setting off, made Curie’s heart sink much lower than her chest. She physically felt a gravity in her stomach, and her whole body was flooded with disappointment. There was so much she wanted to talk to the other woman about, so much she wanted to figure out in her presence. How could she not be here? What if something went wrong and she never came back?

When they went into the house, Shaun immediately went running to his mother’s room, not having recognized her absence yet. Curie slipped off her shoes and walked to the kitchen, impassively watching Codsworth at work.

“Welcome home, miss!” he greeted.

“Hello.” Curie’s voice was quiet. “May I ask where Madame Amarli has gone off to?”

“She didn’t leave me with much information, I’m afraid,” Codsworth said amiably.

“She was with that robot?”

“Ada? Yes.” Codsworth carefully set down a plate he’d been cleaning. “Is everything alright?”

“Of course.” Stiffly, Curie turned away and surveyed the house. It didn’t look much different to how she’d left it – only it seemed a little gloomier without Amarli’s presence. Without her best friend, it wasn’t home at all.

“Is there anything in particular you would like for dinner, miss?”

Shaun came in at that moment, his face fallen and his eyes keenly searching Curie’s face. “Where did mom go?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Curie wished she could answer him properly, and say that his mother had just gone off for a quick trip and would be back safe and sound. But that was likely not true at all. Upon thinking of those robots she and Amarli had faced, she felt sick to her stomach imagining what the Mechanist himself would be like. Would he be a giant robot himself, with hands big enough to crush Amarli with a squeeze? Would he be an evil cyborg with thousands of robots at his command? Yes, Curie may have been stealing glimpses at the comics in Shaun’s room – but those were valid fears, weren’t they?

Was Amarli crazy or stupid enough to actually be going off to fight the Mechanist on her own? Surely, if she knew where he was, she would be enlisting the help of her Minutemen friends.

Now that it had finally hit her that Amarli wasn’t home, Curie wasn’t so sure. She was completely cut off from Amarli’s adventures now, and it was her own doing. She seemed to be some sort of glorified babysitter for her child – and if she didn’t ever come home, a new mother as well. Curie loved Shaun, but she would never be as good a mother as Amarli was. And she would never find another friend like her.

Why would she do this?

“I don’t know,” Curie repeated, this time quieter. She reached out and drew Shaun into a hug, feeling his little arms wrap tight around her hips. They had both been dearly missing Amarli’s presence, and it felt cruel for them to have arrived here early and only find she was gone.

Wordlessly, they broke away from one another and went to their respective rooms. When Curie stepped into Amarli’s room, she could instantly smell the lavender which always lingered on her clothes and in her hair. It was terrible; like a ghost of her which had been left behind. She put her bag on the bed and began to unpack all the medical samples and equipment she had collected. As she put all of it on the desk, she caught sight of the empty plot of land opposite the house, and the gleaming robot workbench sat upon it. She felt incensed by the sight.

I cannot be here, she thought. While Amarli is traveling with Ada and risking her life, I cannot stay and be safe.

And so, before putting away her clothes, she zipped up her bag again and stared thoughtfully down at it. She had only just arrived – was it such a good idea to immediately set out again? Perhaps not a rational idea, but Curie was feeling a childish sort of defiance; a need to be independent. She had places she would still like to visit in the Commonwealth, and things she would still like to experience. If she went off on her own adventure, maybe she would somehow run into Amarli while she was travelling. Or maybe she’d find that Amarli had returned when she herself came back. At the very least she’d have begun a life similar to Amarli’s – nomadic, exciting, dangerous. Curie didn’t want to need her friend anymore. She wanted to know how to be alone.

But Shaun… could she leave him? Was that fair? He was safe here. He had Codsworth and Dogmeat to take care of him, and the rest of Sanctuary Hills’ inhabitants. If both Curie and Amarli died on their respective journeys in the Commonwealth, so be it. He would at least still be alive and with guardians. Skipping over moral issues, that seemed to be perfectly fine.

“De merde,” Curie whispered, and then clapped a hand to her mouth. She had never sworn before, not out loud. There was something liberating about it.

There would be something liberating, too, about travelling completely by herself and using all the things that Amarli had taught her about survival over the past months. She would defend herself against adversaries, set up her own camp, earn and spend her own money… she would be alone. Maybe, since Curie was so affected by Amarli’s absence over the past week, it would be good to be able to be on her own. Maybe it would offer her more answers to questions than speaking to her ever would.

Curie picked up her bag again, this time with a sense of urgency. She strapped it over her shoulders and left the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Leaning into Shaun’s room, she haltingly said, “I am – you must be aware…”

Shaun, who had been busy unpacking, turned to stare at her with wide eyes. He scanned her bag and her still-dirty traveling clothes. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“I must go.” Curie knew she had not answered his question at all. “I must travel more, mon chéri.”

“What?” His face creased into an incredulous frown. “Why? Are you going to find Mom?”

Curie walked in and sat on his bed. “I do not know. This journey is not for her sake.”

“Then…” Shaun grasped for words. “Where will you go?”

“Back to the city.”

The little boy stared at her, still unable to comprehend her motives. “You’re leaving me here.”

“I must,” she said again. “It is hard to explain my reasons, but I really must continue my journeys.”

“You don’t want to stay because my mom isn’t here.”

Unflinchingly, Curie said, “Perhaps.”

“Then I don’t either – take me with you!”

“I cannot.” Curie reached out to take his arm reassuringly, but he yanked himself away, glowering at her accusingly. Never before had she seen such an expression on his face. He had always been a sweet, understanding little boy. Just the sight made an answering sadness rise up in her chest. Softly, she said, “I do not want to leave you, but I promised your mother only a week. And I do not want you in trouble.”

“Mom isn’t even here!” he snapped. “The promise included you – she wanted you back here, too!”

“But I am an adult, and I can take care of myself,” Curie said confidently.

“I don’t believe that. And neither does Mom. That’s why she always wanted you to stay here. Don’t you get it?”

Curie set her jaw stubbornly. “Then I must prove it. I am not her child, and I am not your mother. But I have been treated as such. I care for you very much, little Shaun, but I do not know how to be your guardian. Madame Amarli cannot expect me to stay here forever and be a protector of you. I must first learn to protect myself.”

“No, you’re not,” Shaun said quietly.

Curie looked at him in confusion, unsure of what he was referring to.

“You’re not my mother, and I’m glad you’re not,” he clarified, his voice infused with bitterness. “You’d be a terrible mother.”

Curie physically recoiled, flinching back from his words as if he had struck her. She had never thought about motherhood in this way, but that didn’t mean she considered herself inferior to other women. She could not physically bear a child, but she did have a powerful maternal instinct, perhaps manifested from her robot function as a medic. With Shaun, she thought she had done well. But he had only confirmed what she had feared; that she would never be capable of properly caring for another human being, no matter how hard she tried. She was human, but not human enough. Did Amarli know this, too? Had she and her son had conversations about Curie and her long list of inadequacies?

With tears burning in her eyes, Curie struggled to stay calm and not react to Shaun’s words. But the effort proved too much – she couldn’t even look at his face anymore. She was filled with a burning, powerful shame. To think that she’d actually believed Amarli when she’d told her she was basically part of the family…

“I know where Mom went,” Shaun said, his tone defeated. On his face was a mixture of despair and embarrassment, but he didn’t apologize for his words. “I’ve been listening to all your conversations about the Mechanist. She could die. I can’t believe she didn’t wait for me to come home so she could tell me. She didn’t even let me say goodbye.”

Curie felt a rapidly-growing lump in her throat and tried to swallow past it, to no avail. 

“All she ever wanted was to be anywhere other than here. You too, I guess.” The little boy’s eyes were red and shining now. He stood so sad, so lonely in the middle of the room, that Curie wanted to jump up and wrap her arms around him. But after what he’d told her, she knew he didn’t want her to. You’d be a terrible mother. While it surely hadn’t been his intention, those words only gave Curie all the more reason to leave Sanctuary Hills. Why should she stay, if Shaun did not want her here?

She stood up from the bed and stepped past him, forcing back her own desire to cry. It was Amarli he wanted, anyway – not her. She was replaceable. A friend, maybe, but not family. And if Amarli never returned to Sanctuary Hills after her fight with the Mechanist, Curie would not be welcome here. Shaun would not want her here.

“Goodbye,” Curie said gently. She didn’t look back at the little boy’s face, but she lingered for a few seconds in the doorway before she left his bedroom. Blaming him was not something she considered. She had never blamed another person in her entire human life for the hardships she had suffered. She did not expect Shaun to apologize. But she did, someday, want him to forgive her.

Out in the kitchen, Codsworth spun to stare as she strode determinedly towards the front door. “Where are you off to, miss? Would you like a meal prepared for when you return?”

“I am not coming back,” Curie said. “Not soon.”

“Of course, mi-”

But she had already shut the door behind her and was walking back down the road the way she had come. Even with the merciless heat of the sun, she could not have stopped herself from walking. Not even if she tried with every fibre of her being.

Chapter Text

Part III

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. Curie could not remember the name of the man or woman who had said such a thing; but she did agree that she needed to decide on her first step if she hoped to find the answers she needed. Who except the woman who had more or less created Curie would have those answers? It was only a day into her journey when Curie realized this – and then swiftly built in a plan to return to Goodneighbor. Before then, she hadn’t had a strategy at all. Curie knew she wanted to return to the city, but she had no idea where to find the sorts of people she was looking for: the men and women of science. Amarli had never mentioned any science-oriented groups other than the Institute, and Curie knew they were long gone. Only independent scientists like Doctor Amari remained.

Curie had not seen the doctor since her first taxing days in a human body, and she hoped the scientist would be happy to see her doing so well. Perhaps she would be able to tell Curie more about synthetic bodies and their capabilities, both in general and… well, there was no beating around the bush here; quite obviously, it was Curie’s physical attraction to her friend which was making it so hard for her to concentrate on research. And it was the same attraction which was causing her so much internal – and now external – conflict. If anyone would know how to explain and solve Curie’s problems, it was Doctor Amari at the Memory Den. Curie was almost excited to see her again, even if it meant returning to the atrocious sights and smells of Goodneighbor.

The journey there was longer – and more dangerous – than Curie had remembered. She woke up suddenly one morning with her muscles aching, her eyes blurry from sleep, her mouth dry and tasting of last night’s meal. It had been gunshots that woke her, crackling as loud as thunder but without the raw power of a storm. In comparison they were tinny and small, coming from one direction only. She was horrified by how long it took for her human systems to come completely online, still groggy even as she clambered to her feet and reached for her laser rifle. With a pang of old shame and sadness, she remembered that Shaun had made it for her as a gift. How was he now? Was he still miserable and angry, or had he gotten over their argument? As she brought the rifle into her hands, she suddenly realized she couldn’t remember which direction the gunshots had been coming from. Her breathing quickened, and so did her heartbeat – now, fearful adrenaline was flooding her system. She listened out for footsteps or shouts, but the city itself was deafening with early-morning noises.

The raw terror of death was still unconquerable. Curie had never anticipated such a feeling when she desired to become human, and it was something which haunted her even in the middle of the night sometimes. Death was a powerful, inevitable, terrifying thing. An answer of nothingness to all the fullness of life. She now understood the need to believe in a higher power or heaven, knowing how terrifying it was to live only thinking that everything she was would become dust. Knowing that a yawning chasm of blackness awaited her.

Not today. She could not die today, so early in her human existence. Her skills and systems would carry her through.

Curie hurriedly scanned through possible scenarios, choosing one which suited her, and then ducked towards the old Nuka-Cola vending machine on her left, flattening herself against the wall behind it and checking the ammo of her gun. Still full. She’d been lucky enough not to have to defend herself much yet. It seemed that she was very good at remaining under the radar when she travelled alone.  

Another gunshot rang out through the buildings, and this time Curie expertly homed in on the sound. From the loudness she estimated the shooting was less than five hundred metres away. More worryingly, the rapidity of the shots suggested something automatic. The silence returned far more thickly than it was before the shots, as if everything around them was collectively holding its breath. She reckoned that the gunmen had certainly ventured closer than they had been before, and while they were not shooting at her, they would soon see her campsite and know she was somewhere nearby. Her greatest success would come with the element of surprise – catching them off guard from a tactically advantageous position.

She slid down the wall into a crouch and then crawled onto her belly with the rifle held before her, balancing it on the lip of the pavement and aiming in the direction of the shooting. Here, she could not be seen from either direction, and she had a clear view of her campsite. Anyone who came near her would be quickly and efficiently killed.

The first movement she saw was too fast for her to shoot at – a small black-and-brown stray dog with its tail between its legs, apparently fleeing from the gunmen. As she watched, another gunshot rang out and there was an explosion of blood from the canine’s left side; it whimpered and skidded into Curie’s campsite, struggling to get up. She flinched at the sound, and then concentrated on the sights of her rifle, remembering her target-training and how simple success could be if she focused. There were two men who appeared next, both of them slowing to a stop when they realized their prey was lying in the middle of a camp, the fire still glowing from use. She watched them warily scan the area; two scavengers, wearing the clothes of dead men, carrying stolen automatic rifles. The vulnerable dog was their breakfast.

With cold, quick precision, Curie lined up her sights with one of the men’s heads and pressed the trigger. His skull exploded in a shower of blood and pieces of bone – his partner yelled in shock and looked around for his assailant, ducking into a doorway. Unfortunately, he was still directly in Curie’s line of sight. She simply tugged her rifle over, again aimed with care, and shot him twice in the chest.

The silence afterwards was thunderous. Curie didn’t move for a long time, breathing heavily and thinking about the second man’s surprise. She thought about how easy it had been to murder the two of them, and how quickly it had happened. Killing should not be so easy.

With an intense feeling of nausea rising in her chest, Curie rolled to the side and emptied out the contents of her stomach. She gagged and wiped at her mouth with her sleeve. Her sense of self-disgust was devastating. Not including her victims as a robot, these were the first two humans she had killed, and it had been easy. After all the fighting she had done so far, she had not expected that. How was it possible that saving human lives – her job – was so much harder than ending them?

Shivering a little, Curie stumbled to her feet, leaving her gun where it was on the pavement. Now she could see the two corpses better, and the rapidly spreading pools of crimson blood. With a particularly powerful retch, she bent over and threw up again, grabbing hold of the wall to steady herself. Only acid came out this time, and she shuddered at the taste of it.

If you did not kill them, they would have tried to kill you. And it is not your fault you shot to kill – you must secure your own survival above anything else.

Finally, the logic settled in and there seemed to be nothing left in her stomach to throw up. She slumped wearily against the wall. With her clean sleeve, she wiped hot tears from her cheeks. Regret washed over her, each wave icy cold and sending shivers down her spine. How she longed to go back and take a different path, but now that was impossible. There was no way back. There was no way to make it right. The remorse would eat at her every day of her life. Was this how Amarli felt all the time? Was this what all survivors felt like?

After a few more minutes, Curie finally felt strong enough to lean down and pick up her rifle, carrying it back to her campsite. She tenaciously ignored the two dead bodies, heading for her fire and her sleeping bag. When she heard the wheezing breath of that small dog, she stopped in her tracks. She had expected it would be dead by now, but the gunshot wound was apparently not as bad as it had looked from afar. The dog was whimpering in pain and fear, no longer attempting to drag itself to safety and instead lying there bleeding. Waiting for death.

“Oh!” she breathed, feeling more tears gather in her eyes. She crouched by its side and reached to touch its paw, but it flashed sharp white teeth at her and let out a half-hearted snarl. Carefully, she retracted her hand. The injury looked very expansive, but it was not deep enough that the dog would die from blood loss. It was likely that there would be some damage to internal organs, however, and there was definitely a high possibility of infection. All in all, the reasonable answer would be to shoot the dog and put it out of its misery, as there was a minimal chance of survival. But enough death had filled Curie’s morning. Her human emotions were fluctuating like they always did after she had experienced something traumatic; she couldn’t bear to pull the trigger again today when she didn’t have to.

Instead, she found herself automatically getting to work; she reached for her bag and retrieved her medical kit. Despite the dog’s growling and whimpering, she levered her hands beneath its body and lifted it onto her sleeping bag, tucking the warmth around it. Several sprays of disinfectant and two valuable stimpacks later, the gruesome wound in the dog’s side was gradually closing up and she felt safe to cover it with a clean bandage. The dog was still whimpering softly, but no longer growled when Curie gently stroked its head. At some point, it must have realized she was only trying to help.

She got out her notebook and a pen and began writing down all the information she had collected while healing its wound:

Miniature pinscher. Female. Approximately 3.5 kilograms. Estimated at 2 years old (typical lifespan is 13 years). Diagnosis: Flesh wound from a .45 bullet. Aftercare: Wound is healing rapidly, but must watch out for signs of infection. Continue to apply antiseptic/antibacterial cream.

Of course, that meant that the little dog had to come with her. While Curie didn’t need to take care of it – and by no means did she really have the supplies necessary to heal the dog completely – she resolved that she would do it anyway. Perhaps it was because of her guilt, or perhaps she just wanted to prove that she was still capable of being a medic, even after she had killed two people. She just couldn’t bear to leave a vulnerable, helpless living thing behind when she had the possibility of taking it with her.

After packing away her sleeping bag and medical supplies, Curie lined the front pocket of her rucksack with a soft t-shirt and then picked up the dog, tucking it inside so that its little head hung out. It blinked up at her, perhaps in confusion, and she beamed. “I will take care of you,” she promised. “And then you can be on your way.”

She carefully slung the bag’s straps over her shoulders, peering back to make sure the dog was still there, and set off walking. She didn’t try to loot the dead men’s corpses; in fact, she didn’t go anywhere near them. Picking a route at random, she continued her journey towards Goodneighbor, this time with a small canine patient tucked in her bag.

 ---

Curie stood and surveyed the inside of the Memory Den, cautious despite how familiar it looked. It felt odd being back here after so long – and being alone, especially. She had felt so new and fragile in her human body the last time, and she had not been able to do anything without Amarli helping her every step of the way. Today, her feelings about Amarli were more blurred and complicated than ever. She would never stop being grateful to the woman for having taken such good care of her for no payment in return, but now that she was out there no doubt fighting the Mechanist, her poor son alone in Sanctuary Hills, and Curie was here searching for answers, it seemed she was at least a little bit at fault. She had been careless with Shaun and Curie; she had not realized either of their emotional insecurities. It seemed, more than anything, that Shaun had been right: Amarli wanted nothing more than to be free and independent of the sorts of responsibility which would tie her down. Her own son could not keep her at home; neither would Curie’s feelings, whatever they were.

So, Curie was intending to ask Doctor Amari how to cure herself. It was the only way. She was in such a turmoil that it seemed the only means to be friends with Amarli would be to forget all of her feelings entirely. Forget her physical attraction; forget that Amarli had told Curie she was part of the family; forget that her, her life, and all the things in it were what Curie loved most in the world…

Curie didn’t want to depend on Amarli anymore. The other woman obviously would not want that, not when it made her so accountable for Curie’s life. Most of all, Curie did not want to feel as neglected as Shaun did, especially not when she was having all of these feelings for her friend. It would be a blow worse than any other.

Stepping forwards, Curie caught sight of a familiar elegant-looking blonde woman reclining on a couch up on the stage. She was drinking from a bottle of Nuka-Cola and staring straight at Curie with intense curiosity. After a few moments, she called, “You lost, hon?”

Timidly, Curie approached the stage and stopped in front of her. “Hello,” she said. “I am Curie.”

Irma stared, apparently not recognizing anything about the young, dark-haired woman standing before her. “Okay,” she said blankly.

“I am looking for the doctor.”

“Amari?” Irma frowned. “She’s busy. Can you come back another time?”

“This is important.”

“Important, how?”

Curie, frustrated, said, “It is important to me.”

“As important as life or death?”

“Perhaps it is not, but-”

“She’s working on something right now that could be.” Irma set her bottle of cola down and sat up properly, her feline eyes almost challenging. “You should really come back tomorrow. She might be free then.”

Curie stared at the woman, trying to remember how Amarli had managed to charm her when they first came to the Memory Den. There had been a particular way she had spoken, and smiled, and moved – predatory, almost. Or maybe it had been more like how the peacock displays its bright feathers to attract a mate. Amarli had been flirtatious and charismatic. With a slight note of shock, Curie realized that they must have known each other even before that encounter. And they had known each other rather intimately.

With a flame of something akin to anger lighting up inside of her, Curie said, “Doctor Amari knows me. I am… one of her patients.”

That seemed to catch Irma’s attention. She cocked her head and smiled. “Oh. Well, I apologize. It’s never very easy to tell a synth from a human.”

Curie flinched and glanced worriedly around her, remembering how badly the people of Goodneighbor reacted to people like her. With a chuckle, Irma sat forward to reassure her. “Don’t worry – no one will discriminate against you in my establishment, honey. We welcome everyone.”

Curie muttered, “I must see her.”

“I’ll let Amari know you’re here,” Irma said, not unkindly. “You can see her, but she really isn’t available right now. There’s someone like you downstairs, and they’re in the middle of an operation. She can’t just stop to talk to you.”

Of course. There were some synths who, after having experienced terrible things in the Institute, wanted to have their memories wiped blank. Who wanted a completely new personality and life so they could forget and move on. Curie had forgotten that her own case had been an unconventional one, and that Doctor Amari conducted other sorts of operations all the time in her line of work.

Suddenly embarrassed, Curie said, “Of course. I am sorry.”

“You don’t need to be.” Irma looked sympathetic. “Look… do you have a place to stay here, in Goodneighbor? Didn’t Doctor Amari appoint someone to take care of you?”

Curie thought of Amarli and bristled. “I do not need to be taken care of. I have booked a room in the Hotel Rexford – please let me know when I can see the doctor.”

Smartly, she turned and made to walk away, immediately hating how impossible it was to impart a sense of confidence and intimidation with this body. She was too petite and vulnerable-looking. Irma’s eyes were on her back the whole time.

Curie spent the rest of that evening trying to entertain herself in her room, pacing for an hour, and then reading one of her old science journals, and then looking over all of her notes. Each thing she did only seemed to lead to more boredom. The little dog limped slowly around the hotel room with curiosity, watching her. It had growled and kept its distance ever since she let it out of her bag, but she’d made sure there was no chance of escape. Now, setting her notes down on the desk, Curie turned and dipped so her chest was pressed to her knees, looking the dog directly in the eyes. It skittishly trotted behind the bed to hide from her, letting out a small whining noise.

“It is okay,” Curie said softly. “I will not hurt you.”

The dog poked its head out from behind the mattress, eyes wide enough that she could see the whites beyond the black pupils. Very slowly, Curie lowered her hand so that it hung near the floor, beckoning for the dog to come closer. It took a while, but eventually it began limping its way towards her, stopping every few seconds to cock its head. Once the dog had reached her hand, it gingerly leaned to sniff her with care, making her smile widely.

“See? It is safe. Do I smell dangerous?”

The dog began to lick her fingers generously, tasting the salt – and no doubt the soap she had just used to wash her hands with. She giggled at the sensation and was delighted to see the dog wag its little tail, apparently deciding she was a friend. After a few seconds, she petted its head, and then scratched behind its ears. It yawned loudly. Curie stood up and walked to the bed, laying back upon it. As if it had sensed her intentions, the dog followed her immediately and curled up on the other side of the mattress, peering at her imploringly. She grinned. “You are my new friend, yes?” she said.

For the rest of the evening, the dog kept its careful distance but no longer ran from her snarling, and even seemed to enjoy her company. At the very least, it had sensed that she was not a threat. Before she slept, Curie changed its bandage and checked on the wound. Soon enough, she may have to let her new friend go, which would be very sad indeed. She refused to think about that just yet though, glad that she had company for this odd part of her life.

“I am calling you Angustia,” Curie decided. “Short for angustifolia.” As an afterthought, she added, “This is a species name. Do you know my favourite flower is the Lavandula angustifolia?”

The dog had no reply.

“It has the best smell in the whole world.” She secured the bandage and smiled. “Angustia is also the word for anguish in Spanish and Italian. But you do not feel this, no?”

The dog backed away from her and jumped onto the bed, curling up near the headboard with its muzzle hidden by its front paws. She sighed, putting away her medical equipment. “Bonne nuit, Angustia.”

 ---

The next morning, she was eating breakfast at the bar downstairs when a stranger in a leather jacket walked up to her and said, “I’m here to escort you to the Memory Den.”

He said it in the most sinister way possible; even though she had been excitedly anticipating the moment she would get to see Doctor Amari, Curie was instantly struck with a feeling of doubt. What if she was only wasting her time? What if the only way to remove these thoughts and feelings for Amarli was to wipe her memory in one of those loungers? Curie wasn’t sure she wanted to go that far, even for the sake of her research.

“Of course,” she said quickly, standing from her stool and hurrying towards the hotel’s exit. It was a grey, slow morning outside, the few people who were awake only just beginning to open up their shops and light fires for breakfast. The glittering rays of sunlight reflected from puddles and metallic garbage on the cobbled street made Goodneighbour look uncharacteristically pretty. Although it still stank of urine, fouled food, and dead rats, Curie found herself admiring the town in its early-morning glory.

The man walked with her across the street to the Memory Den, hands in pockets, long-ish brown hair blowing in the breeze. He was quite young and extremely heavy-set, like one of those pre-war bouncers for clubs. Although she didn’t know him, Curie felt oddly safe by him. Surely he was too much of a giant for any other person in this town to try picking on him.

Like a gentleman, he held the door open for her and stood back so she could pass. Curie ducked her head gratefully and stepped through. “Do you work for Madame Irma?” she asked, wanting to make friends with him.

“I work for whoever has money.”

“Were you hired as security?”

“Something like that.” He spoke tersely, only a few words at a time, but he didn’t seem unkind. As they entered the Memory Den’s main room, he even smiled at her. “We aren’t open till nine, so Irma isn’t here to welcome you. Just go straight down – do you know where the lab is?”

“Yes,” Curie said uncomfortably. “I have been before.”

Perhaps the man had some inkling of what Doctor Amari’s work entailed, because his eyes seemed to widen slightly, taking her in as if seeing her for the first time. His whole form softened, and he leaned all his weight on his back foot so that he towered over her less. Unexpectedly, he told her, “Hey, if you ever need help around here, or if you want some friendly company, you can just come and find me.”

Curie was taken aback by his sudden kindness. “That is very generous of you, Monsieur.”

“I won’t let anyone give you any trouble.”

Beaming, Curie suddenly found she could not meet this man’s eyes. He looked like a bear, but he was evidently trying to show her that he was significantly less tough than he acted; whether it be because he knew she was a synth, or because she looked like someone who needed protecting, she was glad for his offer. There were not many people like him at all in Goodneighbor – how odd it was that she had never met him when she had last been here. She said, “You are very formidable, so I am sure there would be no trouble if you are around.”

“Exactly.” He cracked his knuckles, shooting her a wry grin. “Go on down, now – the doctor’s waiting. She gets impatient.”

Curie nodded and left him by the doorway, glowing with happiness. Two friends in such little time! And she had hardly put any effort into making them.

The stairs, as she descended, looked exactly the same as she remembered, and the lighting became more artificial as she went down. When she arrived at the door, she took care to straighten her shoulders and raise her chin before she knocked. She wanted Doctor Amari to see how well she was doing. When the door opened, the tan face on the other side was wearing a weary smile. “Curie, nice to see you. Come in.”

As Curie entered the room, she abruptly felt overwhelmed by the memories she’d had from her first minutes in a human body; her stomach rolled and she had to stop just inside the doorway, catching her breath. Doctor Amari examined her face. “Something wrong?”

Forcing a smile, Curie said, “Of course not, Madame. It is good to see you as well.” After a few seconds, she ventured further into the room and looked around carefully, eyeing the corner where she had hovered as a Miss Nanny bot, and then the memory lounger where she had woken as a synth. She recalled staring down through the glass screen at the body which she now inhabited, thinking it odd how small and vulnerable humans were and yet how marvellous at the same time. Perhaps for the first time, Curie wondered about the history of this body she wore; had she been a kind woman? Had she been intelligent? Had she loved somebody? Had she been alone?

So many questions, but Curie didn’t know who to ask. Swallowing down her anxiety, she sat down on the couch at the side of the room, her back straight and her hands clasped in her lap. She saw Doctor Amari walk to one of the desks and switch on a hotplate, setting a kettle of water upon it to boil. Glancing back over her shoulder, she asked, “Tea? Coffee?”

Curie’s face contorted into a grimace against her own volition. Amused, Doctor Amari said, “I suppose they have an acquired taste. Takes a while to begin to enjoy them.”

“Humans seem to enjoy substances which do not appeal to the taste buds,” Curie said. “Coffee, alcohol… and Madame Amarli enjoys sometimes the smoking of cigarettes. The desire to do this is beyond me.”

Doctor Amari chuckled. “You haven’t changed much, have you?” she said.

This wasn’t exactly what Curie had wanted to hear, but she figured it had been intended as a compliment. Clearing her throat, she said, “I have been doing very well. This body is very much my own.”

“I can see that.”

“I came to Goodneighbor alone. My defensive capabilities have improved, and I have learned the basic skills of survival.”

Doctor Amari turned to face her, a steaming mug of what smelled like coffee in one hand. “Did Amarli teach you?”

“Yes. She has taught me many things.” Curie shifted, fidgeting with her hands.

“I’d thought she would remain with you for longer than just a few months,” Doctor Amari said thoughtfully, sounding slightly dissatisfied. “I warned her that your transition would be very difficult and it could even take a year for you to settle into your new skin.”

Curie frowned. Amarli had never told her that; in fact, while she’d constantly recommended that Curie stay in Sanctuary Hills and be safe, she’d made it clear that Curie was able to leave whenever she wished to. Feeling as if she needed to defend her, Curie said, “Madame Amarli is a very caring person. I do not think she intended for me to travel alone so soon.” Awkwardly, she looked down. “She does not realize I am here, in fact.”

Now Doctor Amari walked over and sat beside her. She set her coffee down. “You should have told her.”

“There was no way to make contact. She was not at home.”

Doctor Amari wasn’t pleased with this, her forehead creasing into a frown. “Is that the important thing you’ve come to talk to me about? Do you need me to help you find someone who can properly take care of you? There are plenty of carers of synths who I could contact-”

“No!” Curie said quickly. “I do not need to be taken care of, Madame. I am very independent now, I assure you.”

“Then what do you need my help with?”

Curie hesitated. “You are an expert on matters of the head, yes?”

“I suppose I am.”

“There is a matter which I must deal with. My head is…” She trailed off, her carefully-rehearsed speech already muddled. What had she been about to say? How did she even begin to explain her feelings for Amarli and what they were doing to her? “My head… it is a mess,” Curie said after a few seconds. “A big mess.”

Doctor Amari stared at her. “All right.”

“My research. It is very hard – nearly impossible – to concentrate. I am distracted, at times it is like I cannot think and, well… I think my physical reaction is very abnormal, so I would like… I would like to fix it-”

“Curie, please slow down,” the doctor said calmly. “What are you trying to say? Is there something wrong with your ability to carry out research?”

“No. Yes!” Curie sighed. “Oh, it is very hard to explain. I have experienced very few breakthroughs, Madame, and at first I did not know why. Now I think I do know.”

Doctor Amari looked at her expectantly.

She took a deep breath. “Are synths capable of attraction? Physical attraction? Emotional? Can it be re-programmed?”

The other woman now looked shocked, her eyes widening and her mouth pulling into a thin line. She blinked, not speaking, and then – out of the blue – she laughed loudly. “Curie, are you telling me that you’re attracted to someone? That’s why you can’t concentrate on your work?”

Her shoulders slumping, Curie looked away and mumbled, “I believe that is the case, yes.”

Doctor Amari laughed again and shook her head, reaching for her mug of coffee. “Oh, for God’s sake, could you be any more precious? Of all the things I expected, I didn’t think I’d have to play the role of your sex-ed teacher this morning.” She took a long sip and sighed. “Curie, physical attraction is normal. Synths were made to be identical to humans in more or less every way. You can think, feel and act like a human. The chemicals and hormones expressed in your body might be artificial, but they work in the same way.”

When Curie didn’t answer, she raised her eyebrows and said, “So, what I’m trying to say is, what you’re feeling is perfectly normal. This was bound to happen at some point.”

Thinking of Amarli, Curie said, “Really?”

“Of course. You’re going through all the mental and emotional transformations that humans go through, but in double time. Everything you’re feeling is likely powerful, but not dangerous. You’ll be fine.”

“But I cannot work!” Curie protested doubtfully. “Sometimes I cannot think of anything other than what I am feeling. It has kept me from sleeping, also. And it is very hard to hide.”

“Then don’t hide it.” Doctor Amari smiled reassuringly. “Couldn’t you talk to Amarli about this? I’m sure she’d help you get it off your back.”

Curie sharply glanced away, wringing her hands. Quietly, she said, “Non.”

And now Doctor Amari was surprised again, likely putting two and two together with that intelligent mind of hers. She sat there for perhaps half a minute in silence. Finally, she cleared her throat and said, “Curie, this attraction you’re feeling, is it towards… Amarli?”

Curie was too afraid to answer.

Standing up, Doctor Amari briskly took her coffee cup to the sink and washed it thoroughly, leaving Curie alone on the couch. With a feeling of slight panic, Curie clenched her fists together and stared resolutely down at her knees. The world was warping out of shape.

“It is not normal,” she said feebly. “My data has told me this. But now that it has begun to ruin my ability to work, I cannot deny it. Did you know that synths were capable of homosexual attraction as well? Am I malfunctioning?”

Doctor Amari didn’t show any sign of having heard her. After a few seconds, she walked to the hat stand and grabbed her jacket, pulling it on over her lab coat. Curie watched her with wide eyes, hurt by the other woman’s silence. She’d expected that Doctor Amari would at least be able to explain it all to her. Instead, it looked as if the other woman was refusing to talk to her. Instead of turning to the door and leaving, however, Doctor Amari glanced back to her with a sense of mild urgency and said, “Come on, then.”

“Pardon, Madame?”

Her face softened. “This is something best talked about over a drink.”

Curie stared at her, mouth partly open in surprise. “You do not think it is… taboo?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “But my records say-”

“Your records are pre-war,” Doctor Amari said dismissively. “Things were different then to how they are now. After the apocalypse, society changed. People don’t give a shit about gender anymore, or who’s attracted to who. You don’t have to worry about what I think.”

Curie was still slow in understanding her. “But can it be fixed?”

“Fixed?” the doctor repeated. “Why the hell would you want to be fixed? There is nothing broken. You of all people should be aware of that.”

Blushingly, Curie lowered her head. “Of course, Madame. I only mean… because it has interrupted my work. And it is very distracting. And it is puzzling.”

Doctor Amari tutted, and Curie had the sense that she was rolling her eyes as well. “Get up and let’s go. I’ll buy you a drink at The Third Rail. Let me at least talk some sense into you.”

Climbing to her feet and following the other woman out of the door, Curie couldn’t help but feel in a daze. She had thought it would be straight-forward: she would tell the doctor about her troubles, the doctor would shake her head and prescribe some remedies, and then Curie would be on her way. This was more than a little bit different. Obviously, Doctor Amari did not see her issue as having any medical importance at all – in fact, she was treating Curie more like a child than she ever had before – but she was willing to sit with her and go through it over a drink. Perhaps, even if it wasn’t the explanation Curie expected, it was the one she needed.

 ---

After her long morning spent with Doctor Amari talking through the wonders of sex and sexuality, the doctor had made herself clear about how dangerous it was for Curie to be travelling alone. She recommended that Curie return to Sanctuary Hills as soon as possible. Very emphatically, Curie had declined. She was enlightened about her feelings now, and very confident about the fact that she was interested in women – one woman in particular – and had decided she wanted to be able to explore her feelings more before she returned home. While Doctor Amari had urged her to confide in Amarli, Curie was sure that her friend would not appreciate it very much. Perhaps it was for the best that this stayed between her and the doctor.

Once Doctor Amari realized that Curie wasn’t going to leave Goodneighbor, no matter how much she was persuaded, she finally gave in. “But you’re not going around alone,” she’d said. “This is the most dangerous place for someone like you.”

And so she took Curie back to the Memory Den and re-introduced her to the burly, bear-like man she had met before. Big Al, as he called himself, had grinned and shook her hand like a gentleman. After a hushed conversation with Doctor Amari about Curie’s situation, and the exchanging of a few bottlecaps – which Curie decided to overlook – he apparently decided that he would take on the job of protecting her while she was staying in Goodneighbor. He had promised her just as much before, so Curie was glad for his formidable company.

As the days passed and she met with him every morning and night upon leaving the hotel, she became used to his presence. He was a mercenary and was known little by the people of Goodneighbor, but everyone seemed to respect him very much. Something about his hulking figure and his rumoured background as a Triggerman – a member of the Commonwealth’s largest gangster group – made most men tremble at the sight of him. Curie was glad. She no longer got leering looks or penetrating stares from the townspeople, and even the people in the Third Rail were kind to her. Big Al offered her a sense of security in Goodneighbor that even Amarli hadn’t been able to give her. Curie even grew to enjoy the battered, squashed-in features of his face: he had a flattened, crooked nose, and ears which were nearly invisible on either side of his head. His eyes, which were small and beady, actually gave off a sort of sharp intelligence – he missed nothing. Big Al never told her about himself, not even if she asked, but he made it clear that he was a good person. He was big, and he was scary, but he was also kind and protective. Curie liked him very much.

Angustia, the little dog, also seemed to like him. When her wound had been fully healed and Curie had brought her outside of Goodneighbor with the intention of letting her go, the dog had refused to go more than five feet from her and Big Al. She had wagged her tail and barked – and it had been settled. Angustia, just like Big Al, became a part of Curie’s own improvised family. In just over a week, Curie felt herself become more stable and secure. She had a lovely little dog and lovely big man who followed her everywhere she went, and who were both determined to protect her. She was very lucky. Even though she could never stop thinking about Amarli and the beauty of her time spent in Sanctuary Hills, and though she missed the place she called ‘home’ so much that it sometimes woke her in the middle of the night, Curie was glad that she had survived this long on her own. She was strong – much stronger than Amari would ever have guessed – and she had shown she could take care of herself. That childish determined part of her which had driven her to leave Sanctuary Hills alone in the first place had now been satisfied. All she had left to deal with was how she felt about Amarli.

It wasn’t easy, being away from her for this long. Curie wondered, on her fifth day in Goodneighbor, whether her friend had returned home to Sanctuary Hills. With a throb of fear and denial, she wondered if Amarli had died. But that couldn’t be possible. Surely, Curie would have sensed it if such a thing had happened. Most of the time, when she wasn’t thinking about where Amarli was and whether she missed her, she was busy remembering Amarli’s body, and the colour of her eyes, and the sound of her voice. At night, when Big Al had left and Angustia had curled up in the corner of the room, Curie didn’t hold back from slipping a hand down her pants and exploring herself. It was such a wonderful feeling that she often used it to get herself to sleep. The act of masturbation still felt dirty, primal, irrevocably human, but Curie found it had an almost narcotic aspect to it as well. The need to pleasure herself arrived consistently throughout the week spent in Goodneighbor. She told no one, gave nothing away – simply went off to be alone when it happened. As the second week began, she began to realize that her feelings for Amarli would prove nearly impossible to hide. She could not think about her friend without feeling a twinge of arousal between her legs, without wondering what the other woman looked like beneath her clothes, fantasizing her beautiful hands touching Curie’s body.

Not once did Curie think about her research. Nor did she allow herself to think about the bad terms on which she had parted with Shaun. She realized she had needed time away from home in order to further understand herself. She was as safe as she could possibly be in Goodneighbor, and she did not plan to return to Sanctuary Hills anytime soon.

That was, until it was Wednesday on her second week, and she was sitting in The Third Rail with Big Al.

He was on his second pint of beer and she was drinking water, as usual, watching the room curiously as people came and went, most of them entranced by Magnolia. The woman was in a sparkling red dress tonight, her hair cut into a stylish bob, her blue eyes shining as she sang, so Curie could understand why so many men were staring at her. Taking a long sip of the water, Curie turned to Big Al and saw he had the same starstruck expression on his face as the rest of them, listening intently to the music. She giggled.

“What?” he said gruffly. “She’s good, isn’t she?”

“She has a very pleasant voice,” Curie agreed.

He smiled at Curie with his usual look of amusement and reached out to ruffle her hair. She ducked away from his hand and quickly combed it back into place. While she hadn’t known Big Al for that long, they were very fond of each other and he often treated her as if she was a little sister. She got the sense that she had charmed him somehow, and he would now do anything in the world for her.

“You sure you don’t want a proper drink?” he said.

Curie shrugged.

“Oh, come on. Have one. I’ll even pay for it.”

Considering how little money Curie had left now, she could hardly turn down the offer. Shyly, she turned towards the bar and looked for the Mr Handy bot. “Excuse me, barkeep!” she called. “I would like a Rum and Nuka-Cola. With a bunch of cherries, please.”

Big Al roared with laughter. “Oh, hell. You sound like my mother. Got a sweet-tooth, huh?”

“I am new to this whole drinking activity,” Curie admitted, blushing.

As Whitechapel Charlie delivered a drink that looked nothing like what she’d ordered and then hovered away in a huff, Curie wrinkled her nose. “Hmm. This smells quite... potent.”

“They don’t have rum here. It’s whiskey and Nuka-Cola,” Big Al said, after giving it a taste. He grimaced. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it.”

Curie lifted the glass to her lips and her eyes watered from the fumes of the powerful liquor. She felt as if she were about to take a sip of gasoline. Tentatively, she took a bit of the drink onto her tongue and held it there for a few seconds. The sweetness was all she could taste at first – and then the whiskey took over, sweeping throughout her mouth. She swallowed it reflexively and gagged, slamming the glass down. She heard Big Al laughing again as she wiped at her watering eyes. When her vision came back into focus, she laughed as well, and then felt it catch suddenly in her throat as she saw someone standing at the back of the bar by the stairwell. Her heart pounded, her mouth abruptly dried up, and she felt a little bit sick.

Amarli must have seen her immediately, sitting by the bar with such a gigantic man. Her eyes were wide with shock, and she looked a little bit pale, her lips parted as if she were about to call her name. Her face was no different to how Curie had been imagining it over the past week – except now she could safely say that her closest friend was still alive and well. The Mechanist had not gotten his way.

“Curie?” Big Al asked concernedly. “You good?”

Amarli was approaching now, quickly shouldering her way through the crowd towards the bar. Although Curie’s whole body was aching with the anticipation of being close to the other woman again, her rapid heartbeat told her she was also terrified. She wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t want to see Amarli yet. Quickly, she stood up from the stool and glanced in either direction, looking frantically for a way out. Too late.

Now only feet away, Amarli pushed through the last couple in her way and Curie stepped back against the bar as if to protect herself. Big Al, sensing something was wrong, immediately stood up straight. He held a hand out and stopped Amarli in her tracks, glowering at her warningly. “Keep your distance,” he rumbled.

Amarli stared up at him in shock and then tried to glance past him at Curie. She didn’t seem to understand what was going on. All Curie could think was how devastatingly beautiful she was, and how wonderful it was to see her alive. Her heart was beating so hard that she could feel it in her chest. Amarli’s eyes were still surprised as they took in Curie’s new armour, her slightly longer hair, and the alcoholic drink on the bar beside her. She probably looked like a completely different person.

“Curie,” she said, and somehow her soft voice carried over the loud noise like Magnolia’s music. “What are you doing here? Where’s Shaun? Where’s my son?”

Chapter Text

Amarli tipped back her head and narrowed her eyes up at the hulking man keeping her from approaching her friend. Who was he? Why had he been with Curie? More importantly: what the hell was she even doing in Goodneighbor? How had she gotten here? Why would she come here instead of Diamond City?

Her head throbbed painfully and she had to close her eyes for a second, forcing back the tidal of wave of questions. “Curie,” she repeated, again appealing to the other woman.

As if snapping out of a trance, Curie hurriedly stepped forward and touched the man’s arm. “Monsieur – she is a friend. My good friend. I have told you about her.”

Uncertainly, the man looked Amarli up and down. “Really?”

“Yes,” Curie said earnestly. She put a hand on his shoulder and physically encouraged him to stand down, her scrawny arm somehow managing to force back the wall of muscle. He sat heavily back on his stool and picked up his drink again, casting a furtive glance back at Amarli.

“I am… very glad to see you.” Curie’s cheeks were bright pink where seconds ago they had been very pale. Shaking her head, Amarli dispelled the image of a frightened Curie when their eyes had met across the room a few seconds ago. After all, what was there for Curie to be afraid of? Why would Amarli have scared her?

Her breath catching in her throat, Amarli said, “Tell me…”

“Shaun is at home,” Curie informed her quickly. “I took him back a day early from Diamond City.” She glanced down at her feet. “You were not at home, and he was very disappointed.”

Amarli opened her mouth and then closed it again. She hadn’t planned for her journey to take so long. The robobrain had been here in the city and she’d planned to retrieve the beacon from it and return to Sanctuary Hills just in time to greet Shaun and Curie when they returned home. Unfortunately, the trip had been doomed from the start, and she ended up staying away for much longer.

When they’d arrived near Hangman’s Alley, it had been painfully obvious that they were too late to stop the robots from killing every one of the settlers inside and ransacking the place for parts. Amarli and Ada were forced to camp outside and spend two days simply searching through the wreckage and checking for survivors. The Minutemen reinforcements had arrived a day later, meaning she also had to converse with them and send messages back to the Castle for Preston to receive. And then, although they knew they were woefully under-prepared for a battle against the Mechanists’ robots, they set off in search of them. By the time they finally managed to track them down near the river, they discovered a whole army similar to the one Amarli had first fought when she rescued Ada. There had been many Minutemen casualties and she’d suffered several powerful blows herself – if not for Ada, she may have died there. Again, she had to spend another three days by the battleground taking note of the survivors, dead bodies, and destroyed robots. It was only after more than a week had passed that she was finally able to take the radar beacon and leave. The whole ordeal had been stressful, grievous, and had served to make her even more frustrated about the Mechanist’s presence in the Commonwealth. He only seemed intent on killing and destroying all life – what was the point in that?

It was only now that Amarli remembered what she’d originally planned and felt a slight pang of regret as she realized her son hadn’t even had an idea of where she had gone. And… and Curie was here, so he was in Sanctuary Hills alone, worrying about her…

“But… you – why are you here?” Amarli demanded, grasping for words.

Curie hung her head, glanced momentarily at her big friend, and didn’t answer. She was wringing her hands like she was nervous, or guilty. There was a fading scrape on one cheek and a bruise across the bottom of her wrist; her jeans were ripped and muddied at the knees. They were old injuries, but they still looked stark against her pale, clear skin. She was wearing a much stronger armour which Amarli had never seen before and it looked like the laser rifle slung across her back had undergone some modifications. Amarli was sure she had also never seen Curie looking so tired. Or drinking. Or hanging around with strange men, alone in seedy places like Goodneighbor.

Her insides squirmed with discomfort at the image, hardly believing the sight. Was this even the same young woman in front of her? She hadn’t been away for that long, surely – why would Curie have changed so much?

“Curie, what’s going on?” Amarli said more softly. “Why are you here?”

“Because she wants to be,” the man beside her suddenly cut in. He eyed Amarli with distrust. “Believe me, we would’ve convinced her to go home otherwise.”

A little helpless, Curie glanced up at her worriedly and then reached for the glass of water beside her, taking a frantic sip. “I am all right, Madame.”

Her admission did little to quell Amarli’s uneasiness with the situation. “Who are you?” Amarli demanded, turning to the man. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“None of your business.”

Amarli felt herself glowering at him automatically. “How do you know Curie?”

“A mutual friend made an arrangement.”

“An arrangement? What sort of arrangement?” Amarli took a step forwards, threatening him even though she knew he was much larger and stronger than her. Was he the one who had kept Curie here? Had she ended up with no possibility of leaving? Her protectiveness for her friend flared up much worse than ever – she knew she wasn’t leaving this bar unless Curie was with her.

The man stood instantly, looming and looking irritated. “Back away, lady.”

“Not until you tell me how you know her. Why won’t you let her go?”

His face contorted into one of distaste. “What? I told you-”

“Madame!” Curie was tugging on her hand, trying to get her to step back. “It is not like that. He is my friend, too.”

“Your friend?”

“Yes, he has been protecting me,” Curie said quickly. “He is very kind.”

Amarli stared at her. Again, Curie somehow managed to avoid her eyes, taking another sip of water. What was going on, then? How much would it take to get Curie to answer her questions? She glanced over to where Magnolia was singing, remembering why she had stopped by at Goodneighbor in the first place, and sighed. So much for ditching Ada for a quick encounter and spending only a night here. This might require her to stay a little bit longer.

“Curie, I need a little help here,” she said desperately. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

“I have come on my own – I wished to see the doctor.”

“Doctor Amari?”

“Yes.” Curie frowned. “As I have been struggling with my research, it seemed wise to find motivation from men and women of science.”

“What?”

“It is time for me to find independence, I think. And I have found it.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “You do not need to worry, Madame. I am safe, I assure you.”

Amarli was at a loss about what had changed. She could not understand why Curie was suddenly going on about independence and being able to protect herself. All she had done was go with Shaun to Diamond City, her first time being partly autonomous. Unless something had gone wrong while she was there, or something had happened to Shaun, why would she have ended up here? Looking around her, Amarli searched for some clue to explain to her the mystery of the way Curie was acting. She found nothing.

Magnolia winded down her final song, voice husky as she thanked the room for their attention, and Amarli quickly averted her eyes, wishing she hadn’t come down here in the first place. The smoke and alcohol fumes were already sickening her, and she was remembering days almost a year ago where she’d sat down here for hours in a stupor, pumped full of drugs. Some of those days had been worse than others – when she’d made it back from the Institute for the first time, for example, and wanted to forget the truth about Shaun. Wanted to forget how he was, and who he was, and why she hadn’t anticipated his place in the Institute’s plans. She would have given anything at that point just to have him still missing as a baby boy instead of found as an old man.

“Madame?” Curie’s voice was instantly concerned. She must have seen how pale Amarli was all of a sudden. “Do you feel ill?”

Amarli had already been exhausted and upset about the past week; more stress on top of that, this time on Curie’s behalf, was more than she could handle. Her thoughts were in a jumble – all she wanted was to understand what was going on. Stepping forwards, she pushed herself against the bar beside Curie, leaning with both elbows and lowering her head for a moment to quiet the spinning.

“Madame?” A hand very lightly touched the back of her neck. The tension loosened there automatically, and a wave of warmth washed down her spine.

“I’m fine,” she forced out through her teeth. She could tell that the big man was staring at her, probably wondering what was wrong with her.

“I am sorry,” Curie said faintly. “I did not realize you would react in this way.”

“In what way?”

“I had thought you would be happy to find me so self-sufficient.” Shyly, Curie ducked her head and added, “After all, I am no longer a burden on you.”

“What are you even talking about? Since when were you a burden?” Amarli straightened and looked at her in frustration. “Curie, the way you’re talking, the things you’re saying – I don’t understand where you got these ideas from. You were safe in Sanctuary Hills, weren’t you? You seemed happy. So why did you feel the need to run away?”

“I did not run away!” Curie said with surprising brashness. “It was you who ran.”

There was more tension than there had ever been between them and Amarli looked at her in shock, unsure of what to say. It hadn’t even occurred to her before now that Curie was upset with her. Was that why the woman had looked so worried about seeing her when she arrived a few minutes ago? She could hardly believe it.

“Curie, are we fighting? Are you angry at me?” She realized she sounded like a child, but she couldn't help it.

“I only…” Curie licked her lips, hesitating, and glanced nervously at the man beside her. He raised his eyebrows as if expecting her to go on. Turning back to Amarli, she finally met her eyes for the first time. “I only wish you would have waited for mine and Shaun’s return, Madame,” she said quietly. “We were aware of the place you went, and the danger you were in, and… I believe little Shaun was even more hurt than I that you had not waited to say goodbye.”

Amarli spluttered. “Say goodbye? Why? It was another robobrain – you came with me to take down that first one, remember? It was hardly gonna be my last time seeing you.”

“Another…” Curie had widened her eyes, realization dawning on her. As Amarli watched her expression, it dawned on her too; Curie had not known there were other radar beacons to collect before the Mechanist’s location could be discerned. She had thought Amarli had simply set off to find him and fight him. Suddenly, it all made sense. How could she have thought – how could Shaun have thought – that Amarli would just make a huge decision like that and leave without telling them? But, as her mind filled slowly with dismay, she thought of all those times she had left Shaun alone recently, and how obvious it was that she had been itching to get away from Sanctuary Hills and encounter the danger of the Commonwealth again. She thought about how Curie had decided not to travel with her anymore, and how nervous she had acted around the robot workbench and Ada afterwards, always keeping her eye on them. Both Curie and her son had worried that one day she would leave home again and never come back. How shocking it must have been for both of them to return to Sanctuary Hills after their own short journey and find she had simply disappeared. The thought made Amarli feel unbearably sad.

“Oh, Curie – no… no, I… you can’t seriously have thought I would just leave like that if I thought I might never come back?” she said quickly, reaching for her friend’s hands. “Ada couldn’t find the Mechanist. She said we had to find more radar beacons before we could get to him.”

Curie just stared at her.

“The one we found was here in the city – I’d thought I could make the journey, collect the beacon, and get home before even you two had returned. But it didn’t work out that way. I had to stay for much longer. If there had been any way to send you a message, I would have...”

Looking dreadfully embarrassed now, Curie hung her head and pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Oh, I feel I had jumped to a terrible conclusion!”

“Curie, it’s… it’s okay.” She was so happy to have found out why Curie was acting oddly, so happy that it was all just a misunderstanding, that she could have cried. Amarli pulled her into a tight hug, swaying from side to side. She could smell a new shampoo in her hair, could feel the soft skin of her cheek pressed against her own. Curie returned the hug almost awkwardly, not like she normally did, but Amarli chalked that down to her embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” Amarli said, feeling the need to apologize. She pulled back so she could look at Curie at arm’s length. “I promise I won’t do it again. I won’t put myself in danger without telling you. Okay?”

Wordlessly, Curie nodded.

“But you can’t do it either,” Amarli said seriously. “You know how dangerous it is here – you know how dangerous it is being alone in the Commonwealth. I get that you want to exercise your independence, and I’m proud of you for having come so far, but this was a terrible idea.”

Curie blanched. “I have been safe. And careful.”

“I know.” For the first time, Amarli allowed herself a softer look at the man beside them. “It seems you’ve made some useful friends here. But I still don’t want you going around the Commonwealth without telling me. That’s how people get killed – making impulsive decisions, heading into danger without backup.”

Curie nodded. “I understand, Madame.”

“I know you do.” Amarli couldn’t help but pull her close and hug her again, pleased that she had her friend back. She was almost over the fright of seeing her here, but it would take a couple hours at least to make her more comfortable with the idea. With her fingers, she brushed at the locks of black hair which were now long enough to fall into Curie’s eyes. “Can you please tell me how it’s possible that you’ve changed so much in almost three weeks?”

Blushing, Curie said, “It has felt like much longer, yes? My research has not progressed, but I think I have learned a lot about human beings. And about myself.”

“That’s good,” Amarli said positively.

“I agree.”

“Doctor Amari helped you with that?”

Curie seemed to get even redder. “Yes, she has helped me very much.”

“Good.” Amarli grinned, reaching for her hands. “God, it’s good to see you.”

Curie was back to avoiding her eyes again. Clumsily, she stepped back and picked up her water, lifting the glass to finish the rest. Her giant companion was looking at her with amusement. Amarli turned to him apologetically, offering him her hand. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Amarli, Curie’s friend.”

“Didn’t seem so friendly at first, but I realize that now,” he said gruffly. He reached out and squeezed her hand so hard that she felt the bones grind together. He chuckled at her pained expression. “Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.”

“You are…”

“He is Big Al,” Curie cut in, sounding proud. “My new friend.”

He grumbled. “Something like that.”

Curie looked at him accusingly. “But you told me-”

“I’ve been working for the Memory Den while I’m in Goodneighbor,” he said to Amarli, cutting her off. “Doctor Amari convinced me to keep an eye on Curie while she’s here – pretty little thing like her is bound to get jumped if no one’s there to watch her back.”

Something strained in Amarli’s chest as she looked back and forth between them, trying to read into their relationship. They couldn’t have known each other for very long at all, but it seemed that Big Al was very fond of Curie, and vice versa. He was quite young, even though his size and stature made him look much older, and Amarli thought there might be a handsome face beneath all those old injuries. Was it possible that there was something more going on here?

Forcing a smile despite her sudden wave of alarm, Amarli said, “Well, it’s nice to meet you. Thanks for taking care of her.”

“I was paid for it,” he said carelessly. “No problem.”

Curie swatted at his shoulder and looked upset. “These jokes are horrible,” she said. “At least Angustia can make no jokes.”

“Angustia?” Amarli repeated, confused. Was there another new person in Curie’s life?

Big Al grinned. “Her little dog. Cute as anything – just like her.” He reached out and lightly squeezed Curie’s cheek between two fingers. She ducked away and beamed at him. “Thank you, Monsieur.”

Amarli shook her head, amused despite herself. They really were quite cute together, if this was a thing. She could hardly imagine Curie dating people, being physically attracted to people, being sexual in nature. It just seemed wrong to think of her that way. But there was something about seeing her being friendly and playful with this man that made Amarli consider for a moment just what made her so attractive. She had conventionally pretty features – full lips, big eyes, rounded cheeks – and smooth curves on her otherwise petite frame. While her hair was still short enough to be considered tomboy-ish, she had such a slender neck and delicate features that it actually made her look more feminine. She was everything that was soft and girlish and sweet. What man would be so out of his mind as to not find her attractive and want to protect her? With a pang of realization, Amarli thought that if her relationship with Curie wasn’t what it was, she would be thinking the exact same thing. Even if Curie was nothing like her usual type, she was momentarily caught up in a feeling of jealousy as she watched her friend with Big Al.

To clear her head, Amarli said, “A dog? You have a dog now, too?”

Curie turned to her and nodded eagerly. “She is wonderful! I called her Angustia, after Lavendula angustifolia.”

“Lavender?” Amarli had to laugh at that. Now this was why she could never think of Curie in a sexual manner. She was like an eccentric child.

“It is my favourite,” Curie said, blushing yet again. “You always smell like lavender.”

Amarli stopped laughing, given pause by that shy admission. She hadn’t realized the woman had spent time smelling her – the perfume she wore, the soap she used to wash her clothes. It was enough to make her confused all over again, looking at Curie uncertainly. After a moment, she gave a little cough and said, “Yeah, it’s my favourite too.”

Curie beamed at her. “You must meet Angustia. She is very small, and very sweet, and I think she likes me very much. She will certainly like you.”

Kindly, Amarli said, “I’d like to meet her. Where are you staying?”

“In the Hotel Rexford,” Curie said. “I have booked the room we used last time – you remember? It is much nicer now, though.”

Amarli nodded slowly, regarding her carefully. “Would Angustia want to come back with us? To Sanctuary Hills?”

Now Curie looked thoughtful. “I do not know.” She looked at Big Al. “I think I would like to stay here for a little longer – that is all right, yes?”

“I’m here till the end of the month,” Big Al said. “I can help you out for a couple weeks more.”

“Wait… you mean, you don’t want to go back? You don’t want to go home?” Amarli asked worriedly.

Curie shook her head emphatically. “I am not ready, Madame. Please understand. I think it is best if I stay here awhile.”

Amarli was about to counter her and say she didn’t understand, but she bit her tongue instead. It was typical of her to get caught up in her protectiveness and treat Curie like a child, but the last thing she wanted was for her friend to start feeling suffocated by her. She’d already been worried before about both Curie and Shaun hating her if she didn’t give them enough space and trust. She still didn’t think that Curie staying in Goodneighbor was a good idea, but maybe she could spend the night convincing her in less forceful ways. Making herself relax, Amarli said, “Well, since we’re both here, I’ll buy you a drink. How about that?”

Curie grimaced. “No thank you, Madame.”

Staring down at the dark drink beside her on the bar, Amarli frowned. “Because you’ve already got one, or…?”

“I still do not enjoy alcohol,” she said. “I do not understand why you like it.” Pointedly, she slid the glass away from her.

Amarli laughed, and so did Big Al. She turned to him. “Well, what about you? Would you like another?”

He looked at her with surprise. Perhaps he hadn’t thought she’d be so kind to him. “If you want.”

As she leaned against the bar and waved over Whitechapel Charlie, Curie looked at her with an expression of delight, as if overtly pleased that she was getting along with Big Al. Amarli felt a slight pang of annoyance at that but dutifully ignored it. There was no point in trying to stop Curie from liking other people. Even if Curie were to find a man she liked enough to sleep with, Amarli would need to give her space to explore her sexuality. She was not her mother, and she was not her keeper; she’d be a hypocrite if she stopped Curie from experiencing the wonders of love and sex. Although, she might think about warning against them in the future. Curie was a logical scientist in her head and in her heart, and she wasn’t made to endure the destruction that came with falling in love.

Amarli saw Magnolia out of the corner of her eye, finally coming down off the stage and sitting at the other end of the bar. She tilted her head slightly so she could smile at her, and Magnolia lifted her hand to wave. While Amarli had certainly come to The Third Rail with the intention of picking her up and spending the night with her, she’d settle for enjoying her from afar instead. At least she had Curie to entertain her.

“Come on,” she said to Curie and Big Al. “There’s a free table at the back. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

 ---

Amarli had tried dropping subtle hints about how she was going to be returning to Sanctuary Hills the next day. Curie wouldn’t bite, no matter how hard she tried. They left the bar when it was one in the morning, and she felt as if she had achieved nothing – she’d be going home, and Curie would stay here. While she understood Curie’s reasons for being in Goodneighbor, she didn’t want her to remain in a place she herself had spent so long. A place full of drugs, and alcohol, and sex, and danger. She didn’t want to lose Curie to the place she had been sucked into so long ago. But, for once, it seemed that Curie was determined to be in charge of her own life, and nothing Amarli could do or say would change her mind.

They walked to the Hotel Rexford with Big Al, Curie leaning into his arm with exhaustion and chattering a mile a minute, still in the midst of explaining to him her friendship with Amarli. He soaked it all in with an indulgent smile and then, when they reached the doors of the hotel, quickly ruffled her hair with one giant hand and said, “Goodnight, little one.”

“Goodnight, Monsieur!” she said brightly.

Once he had left, Curie had closed up a little bit again, and she looked at Amarli with uncertainty. They went into the lobby and stood idly by the bar, Curie fiddling with her sleeves while Amarli watched her. She felt as if she was still doing something wrong – why else would Curie be acting this way? Why else would Curie refuse to go home with her?

"Where is Ada?" Curie asked finally.

"I sent her on ahead to Sanctuary Hills with a couple of the Minutemen." Amarli sighed. "They'll be staying there as extra protection in case there's an attack from the Mechanist. Things have gotten... bad. Very bad."

"Oh." Curie looked upset. "Are we all in danger?"

"Yes, we might be," Amarli said. 

Curie's eyes became distant again, and she continued to fiddle with her sleeves. The only difference was that this time her forehead was creased with concern.

“You’ve already got a room, right? Mind if I stay a night?” Amarli asked, wanting to be rid of the awkwardness.

For a second, it looked as if Curie were about to refuse outright. She seemed to realize the ridiculousness of it; her features softened and she said, “But of course, Madame – you must stay! And I shall introduce you to Angustia.”

They went up the stairs with a considerable gap in between them, Curie taking two at a time and seeming as if she were in a rush to get away. When she led Amarli to the familiar room they had stayed in last time – the same room she had lived in a year ago – she struggled a little bit with finding the key, digging around in her pockets. Leaning against the wall, Amarli brushed some stray curls out of her face and watched her. Finally, with the door open, Curie shot her a wide smile and went in. Amarli followed her closely.

A small, lithe dog jumped at Curie the moment it saw her, barking excitedly. She leaned down and petted its head. “Good doggy.”

Closing the door behind them, Amarli stared down at the dog with raised brows. “That’s her? Angustia?”

“Yes, this is her.” Curie was beaming. She reached down and picked the dog up in her arms, stroking its belly as it struggled to right itself. Amarli didn’t move from her place by the door as she watched Curie carry her dog over to the bed and place it on the mattress, sitting beside it so she could remove her boots. The dog jumped around her enthusiastically, apparently still very happy to see her. It had hardly recognized Amarli’s presence at all.

“Please, come in,” Curie said absently.

Amarli took off her jacket and put it on the desk. She did the same with her fedora and the pistol she’d had holstered at her hip. While Curie went to the sink and began to wash herself up before bed, Amarli took off her armour; when they were both done, they switched places. It was a typical routine they had both grown used to over their lengthy period of time travelling together – tonight, however, Amarli felt uncomfortable. She felt like she didn’t relate so much with Curie anymore, and she didn’t understand why.

“Curie.”

“Yes?” Curie was sitting at the desk now, scribbling down something new in her thick pad of notes. Perhaps she wasn’t acting like herself, but at least her routines hadn’t changed – she was still such a robot. She turned to see why Amarli had called her and then widened her eyes when she saw the woman simply standing behind her with her arms folded. “Do you need something?” she asked feebly.

“I need you to tell me what’s going on. You’re… not the same.”

The expressions were, as always, very clear on her face – there was concern, then dread, overcome by a wave of doubt; embarrassment and some apprehension again; and then, finally, admission. She turned in the chair and clasped her hands on her lap. “My apologies. I realize now that I was wrong, and you would have told me if you – if you had decided to risk your life. But I am still… recovering.”

“Recovering,” Amarli repeated. She sighed. “Right, right. That makes sense.”

Curie bowed her head.

“I was alone for so long that I’m not used to having people care about me. That’s what it is.” Amarli sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s terrible that I forget about my own son’s feelings. Maybe it’s more terrible that I overlooked yours. You’re still growing, Curie – in your head, I mean. There’s so much you need to experience if you’re going to survive in the Commonwealth. I was supposed to be part of that.”

“You are!” Curie protested quickly. “You are very much a part of my awakening.” Her cheeks flushed, and she rushed to add, “By this I mean my – my evolution. You have helped me evolve very much as a human being.”

Amarli nodded. “But I’m still here to help you, Curie. I won’t go anywhere, I promise. You and I are still in this together.”

“Yes.” Curie smiled cheerfully. “Together.”

Amarli leaned back on her hands and gazed at her friend, satisfied with their conversation but still not pleased with the cold distance between them. After a moment, she asked, “Can you forgive me, then? I just want things to be the way they were.”

Curie looked doubtful, and then tried to cover it up – Amarli saw how quickly her face changed and was surprised by it. She had never tried to cover up her expressions before. Her involuntary honesty was something which Amarli appreciated most about her. She didn’t have time to question it, however; Curie stood from her chair and came over to throw her arms around Amarli’s shoulders, tucking her into a hug. Holding her in the embrace for a little while, Amarli breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled against Curie’s shoulder.

“Shall we sleep?” Curie pulled back. “It is very late, and you must leave in the morning, yes?”

Amarli glanced away, disappointed. She’d hoped that Curie would want to come home now, would no longer feel unhappy with her. But her choice was apparently nothing to do with unhappiness – Curie simply seemed to enjoy being free. Amarli would have to accept that.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

While Curie quickly finished off her notes and stacked them up on the desk, Amarli laid on the mattress and began to track a path for her journey home the next day. She was almost finished when Curie climbed into bed beside her. Visibly, she hesitated – much like she had earlier – but then seemed to change her mind. With determination, she scooted over and abruptly hugged an arm around Amarli’s middle, cuddling up with her head resting against the side of her stomach, one of her hands tucking beneath the hem of her t-shirt so that her bare knuckles brushed warmly against her skin. It was a shockingly intimate embrace which immediately caught Amarli’s attention. She froze, carefully setting her Pip-Boy on the nightstand, and stared blankly at the back of Curie’s head. “Uh… you comfortable?”

There was a faint hum of agreement. Amarli felt oddly warm, not quite able to remove the image of Curie’s head resting a little bit lower…

Who am I kidding? Amarli thought, frustrated. I'm a grown woman who can deal with having someone sleeping next to me. Or on me.

Holding her breath, Amarli settled her arm over Curie’s midsection, feeling the warmth of her through her clothes. Without thinking, she found her hand stroking the length of Curie’s spine through her t-shirt, watching as she cuddled closer. She smiled despite herself, wondering at how quickly the dynamic between them had changed. Hardly ten minutes ago, Curie had been keeping her careful distance – now she was clinging to her like a little monkey. What a confusing woman she had turned out to be.

Amarli finally rested her fingers between her shoulder blades, imagining she could faintly feel the other woman’s heat beat there, through the warm fabric of her t-shirt. In what seemed like no time at all, Curie’s breathing evened out and her whole body relaxed. There was no easy way to detach herself and head over to the desk, or downstairs to the bar, without waking the other woman. As uncertain as Amarli felt about the embrace, she resigned herself to sleeping as well. 

She switched off the bedside lamp and carefully moved Curie’s head so that she could lay down as well. The other woman shifted, half-lucid, and climbed a little further up her body to press her face to the side of her neck. Amarli, a little shocked by the warmth of her so close and all around her, felt a pang of electricity run through her. With a curious sense of need, she found herself tightly wrapping an arm around Curie, fingers momentarily running through her hair, pulling her further into the embrace. All those soft, smooth curves fit against her with little resistance, and she could smell the faint perfumed scent of shampoo. And she could feel the slight movement of warm lips against the skin of her neck.

Oh...

With another pang, Amarli forced herself to close her eyes and not think about the sensation. She wondered if Curie could hear how her heartbeat had sped up, hammering just a little faster inside the cage of her chest. The distance between them was so fragile, so easy to break. In the darkness, she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than for Curie to know the effect she had.

But maybe Curie did know. Maybe she was feigning sleep – maybe she was trying to elicit some sort of reaction from Amarli. Maybe this was revenge for her neglect, smothering her with that lovely body, that warmth, the delicious feel of pressure against her side, forcing Amarli to quell the answering fire that rose in her gut…

You’re being ridiculous, Amarli thought angrily, snapping open her eyes. 

She felt herself physically trembling, and heating up in all the places Curie was touching her. Of all the times to get turned on, it had to be now. Frustrated, Amarli quickly removed Curie’s hands from her and rolled out of bed, trying to make as little noise as possible. She turned back automatically, eyeing Curie’s silhouette on the bed, thinking worriedly about who she had suddenly become – an attractive young woman who men were interested in, not just her friend, her family. An innocent, wonderful, oblivious woman who would be irreparably damaged if anything were to happen just to satisfy Amarli's selfish desire.

Better to act on her desire with someone else.

She left the room without her jacket or her armour, only thinking to take her pistol from where she’d left it on the desk. Angustia had been watching her as she left the room, but the little dog didn’t make a single sound.

The Third Rail would likely still be lively at this time of morning, but Magnolia would have turned in for the night. Amarli knew exactly where her room was - at the end of the hall and on the left, one of the biggest rooms in the hotel, rented out permanently. There was light shining beneath the door when she approached. When she knocked, there was a sigh on the other side. A few seconds later, the door opened and Magnolia appeared dressed in a sheer silver dressing gown, her makeup still on and her black hair immaculate. She must have been getting ready for bed. With a smile teasing at the corners of her lips, she said, “Hello, sweetheart. What brings you to my room in the early hours of the morning, I wonder?”

“Sex,” Amarli said flatly.

Magnolia’s laugh was clear and delightful. She eyed Amarli as if with weary affection and then stepped back to allow her in. “You’re lucky you caught me before bed.”

“Would it have made a difference?” Amarli asked, striding past her. She liked Magnolia’s room a lot – it reminded her of backstage changing rooms in middle school. It was funny, really, the sorts of things she remembered from her past. For a while, she could hardly think of anything past the day that the bombs fell. Sometimes, she managed to unearth the most arbitrary memories of all; now, it was the ruby curtains of the stage upon which she had performed as a munchkin in a school production of The Wizard of Oz. And the dressing rooms with lit mirrors, counters covered in makeup, and racks of richly-coloured clothing guarded by a burly stage manager. As a little girl, she’d wanted to experiment with all the clothes and makeup the theatre department had to offer, but she hadn’t been a member of the main cast. She’d been afraid of getting into trouble.

It was odd being in a place now that reminded her of those times, but where there were things much worse than being told off in front of the whole school. She was hundreds of years past that sort of fear. Little girl Amarli was dead, and now an older, sadder, lonelier woman was in her place.

“Sweetheart… are you all right?” Magnolia sounded worried. She glided over and lead Amarli to sit on the edge of the bed. Then, with surprising efficiency, she hurried over to her makeup counter and began preparing some tea.

“I’m in need of a distraction,” Amarli said truthfully, watching her, admiring the view of her bottom through the thin fabric of her dressing gown. “Leave the tea. Just come here.”

For once, Magnolia seemed determined not to listen to her. She finished stirring the leaves and carried over a mug. “You’ll get the distraction you need,” she said, smiling. “But you look worried – at least calm yourself down first.”

Amarli had been concerned for a second that Magnolia would ask her to explain, that she would cross a line. She would be breaking the easy relationship they already had and making it impossible for them to sleep together ever again. But it was fine, and they were safe.

She took a sip of the tea and closed her eyes as the warm liquid traveled down her throat, warming her up as it went. While she’d been feeling hot with arousal a few moments ago, she was cold now. She hadn’t even noticed.

“Sorry,” she said, noticing Magnolia watching her. All of a sudden, she felt embarrassed to be here so early in the morning, quite obviously fraught with need. Why had she come here? So Magnolia could solve all her problems for her? She sighed. “I shouldn’t be coming in here and demanding sex from you. Don’t allow me to treat you like that.”

The older woman shrugged. “You know you’re gorgeous. If you want sex, I can hardly find it in myself to refuse.”

Amarli nodded slowly, flattered by her comment.

“But I will refuse if you show up like this,” Magnolia said, sitting on the bed beside her and wrapping an arm around her. “You’re terribly worked up about something. I can tell.”

“I’m confused. And a mess.” Amarli drank some more tea, realizing she was trembling again. She couldn’t stop herself from pouring her heart out. “God, I mean… a few months ago I had a family and a home. I was safe, and I had basically everything I needed. But then I started trying to chase after what I wanted, and it’s turned things upside down. I can’t stop wanting more, and more-”

“Honey, not all of us are satisfied with white picket fences,” Magnolia interrupted her.

“I know.”

“Whatever it is you do want, you have every right to try and search for it. Whether it’s… oh, I don’t know. Love? Freedom? Happiness? Just go for it.”

“But I don’t know what I want,” Amarli said quietly.

“You will.” Squeezing her shoulder, Magnolia smiled with her lips and her eyes. “And it’ll be something you already have – I’d bet you good money on that.”

Amarli scoffed. “How very cliché of you.”

“That’s always how it is,” Magnolia said wisely. “Trust me.”

Smiling at her, Amarli downed the rest of her tea and then stood up to go and put the cup back on the counter. She looked closely at the pictures Magnolia had pasted to the wall which she had overlooked so many times when she’d spent the night here. There were two that caught her eye: one in which Magnolia was singing at The Third Rail, her dress sparkling under the lights; another of her arm in arm with Mayor Hancock while Whitechapel Charlie hovered close behind them. She looked incredibly content with herself – with the life she had chosen. If singing in The Third Rail was all she had ever wanted, Amarli could finally understand why she was so dedicated to her job, and why she had never desired to share her love with somebody else. She had found exactly what she wanted; she didn’t need anything or anyone else.

“I wonder why we’ve never done it,” Amarli found herself saying.

“Hmm?” Magnolia had stretched back into a reclining position on the bed, her dressing gown falling from one shoulder and revealing skin the colour of porcelain, the rise of her breast just visible beneath the fabric.

“We’ve never talked truthfully like we just did.”

“You never wanted to, and neither did I,” Magnolia said with a knowing smile. “But, just this once, I feel like it’ll help you to hear a voice of reason.”

“Yeah,” Amarli agreed. She walked over slowly, pulling her shirt over her head and tossing it on the floor. “Now I’ll have to thank you.”

Magnolia only smiled as Amarli climbed onto the bed and straddled her body, gently removing the robe from her shoulders. As she bent to kiss her chest, Magnolia suddenly said, “Are you sure there’s no one else?”

The question was so out of the blue that Amarli had to lean back to process it. “Huh?”

Magnolia propped herself up on her elbows. “I’ve slept with people who were in relationships before, but… I don’t want to do that with you. Wanting sex is one thing, but if you’re using me to run away from someone, and your feelings-”

“My feelings?” Amarli chuckled. She leaned down to kiss Magnolia’s mouth, and then her neck. “You think too highly of me.”

“What, so you can never fall in love?” Magnolia scoffed, arching an eyebrow and pushing her away.

“I don’t want love,” Amarli said. “I want sex.”

Magnolia stopped her as she leaned down to kiss her again. “Sweetheart, I think-”

“Why are you doing this?” Amarli demanded, wondering why the other woman was trying to counsel her today. She’d liked the comfort of their conversation beforehand, but she didn’t want to be distracted now. She wanted to be relieved.

“I’m always here for you if you need it,” Magnolia said with surprising tenderness. “And I know you have a succession of other lovers when I’m not there.” She shot her a pointed look. “But none of us can give you companionship. You need someone who really loves you, Amarli. You deserve it.”

Amarli pressed a hand to her forehead. “I don’t see why you feel like you need to tell me this. Why tonight, of all nights?”

“Because I don’t ever want to see you like you used to be,” Magnolia said seriously. “You were a crackhead and an alcoholic, and even though you had lovers, you were still alone. I think it broke you.”

Amarli wanted to protest, but she knew it was true.

“If you’re about to go down that road again, I will do my best to stop you. It looks like you might be.” Magnolia sat up fully now, drawing Amarli’s hand away from her face. She cupped her cheek, looking imploringly into her eyes. “Tell me, truthfully, are you here because there’s someone else?”

Frustrated that she’d thought immediately of Curie, Amarli snapped, “No. There’s no one else. Why would there be?”

Magnolia didn’t look like she believed her. “Then find someone,” she said simply. “Before you start wanting and wanting and end up being lonely all over again. Like I said, it’s good for you to search for that one thing you want most in the world – but you can’t just ignore what you need.”

“Are you my therapist, now? Should I be paying you?” Amarli climbed off her and sat back on the bed, annoyed.

“Sweetheart, don’t be like that,” Magnolia purred. “I’m only trying to help.”

“Help me by undressing me. And fucking me.”

Magnolia chuckled. “Nice to see my wise words went straight over your head.”

“Can you blame me? I didn’t want this – you don’t need to manage me or protect me from myself. That isn’t your job.”

“But sleeping with you is?” Magnolia had folded her arms to her hide her bare chest. Suddenly, it all just felt wrong – being here in this room that reminded her of her childhood and her old school; talking about how she was no longer satisfied at home with her family and how it was ruining the life she had built after the fall of the Institute; thinking about how Curie had embraced her and how it had made her feel. On top of all of that was her fear about the Mechanist and the robots which had just killed a whole settlement of people. Everything was a mess, a big mess, and she needed to fix it, but how could she fix anything when the Mechanist was threatening her very way of life?

Amarli sighed, subdued. “You know that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry.”

The older woman watched her face with a dubious expression. Finally, she sat forwards and pulled Amarli back into her arms. “I’m sorry too, honey.” Her breath was warm against Amarli’s neck. “Let’s just forget about this, all right?”

“I’m just… I really am struggling.” Amarli closed her eyes. She thought about Curie pressed up against her side, full lips moving against the sensitive skin of her neck – quickly, she replaced the image with Magnolia. She allowed herself to be aroused by Magnolia’s hands stroking over her chest and her back. Swallowing, she murmured, “Please distract me.”

“Sure, honey.”

 ---

Curie awoke to an empty bed and was at first very confused. Then she remembered that Amarli usually woke up early anyway and had probably gone to grab breakfast. She sat up and stretched, smiling down at Angustia as the little dog stood and wagged its tail at her. “Good morning,” she said happily.

The night before felt like a dream. The shock of seeing Amarli in The Third Rail still hadn’t worn off, and neither had their conversations and all the times the other woman had apologized. Curie was pretty certain she could forgive her for leaving now. When Curie had pushed herself out of her comfort zone and snuggled up, tried to see what it would be like to be very close to her friend, Amarli’s reaction had stunned her. She had expected a gentle rejection, or a serious talking-to. Instead, Amarli had pulled her closer and hugged her back, making her think… well, it made her think that maybe she wasn’t travelling down a pointless road. Maybe Amarli wouldn’t neglect her if she knew how she felt.

Curie climbed out of bed, still smiling, and moved to the window. It was a grey morning and very few people were outside. When she turned back to the room, her smile dropped immediately. Something was wrong. Amarli’s coat and armour were still folded neatly on the desk, and even her shoes were by the door as if she’d never left. Curie glanced around her in confusion, checking to make sure her friend wasn’t hiding from her. Why would Amarli have gone anywhere without her shoes or her coat?

After checking the desk, Curie realized she had taken her gun. So, she definitely had left the hotel room last night. Maybe she’d just forgotten her boots and her coat. Or she was sleepwalking and therefore hadn’t thought about it. Perhaps – on a darker note – she had been kidnapped.

Curie ran to the door and opened it, realizing it was unlocked. Amarli hadn’t even taken the key with her, then. And it didn’t look as if there had been any sort of break in. Even more confused now, Curie stared down the hall in both directions, searching for some sign of her friend. She ducked back inside to get her shoes and her key, aiming to go downstairs to look for her, but she heard voices down the corridor – one of them was Amarli’s. Curie froze.

“… going to have to start paying you for nights like that.”

“It was a pleasure, sweetheart.” The second voice was husky and warm, and Curie thought she recognized it from somewhere. She quickly ducked back through the open door again and froze when she saw a door right at the end of the corridor standing open, Amarli leaning against the doorway while Magnolia was visible inside. They were standing very close together, and Amarli was still wearing her clothes from last night, her feet bare with the exception of her socks. Curie instantly felt her heart clench with emotion, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight. As she watched, Amarli leaned towards Magnolia and kissed her on the lips, her eyes sparkling. They spoke in lower voices now, so Curie couldn’t hear anything – she could only see that Magnolia was looking concerned, and Amarli was reassuring her about something.

Appalled by the sight, Curie turned away and quietly went back into her room. She sat at the desk and stared down at the grainy wood, unsure of what to think or do. Her body was burning with emotion, but she wasn’t sure if she was angry or sad or both. Her systems told her she was in emotional agony.

“Oh, you’re up!” Amarli said cheerfully, coming in through the door.

Curie said nothing. 

“I would have gotten breakfast, but I got a little caught up.” She laughed a little self-consciously.

Curie could barely look at her.

“So… is everything okay?” She heard Amarli approaching and quickly stood up to avoid her. Picking up her notes from the day before, she walked to put them in her bag. And then she sat on the carpet with Angustia and pulled the little dog into her arms, her whole chest and stomach clenching with the pain of her discovery. She wanted to scream at Amarli for loving Magnolia, but she knew that logically there was nothing wrong with it. How had Curie not even questioned whether her friend was capable of loving other people besides her? She’d hardly thought about Amarli being interested in women, let alone seeing one behind her back. Why couldn’t Amarli have told her instead of just sneaking off in the middle of the night? Unless – and Curie gulped at this – unless she knew that Curie had feelings for her and didn’t want to hurt her.

Too late.

“Curie…” Amarli stood in the middle of the room. She was confused – Curie could tell that much. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Madame,” Curie said curtly.

“I know that look. Something’s wrong.”

There was wet heat in Curie’s eyes, and an aching lump grew in her throat until she could barely breathe. She realized her lips were trembling and turned away, not wanting Amarli to see how much she had been affected. Curie had been reading some of the books that Doctor Amari had given her after their meeting – fictional books, as opposed to the scientific journals she liked, which talked about romance. She felt that fiction wasn’t accurate enough to base her feelings upon, but she had also connected with the words – now more than ever. Curie felt as if she might be in love. And it was terrifying, because the person she loved could never love her back. Her first time experiencing what was supposed to be the most powerful human emotion, and she was all alone.

Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe, and she couldn’t see. Her vision blurred and she felt her breath coming in short pants. Angustia licked at her nose and whined, seeming to understand her turmoil, but it wasn’t enough. Curie started sobbing, pressing both hands to her face to hide the tears. In the next second Amarli was there beside her, kneeling on the carpet and pulling her into a hug. She was asking her what was wrong, stroking the back of her neck, swaying her from side to side. Her words were hot and soothing against Curie’s shoulder, and her hands were relieving the tension in her spine, but still Curie cried. The sobs punched through, ripping through her muscles, bones, and guts. She pressed her forehead against Amarli’s shoulder and began to let her heart yank in and out of her chest. Even though her systems told her to be logical, to remember that this was just her hormones, the chemicals in her brain, that were making her feel this way, Curie couldn’t prevent the flow of her humanity. Maybe all those books really were right: to be in love was to make herself vulnerable. She had let the idea of Amarli get inside her and ruin her, even though she had known there was no chance of anything to begin with.

“Oh, Curie, I – I wish you’d just tell me what’s wrong,” Amarli was saying, her voice thick with despair. “This can’t be nothing. Please tell me what’s happened.”

Amarli would never know the truth about the ‘nothing’. She would never understand that Curie had stopped travelling with her to protect her. She would never realize that Curie had left Sanctuary Hills because she wanted to give her space. She would never quite get why Curie had decided to stay with her and Shaun for so many months when she could have found someone else to take care of her. It wasn’t just because she loved her friend. It was because she was in love with her.

And even Curie had not known until this very moment.

Chapter Text

Over the rest of that week in Goodneighbor, after Amarli had left to return home, Curie’s mind cycled through emotions faster than ever before. After the reboot of sleep she was often calm, the day stretching ahead with possibilities – she had time to get jobs done, to connect with her friends, to enjoy the grey streets of Goodneighbor. Yet this coping was a thin veil over her trauma, and even the smallest of setbacks could change her emotional landscape. By evening the sadness would well up, uncertainty rushing to the foreground, and Curie would know it was time to sleep. She wouldn’t go to The Third Rail, worried that she would see Magnolia there and be very upset; she rarely wanted to leave her hotel room at all during those first few days, in fact. Even Big Al couldn’t convince her to come out on a walk or have a drink with him. He didn’t understand what was going on with her, but he seemed too worried to ask. Perhaps he thought that asking her would break her.

Curie had never said it out loud – that she thought she loved Amarli – but sometimes she ached to scream it out of the window so that everybody could hear.

While she kept herself clean and focused ever more avidly on the maintenance of her armour and weapons, Curie worried during that first week after Amarli’s departure that she was falling into a state of disrepair. Mentally, that was. Her mind couldn’t seem to grasp hold of facts for much longer than a minute – when she tried brainstorming, distracting herself with the research she’d brought with her, she often lost her train of thought. Sometimes she left the room with a strong aim in mind but had forgotten what she was supposed to be doing a moment later and found herself standing frozen halfway down the stairs. This also happened while she was in the middle of brushing her teeth, when she was eating meals, and when she was getting ready for bed. Her mind just floated elsewhere, focused on other less important things.

Mostly, she thought about Amarli kissing Magnolia.

It wasn’t something she thought it was healthy to dwell on, but Curie couldn’t help it. She could still remember the shock of her seeing her friend down the hall, bending to place her lips on Magnolia’s and smiling at her afterwards. And her mind went to all sorts of places trying to figure out what exactly had gone on in that room during the night. They had kissed much more, no doubt. And they had perhaps undressed each other and examined each other’s bodies. Not in a medical way – just the way an aroused person would do it. However that worked. Curie strained to think about sexual intercourse between two women, but her mind was too blurry to help her remember.

She shivered just thinking about Amarli having sex in general. Curie wasn’t even sure she wanted her friend to have sex with her – it made her uncomfortable to think about how overwhelming it would be. But she didn’t want Amarli having sex with other people, either. If Curie had the power to prevent it from happening, she would exercise it to its very limit. She could remember now all those times Amarli had been absent for the night when she’d been living with her in Goodneighbor. She had always come back early in the morning smelling like somebody else. Curie had found it strange at the time, but she never questioned it. Now, she knew that Amarli must have been seeing Magnolia, her lover. And while it made her even more upset, she mostly felt unbelievably stupid for never having noticed before.

Curie sighed and rolled over in bed, resting her head on her arm and gazing towards the light spilling in from the window. It was a wickedly sunny day, so she thought it better to stay inside. Big Al had come by in the morning to see how she was, but upon noticing how pale and unwell she looked, he agreed to take Angustia for a walk and leave her alone. She liked solitude now more than she liked the company of other human beings.

Sighing, Curie thought again about The Third Rail’s songbird and wondered what she looked like naked. Was her body more aesthetically pleasing than Curie’s? Or was Amarli only attracted to her because she was an actual human?

Unable to help herself, Curie found herself stroking her hand over her belly and then slipping it beneath the waistband of her pants. She closed her eyes tightly, weary but determined to bring herself to orgasm. As she began to touch, she reluctantly thought about Amarli spending time in Magnolia’s room, kissing her, undressing her, her beautiful hands touching her body. Curie imagined Magnolia returning the touches and leading her to the bed. Her own hand began to move slightly faster between her legs and she let out a faint gasp, squirming a little against the pillow.

She wondered how the sex would start, whether the kissing continued or if it was just hands and bodies touching. Whether it was gentle – the way Amarli always touched her – or rough and wanting. As Curie felt the spark inside her growing, threatening to overwhelm her, she quickly replaced the image of Magnolia with herself.

Oh!

Amarli kissing her instead of Magnolia, mouth hot against her own, hands gently stroking and pressing her skin. The smell of lavender everywhere. Curie lifted her hips slightly, almost at the edge, and instantly found herself imagining that it was Amarli’s hand between her legs, her long and slender fingers expertly bringing her pleasure. She shuddered and let out a slight moan – she couldn’t think of anything else now. All she could see was Amarli, Amarli’s hand, Amarli’s body…

As Curie exploded with sensation, she found herself so overwhelmed that she was unaware of anything else for almost a minute. She lay there gasping with her hand still clenched between her legs, her chest rising and falling erratically. Tears instantly began to gather in her eyes the moment she recovered. Curie didn’t bother to wipe them away, simply staring through the blur at the cracked ceiling, trying to return her breathing to normal. That had been the most euphoric experience of her life. The most euphoric, exhilarating, damning experience of her life. Again, she was imaging wonderful things that she could never have.

Curie rolled over and buried her face in the pillow, letting her tears soak into the white fabric. She was so tired of being sad and angry. How was she supposed to live like this? How did any human cope with heartbreak? There was nothing in her files for this – no scientific answer or solution.

She was doomed.

 ---

The moment she was home after a long journey of sleepless nights, fighting off ferals and wild mongrels, and eating very little, Amarli went straight to the one person she knew she needed to apologize to the most. Her heart swelled with love and worry as she briefly waved hello to Sturges outside, nodded to the Minutemen sitting with him drinking coffee, and went straight into her house.

“Ah, mum!” Codsworth exclaimed. “You are home at last!”

“Hi, Codsworth,” she said impatiently. “Is Shaun…?”

“He is outside, I believe.” The robot stacked a few magazines neatly on the coffee table. “I may be wrong, but Master Shaun has seemed rather subdued over the past week or so. Perhaps he was missing you.”

“I think he was.” Amarli swallowed, dropping her bag by the door. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

She rushed outside immediately, back into the sunlight with her eyes shielded against the brightness. It smelled like mud and freshly-cut grass, and she could hear the faint tinkling of the creek down below the garden. As she glanced around, she caught sight of a small shape sitting huddled on the edge of the hill, Dogmeat lying beside him. They were both looking out over the creek and the trees beyond, apparently not interested in playing.

Amarli sighed, worried about what his reaction would be. She loved her son so much – more than anything, in fact – but that didn’t mean she was good at being his mother. She was still learning. But was that really an excuse for overlooking his feelings?

“Shaun!” she called, her voice breaking.

The little boy’s head snapped towards her and she saw his eyes widen with shock and perhaps a quick hint of excitement at seeing her home and well. Almost immediately, it was clouded with an expression of sadness which broke her heart. She walked slowly towards him with her hands by her sides, wishing she could reach out and touch him. “Shaun,” she said again, stopping five feet away. “I… I’m home.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

He turned away from her and she felt her heart thud painfully in her chest, realizing this would be much harder than she’d thought. “We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

Shaun said nothing.

With care, she sat down beside him, reaching to stroke Dogmeat’s head while she gathered her thoughts. The dog licked her hand excitedly. “I didn’t leave to find the Mechanist,” she said. “Curie said that you thought so – that I’d left, risking my life the same way I risked it to take down the Institute, without telling you.”

Shaun’s eyes were shining with tears when he turned to look at her. Still, he didn’t speak, but she wished he would. With a gentle hand, she touched his cheek. “I would never do that to you,” she murmured. “Please tell me you know that.”

“You’ve been changing, Mom.” Shaun let out a shaky breath of frustration. “How could I know that?”

“I haven’t changed that much,” she said, shocked. “You’re still my son, Shaun, and I have an unbelievable loyalty and love for you. The last thing I’d plan to do is leave you alone in this world. I was inconsiderate with you, I know, and I’ve been leaving you here far too often, but I never meant for things to turn out like this. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Shaun nodded. “I know,” he whispered, blinking frantically against the tears gathering in his eyes.

“Come here.” Amarli reached out and pulled him into her side in a one-armed hug, resting her chin on the top of his curly head. She sighed when she felt him shaking, trying resolutely not to cry, and hated herself even more for having made such a mess of things. If she’d waited just one more day before going off to find that robobrain, she wouldn’t have ruined the delicate illusion of normalcy that she’d built here in Sanctuary Hills. When Curie had cried before she left, Amarli had hardly been able to get over the shock of it – she had never seen the other woman so upset about anything. She’d realized that Curie hadn’t forgiven her; not yet. Maybe both of them needed more time.

“I wish I could promise I’ll never leave you again,” Amarli said sadly. “If the Mechanist wasn’t causing trouble, I would. I would never do this to you again.”

Shaun pulled back to look up at her face. “I don’t like it, but I understand,” he said, surprising her.

In a split moment, Amarli saw Nate in his expression – the kind, understanding man who had married her despite everything that she was, just to please her and her family and give her the life she’d always wanted. He had been the most wonderful friend she’d ever had. Her best friend. It was odd how little she thought of him now, as if he had never truly existed. She didn’t even visit his grave anymore. Shaun was the only evidence of that man left, even if he was a synth, and he needed to be protected at all costs.

“I love you,” Amarli said. “And I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“You’re forgiven.”

“No I’m not.” She nudged his shoulder with her own and then affectionately ran a hand through his curls. “Don’t forgive me so easily, kid. I deserve a hard time, don’t I?”

Like the sun appearing behind clouds, she saw the slightest smile on his lips before he turned away. “Yeah, you do,” he said finally.

“I won’t be leaving for a while,” she told him, hoping to cheer him up.

“Why not?”

“Well, Ada’s still got to process the next radar beacon, which could take a couple days. And I’ve got to go through tactics with the Minutemen that I sent here, set up some new defences across the border. Oh – and contact Preston to make sure he’s got all the other settlements covered…” She smiled at Shaun. “Well, you know what I mean. There’s a lot to be done.”

“I get it.” He leaned back on his hands and stared at the sky. Timidly, he ventured, “What about… Curie? You said you – you spoke with her?”

Amarli looked at him thoughtfully, wondering at his tone of voice. “Yeah, I did. She’s been in Goodneighbor and she’s doing well. I was pretty surprised to find her alone in the city – actually, it scared the hell out of me. But she’s proven to me that she’s fine.”

For a second, Shaun’s face screwed up with an expression she couldn’t read. Then he muttered, “She didn’t want to come home with you?”

Frowning, Amarli searched his face. “No, she didn’t. I don’t think she was ready.”

He sighed. “It’s my fault.”

“What?”

Shaun chewed on the inside of his cheek, scowling. “It’s my fault she doesn’t want to come back. I’m sorry.”

“Hon, why would you think that?” Amarli said. “It’s got nothing to do with you. Curie just wants independence, to make her own decisions, to live her own life.”

Shaun lowered his head and stared at his hands. He was picking distractedly at the grass. “I told her something really bad before she left. And I think I hurt her.”

“What?” Amarli stared him. She thought again about Curie crying, and how she had been inconsolable for almost half an hour. Perhaps… perhaps that hadn’t all been because of her? Maybe Curie had been upset about more than just worrying for Amarli’s safety. She sat forwards urgently, trying to catch Shaun’s eye. “What did you tell her?” she demanded.

“I… I didn’t want her to leave,” he stammered. “She was saying she couldn’t be here while you were out there alone. I think there was something about how she didn’t know how to be my guardian, and she couldn’t be expected to stay here forever. She said she felt like she was being treated like she was my mother, or like she was your child.”

Amarli swallowed down her concern. Curie hadn’t said that to her in Goodneighbor. She hadn’t realized that she had already been pushing her friend over the edge by asking her to take care of Shaun and remain in Sanctuary Hills. Curie must have been feeling suffocated by her for a long time now. “Go on,” she said, worrying about what was coming next.

Shaun looked pained now. “I said that no, she wasn’t my mother, and I was glad she wasn’t.” He finally met Amarli’s eyes. “I told her she’d be a terrible mother.”

“Oh,” Amarli said quietly.

“She looked really upset. I thought she was going to cry. But… she just left.” Shaun rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t mean to hurt her so much. I was just angry.”

Amarli thought of all the times in the past month when Curie had played with Shaun, helped him with his projects, and watched movies with him. She had been affectionate and kind, no matter what he did. It was obvious how fond of Shaun she was – Amarli had noticed and had been jealous of their newfound relationship, thinking she’d had no chance to strengthen her own bond with her son. But she’d still respected Curie for being there when she was working or distracted, for keeping him company and being his friend when all he had was Dogmeat. Had she not told Curie that she was essentially a part of their family? Had Curie not glowed with pride?

Amarli felt a flicker of frustration. “Do you really think that? That she’d be a terrible mother?”

“No, of course not!” Shaun said quickly. “She’s fun. And she’s smart, and I can talk to her about anything, like I can with you. She likes to play with me and Dogmeat, and she teaches me these little French phrases, and she-”

“She’s been more of a mother to you in the past month than I have,” Amarli said quietly. “Didn’t you realize that, Shaun?”

Shaun hung his head, looking even more miserable. “I shouldn’t have said it,” he mumbled. “But I didn’t know what it would mean if I did – I didn’t think it would stop her from ever coming home.”

Amarli heaved a sigh. “It wasn’t just you.”

“But I-”

“I think she’s been struggling with her identity for a while now,” Amarli cut him off, beginning to realize it. “Humans have this need to belong. They want to be loved, respected, surrounded by other people. I think I should have made it more obvious that we are her people. Especially now that she’s learning and exploring, she needs us more than ever. We’re her family.”

“I shouldn’t have told her she wasn’t,” Shaun added softly.

“No, but there’s no changing that now.” Amarli thought about Big Al and Angustia, members of the new family Curie was trying to create in Goodneighbor. Would they ever be able to give her the sort of support and love that Amarli and Shaun could offer her? Would she ever remember that Sanctuary Hills was her home? It was devastating to think about Curie never coming back, seeing them only rarely, being happy with other people. Being lost in her own humanity.

“Maybe you should have made her come home,” Shaun said worriedly.

“No,” Amarli disagreed. “She deserves to be independent. If she wants to come back, she can. But she’s still learning and experiencing things. There’s nothing we can do but let her.”

“And if she never wants to come home?”

“Then that’s her choice. It’s not your fault, Shaun,” Amarli said.

“Then it isn’t yours, either.”

Amarli shrugged, not entirely sure she believed him. They sat there in silence for a little while, staring at the trees and the blue sky.

“I missed you, Mom,” Shaun whispered. “But I’ve missed her too.”

“I’m sure she knows that.”

He was silent again. After a moment, he looked at her. “She’s really special, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is,” Amarli agreed.

From the moment she had seen Curie in that underground bunker, a rust-stained Miss Nanny bot behind a glass screen, she had known that there was something extraordinary to come. She had not been wrong. Curie had continued to become more and more of a marvel every day. Amarli forgot sometimes that she was an incredible feat of science and technology; that she was the product of a Vault-Tec scientist’s social experiment. She still more or less signified every one of the characters in Amarli’s favourite childhood novel, The Wizard of Oz – the Tin Man with his quest to fill the empty space in his chest with a heart; the Scarecrow who needed a human brain; the Cowardly Lion who desired only courage; and the little girl Dorothy who wanted her home back. It was unfortunate that now Curie had no friends to carry her along on her journey. Or, more accurately, that she didn’t realize her heart, her courage, and her home all existed with the friends she had left behind. Perhaps Curie had been made rather than born, but she was still more real than any other person Amarli had known, so Amarli would not let her stay away forever. She didn’t exactly believe in fate, and she certainly didn’t believe in any god, but she was certain that Curie was meant to be a part of her life.

“I know she’ll come back,” Amarli said confidently, turning to smile at her son. “You’ll see. And then we can make everything right again.”

Shaun hugged his knees to his chest. “I hope so.”

 ---

“Curie, you can’t keep coming to me about your love issues,” Doctor Amari said impatiently. “I’m not your therapist – I’m a doctor, and I have a lot of work to do.”

“I am sorry, Madame,” Curie said quickly. She had been lying on the couch, but now she sat up and tried to look business-like. “It is only that you seem to know so much.”

Doctor Amari levelled her with a hard look, but the longer she stared, the more her face softened. Finally, she just looked sympathetic. “Curie, I’m sorry that things didn’t work out. I really am. But there’s nothing I can do for you.”

Curie fiddled with a loose string on the hem of her shirt. “Madame, you have said there is nothing to be fixed, but I feel now that I am very broken. Is there really no cure for feelings such as this?”

“No, Curie,” she sighed. “There’s no cure for heartbreak.”

“So I must live like this,” Curie muttered to herself.

“Or you could distract yourself with work,” Doctor Amari suggested. She looked at her pointedly. “I seem to remember that the reason you decided you wanted to be human in the first place was so that you could reach your maximum potential and conduct better research. What happened to that?”

Curie blushed. “But it is humanity which is now holding me back,” she protested. “These feelings are ruining me.”

“Only because you’re letting them.” Doctor Amari seemed to be resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Curie, you’re new to this, and it’ll take a while to understand how to deal with your emotions. But you should know that the way you’ve been dealing with them recently is not appropriate at all.”

Curie nodded begrudgingly. “I have run a systems analysis every day, and it seems I am too distracted to remember most of my data.”

“Exactly.” She walked over and stopped so that she towered over Curie. “So, take my advice – stop hiding away, sulking, and crying to me, and go and do something productive. Get out of Goodneighbor, for God’s sake. You don’t belong here.”

Curie peered up at her. “Maybe I do, Madame.”

“No,” Doctor Amari said with certainty. “You do not.”

When Curie gazed down at her knees, troubled, there was another heavy sigh from the woman above her. Heels clicked on the floor as Doctor Amari moved away and returned to where her desk was. The next time she spoke, it was absent-minded.

“I’m thinking that you left a perfectly good home behind in Sanctuary Hills, with perfectly good people in it.”

“Pardon, Madame?”

“Curie, while you don’t feel comfortable around Amarli, she might be one of the only people in the Commonwealth who can help you. Don’t throw away your partnership with her just because you’re scared – or overwhelmed.”

“But I would--”

“Curie, please.” Doctor Amari looked urgent all of a sudden. “Prove to me that by helping you become human I didn’t waste my time. Show me that I didn’t give you that poor synth’s body for nothing. You were a robot, so you’re supposed to be logical. Use your head.”

Curie frowned. She didn’t like being told that she was essentially failing at her job as a scientist. But she also couldn’t exactly deny that everything Doctor Amari was saying was true. She had become so side-tracked by her worry about Shaun, her feelings for Amarli, and her general issues with her human body, that she had completely neglected her work. Perhaps, even though it hurt her heart, it really was time to get back to her lab and produce results. A success with her research would surely make her feel better about everything – maybe it would be an indefinite cure to her heartbreak after all.

“I will take your advice,” Curie said finally. “You are very wise.”

Doctor Amari leaned back against her desk, shaking her head. “I didn’t plan to use tough love on you, but you definitely need it. Get out of this place, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And try not to let your emotions make you do something stupid.”

“Yes, Madame.”

“Good.” Doctor Amari folded her arms sternly, nodding her head towards the door. “I’ve got work to do, so you should go.”

Curie stood up obediently and walked to the door. Before she left, however, she turned back to smile at the doctor. “You have been very helpful. If I do not see you again before I leave, I would like you to know that I am very grateful.”

Doctor Amari bowed her head, looking uncharacteristically self-conscious. “Of course, Curie.” She hesitated. “Just so you know, you are one of the most successful projects I have ever had the pleasure of overseeing. You’re a phenomenon.”

“Thank you, Madame.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank whoever created you,” she said with a smile. “They did a very good job.”

Curie thought of Doctor Collins, who she hadn’t thought about in a long time. His death no longer made her feel so sad, but there was a hint of nostalgia as she remembered him. What a scientist he had been – and all the others, too, who had welcomed her and worked with her. But she hadn’t really felt human or been human until she met Amarli, so perhaps the real creator of who she was today was her friend. She was here because of Amarli, and even though it was a double-edged sword, she was pleased that it hadn’t been someone else who had rescued her from that room. There was no one more kind, more forgiving, more powerful, or more loving than Amarli. Despite how broken she felt because of her friend’s unwitting betrayal, Curie knew that she must thank her when she next saw her – for everything. And apologize for having let her feelings degrade their partnership.

“Goodbye, Madame.”

“Bye.” Doctor Amari turned back to her work, instantly focused, and Curie left the room quietly.

As she walked back through the Memory Den, Irma smiled at her, and while Curie returned it, she couldn’t help but remember that Amarli had flirted with her as well. Was she another person that Amarli loved? Were there other women, other men? How many people had Amarli been with? How had Curie never known about it before? Surely, if she had known, she would not have allowed herself to have feelings for Amarli.

Instead of letting the questions rush over her like a wave of insecurity, as she often had, Curie punched them down grimly. She would no longer torture herself with such thoughts. It had been almost two weeks of grieving for herself now, and her brooding was becoming ridiculous. If she didn’t have motivation for her work, then she needed to find it as quickly as possible. Big Al was leaving Goodneighbor next week, anyway, so she would need to say goodbye to him whether she liked it or not. And he had made it clear that she wasn’t safe here when he wasn’t with her. So, she would leave too. And Angustia would come with her so she wouldn’t feel alone.

When Curie went outside, shrugging against the wind, she saw Big Al waiting for her in front of the Old State House, smoking a cigarette. He stomped it out when she approached, knowing how much Curie despised both the smell and the health issues that came with smoking. More than once, she had lectured him about it, and he had made sure never to do it in front of her again. Even Amarli hadn’t been that easy to sway. At his feet was a small black-and-brown shape – Angustia – with her pink tongue hanging out and her legs tucked beneath her. Her wound was completely healed now, but it seemed she was here to stay with Curie permanently. She wouldn’t let Curie go anywhere without being a few feet behind, and she growled and barked at anyone who approached her, like a little baby guard dog. Curie loved her.

“Hey, little one,” Big Al said as she walked up and bent to stroke Angustia’s head. “You’re looking better. So the doctor helped, eh?”

“Yes,” Curie told him.

“And?”

“I will leave, next week. When you leave Goodneighbor I will go with you, but I will return home.”

Big Al looked relieved, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Good. I don’t wanna have to worry about you.”

“It is not necessary, Monsieur. I will keep myself very safe.”

“I know.” He looked around at the rubbish and cobbled streets, people leaning out of windows above as they hung washing. Hancock’s men were guarding all the entrances to the Old State House, including The Third Rail, and most of them looked grizzled and dangerous. “But there’s only so much you can do to stay safe in a place like this.”

Curie nodded. “That is accurate.”

“Do you want lunch?”

“Non,” Curie said, distracted. She was staring at the sign above the entrance to The Third Rail, glowing brightly even though it was daylight. A hint of an idea was growing in her mind. She added, “But tonight we shall drink, yes?”

“What are we celebrating?”

Curie looked at him in confusion. “We are celebrating?”

He shrugged. “I dunno, you tell me. You’ve been locked up in your room for so goddamn long, and now you want a drink?”

“I would like to meet someone,” Curie said.

“Huh?” He started to grin as if he thought she was joking. “Oh, jeez – is innocent little Curie looking for a hook tonight?”

Curie frowned at him and wrinkled her nose. “I do not know what is this ‘hook’, but maybe we shall do it another night. Tonight, I would like to meet Madame Magnolia, the singer.”

Big Al scratched his head, still smiling. “What do you want with her?”

“I would like to meet her,” Curie said curtly.

He gave her his typical wide-eyed look when she said or did something he considered abnormal. “All right,” he said. “So… you’re interested in the songbird, eh? Who isn’t?”

“Monsieur, you are making no sense today,” Curie said impatiently. 

He laughed with some discomfort. “Okay, okay, it’s your personal business. I won’t bite. I’ll pick you up around nine and uh… I guess you can make your own way home.”

Curie could not understand what he was talking about. He was skirting around something, but he wouldn’t tell her what it was. It was almost as if he knew Magnolia, or at least he knew of her. What sort of reputation did she have? Why would he be so surprised to find that she was going to meet her? Did everyone know that she and Amarli were lovers?

Shrugging off her annoyance, Curie clicked to get Angustia’s attention, said goodbye to her big friend, and sauntered off towards the hotel.

Big Al was waiting in the lobby for her at nine o’ clock, just like he’d told her. Curie had chosen to wear the only pair of trousers she owned without ripped knees and a pale blue blouse which she had bought from the vendor Daisy the other day. She had combed her hair so it wasn’t in her face and experimented with some makeup which the lady next door had offered her to borrow.

Amarli always wore a little bit of mascara, but she otherwise seemed to stay well away from makeup. Other women Curie had seen wore thick eyeliner, bright lipstick, and powder on their cheeks. They were two opposite ends of the spectrum – for Curie’s meeting tonight, she wanted to put herself somewhere in the middle. While she had never used makeup before, she was able to efficiently apply perfect thin lines of eyeliner on each eyelid, brush her eyelashes lightly with mascara, and use her fingertips to dull the red lipstick on her lips so that it looked more natural. She didn’t recognize herself when she was done, and felt a tug of doubt in her chest as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Why was she putting in such an effort to meet this woman? The kohl eyeliner made her hazel-blue eyes brighter than usual, and her lips looked fuller, shinier. She wasn’t sure she liked it.

But she’d told herself that she needed to be beautiful if she was going to meet the woman that Amarli loved. Magnolia needed to see Curie and be dazzled by her – jealous, even, if that was possible. Curie wanted to be a woman, not a girl.

When she came down the stairs into the lobby, Big Al stared at her as if he had never seen her before. “Whoa, so this is really is happening,” he said.

“Pardon, Monsieur?”

But he only winked and then offered her the crook of his arm. “May I?”

Curie took his arm, pleased, and they left the hotel together. Perhaps her nicer look did have an effect, because Curie could see the men outside The Third Rail staring at her – the same men who had given up on leering once they saw her hanging around with Big Al. But today she could feel their eyes raking over her face, and when she turned in the doorway to glance back at them uneasily, she noticed one of the men staring at her backside. She sped up, suddenly wishing she could just rub all of the makeup off her face, feeling stupid for having tried so hard. “You all right?” Big Al asked, his voice surprisingly soft.

“Yes.” Curie wiped her sweaty palms off on her trousers, remembering why she had wanted to come tonight. She had already forgotten what she was going to say to Magnolia, how she was going to introduce herself, how she would say goodbye. Perhaps this was a terrible idea. She’d thought that speaking to her would bring a sense of closure and understanding, but now she was wondering if it would only make things worse.

Magnolia’s husky voice was already sweeping up the stairs towards them, and as Big Al and Curie descended into the busy Friday night speakeasy, Curie’s eyes immediately locked onto the woman on the stage. She was wearing a sparkling red dress which Curie had seen many times before but had never paid much attention to. Big Al had always seemed to enjoy watching Magnolia sing, and so had many other men, but Curie hadn’t had any interest in her whatsoever until she realized that she had taken Amarli’s heart. With the lights sparkling on her and her body moving sensuously to the rhythm of the song, Magnolia looked like an illusion, like she wasn’t really there. As Big Al led Curie over to the bar, she could not tear her eyes away from the older woman’s face, her heart beating frantically. Oh, she was so beautiful. Curie had never really stood a chance, had she?

“Do you actually want a drink?” Big Al asked her.

Curie finally turned to him, feeling a little bit dizzy. “Yes, please.”

“What do you want?”

“I would like a beer.”

He stared at her, uncomprehending. “Really?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“You’d better not throw up on me.” He gave their orders to Whitechapel Charlie and then turned, as he always did, towards the stage, a twinkle in his eye. This time he was glancing at Curie too, however. She crossed her arms and turned to watch the stage as well, finding herself glowering automatically. Magnolia was in between songs now, announcing the next with her soft, melodic voice, her eyes sweeping over the crowd. Perhaps it was just Curie’s imagination, but she thought she saw Magnolia stop and look straight at her for half a second, as if recognizing who she was. But then she moved on and was singing again, and half of the crowd was singing along with her or swaying to the music. Curie huffed.

Big Al passed her an opened bottle of beer and Curie looked at it uncertainly. When she took a tentative sip, the bubbles and the bitter taste caught in her throat and made her cough. Sickened, she glanced up and met Big Al’s expectant look. Very slowly and determinedly, she lifted the bottle and took another long sip, this time forcing her throat to relax so she could swallow it without reacting. Then she grinned, realizing she quite liked the feeling of how warm it was in her chest. Big Al reached out and patted her shoulder, chuckling. “Good, eh?”

She took another bigger sip, closing her eyes, and even though she grimaced, she still said, “Yes.”

Big Al was chuckling. He threw an arm around her shoulder and then turned to watch Magnolia again.

It was about three songs later when Magnolia announced the end of her set and left the stage. Curie was immediately on alert, setting her beer bottle down and wondering how she would get the woman’s attention. Helplessly, she glanced back at Big Al. “Go on,” he said. “She ain’t gonna strike you down if you approach her.”

The beer had given Curie false courage anyway, so she got off her stool and walked closer to the end of the bar, hoping to catch the other woman’s eye. Magnolia was talking to a drunk fan right now, hand on his shoulder so he wouldn’t keep reaching forwards to grope at her. Despite the way he was acting, she still had a bright and amiable smile on her face. Finally, she left him and strode gracefully over to the bar. Curie expected to be completely overlooked and treated as if she wasn’t there; instead, Magnolia’s eyes landed on her instantly and she received a very welcoming smile.

“Hello there, sweetheart,” Magnolia greeted. She stopped by Curie’s side, even more dazzling up close. Her eyes were light blue and outlined thickly with eyeliner, and her lips were ruby red. Curie could smell a very strong perfume on her which made her nose itch. She opened her mouth to speak, wanting to get straight to the point and ask about Amarli, but no words would come out. Instead, she found herself just standing there in silence, staring at Magnolia with wide eyes.

The older woman leaned an elbow on the bar and turned fully to face her, eyes travelling curiously over her body. After a few seconds, her expression seemed to darken and she looked at Curie with knowing sympathy. “So,” she said softly. “You’re her.”

Curie blinked, surprised that this woman seemed to know who she was. She’d expected to be angry, confident, to lead the conversation, but she couldn’t be any of those things.

“Pretty little thing, aren’t you?” Magnolia smiled at her and then patted the stool next to her. “Sit.”

Still not sure what to say, and confused about the turn the conversation had taken, Curie did as she was told. Once she was seated, Magnolia looked her over and said, “I saw you here every night before two weeks ago. Why did you stop coming?”

“I… I had other things…” Curie said.

“Don’t worry, I know who you are,” Magnolia told her. “When I saw Amarli having a heated conversation with you the other night, it all clicked.”

“You--” Curie cut herself off. “You saw…?”

“I saw her trying to pick a fight with your big friend over there,” Magnolia said, gesturing towards Big Al. “And then she embraced you, and I immediately thought that I knew who you might be.”

Wanting to be challenging, Curie tilted her chin up and demanded, “So who am I, Madame?”

Magnolia didn’t reply. Instead, she drew a glass of water towards her and took a lengthy sip. Looking sympathetic again, she said, “I think you have something you want to ask me.”

Curie’s heart thudded in her chest. Was this woman a mind reader?

“About Amarli?” Magnolia prodded. She smiled reassuringly.

“Oh, I…” Curie was panicking all of a sudden. “I do not mean to… I was only wanting to meet you, and see how – why – well, she is my friend, you see, and we were very close…” She trailed off miserably. “Oh, I am so sorry, Madame. I do not know how to say this.”

“It’s all right.” Magnolia, to her surprise, reached out and squeezed her hand. “Why don’t you start with telling me your name?”

“Curie. I am Curie.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Curie. I’ve heard barely anything about you, and yet I seem to know so much.”

“Is this so?” Curie looked at her in shock.

“Yes, sweetheart. Maybe I have my own life to deal with, but there is very little that I miss. I think Amarli cares about you very much.”

Despite everything, her words made Curie feel warm inside. She blushed. “Really?”

“I’ve wondered about you for a while now. I remember – it must have been three months ago when I saw Amarli in here for the first time in a long time. She hadn’t visited Goodneighbor for a while. I knew she had her son back, and she was living somewhere safe and far away, so I didn’t ever expect to see her again. But then, there she was.”

Curie looked at her with avid interest in her story.

“She was drinking, and I joined her, and I remember asking why she was here. She said she was waiting for news on a friend.” Magnolia arched an eyebrow and looked at Curie pointedly. “When I teased her about it, she told me that her friend was a robot. She was very worked up about whatever it was she was going through, and I didn’t see her again until almost a week later. I remember she was much happier, and she even sat and had a drink with me.”

“Madame, if you please… I do not understand the purpose of this story,” Curie said, frowning.

“Just listen, honey.” Magnolia retrieved her train of thought. “The more times Amarli visited me here, the more I wondered about this friend of hers which had brought her back to Goodneighbor against all odds. I was happy to see her, but I was also worried about what it meant for her to have left the perfect safety of her new life behind.”

Curie didn’t like the idea that she had been the one to bring Amarli back here, back to her lover. Had it all been her fault to begin with?

Magnolia continued, “I… went home with her one night. We parted ways in the corridor because she insisted that she needed her sleep, but I saw her room through the door when she opened it and was certain there was somebody else in her bed. I thought perhaps she had already found someone to keep her company while she was in Goodneighbor. She’s… well, I’d say Amarli has never shown the slightest interest in settling down with anyone. She likes the freedom of having different people at her beck and call. I asked her if the woman lying in her bed was another one-night stand. She got defensive, and then apologetic.”

“It was me,” Curie said suddenly, understanding Magnolia’s story.

“Yes, it was you. But I didn’t know that then. She told me that you were the friend she’d been talking about, and that she was staying in Goodneighbor for a while to help you get the hang of things.”

Curie tried to imagine Amarli turning her lover down for her sake so early on their relationship, and it filled her with emotion. Curie would never have even noticed if Amarli was slipping off to be with Magnolia, so it hadn’t been necessary at all. Still, Amarli had chosen to take care of her instead of do anything for herself. She glanced down at her lap, feeling silly for having been upset with Amarli for something so trivial as her own selfish feelings. She had done so much for her.

“So, she disappeared for a couple months again after that. I know that you went with her, because I had heard nothing about you in Goodneighbor.” Magnolia paused. “Look, I’ve known her for a while, so I know how she functions. After she got her son back and the Institute was gone, she wanted her old life to be completely separated from her new one. She didn’t want evidence of it anywhere near her. So, the fact she took you with her when she left was… well, it made me wonder.”

“She took me home,” Curie said quietly.

“I think that’s obvious.” A smile was teasing at Magnolia’s lips. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that woman look so shocked as she did when she saw you down here on your own. That was the moment I realized that you were the mystery friend. All this time, and I thought you must be another lover, another fling. But you are apparently more than that.”

Curie watched as she finished off her water. Her head was buzzing as she tried to fit together all of the pieces of the story.

“Amarli used to be in a bad place when she lived in Goodneighbor,” Magnolia said. “When I saw her back here I thought she was about to return to that life. But apparently it was because of you.”

“So I have put her in danger again?” Curie demanded. “You are saying it is me who has – oh, what is the word… ‘derailed’ her?”

“I’m not saying that, sweetheart.” Magnolia smiled at her reassuringly.

“You have done it,” Curie said heatedly. “She has come back to this place because she loves you, yes? So you have derailed her.”

Now Magnolia looked shocked. She looked at Curie, frozen, for a long moment. “No, she doesn’t love me,” she said finally.

Curie’s heat was gone, just like that. “What?”

Magnolia chuckled a little bit, apparently unable to help herself. “Oh, honey – that’s why you wanted to meet me, isn’t it? You think your friend is in love with me.”

“I…” Curie could feel her cheeks growing brick-red. “I saw Madame Amarli in the corridor, and she was speaking to you, and she-she…”

“Our relationship is strictly physical.” Magnolia looked at her sympathetically yet again. “It always has been. Like I said, she’s never been one to settle down. She prefers lovers with similar views.”

So, Curie and Magnolia had been lovers, but they had never been in love. And the same went for Irma, and any other people who Amarli had flirted with. It wasn’t her heart which had been captured – not at all – because she didn’t give it away to anyone. Amarli may not love Curie, but at least she didn’t love anybody else. Curie wanted to be cheerful, but there was still something puzzling about Magnolia’s story.

“Madame, you have said you believed that I was another lover,” Curie said. “Why is this?”

“Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure she has female friends. But not very close ones.” Magnolia chuckled. “She’s very much into women, you know, so she finds it easier to become platonic with men. All the greatest friends of hers that I know about are male. And all her lovers are female.”

Curie frowned. So… there were no men? Amarli was not attracted to men? How was that possible when she had been married, when she had bore a son?

“I-I do not understand,” Curie stammered.

“Let’s just say I’d be surprised if Amarli did not have any sorts of feelings for you,” Magnolia told her casually. “There’s a reason she keeps beautiful women at an arm’s length. I think she’s a bit afraid to feel anything more than sexual desire.”

Curie felt a stirring in her gut, mixed with disbelief. But… Amarli could never have had sexual desire for her! It wasn’t possible. If anything, Amarli had always treated her as if she was a close friend or a sister.  She had taken care of her, introduced her to her family, given her a home. There had never been anything sexual in how Amarli touched her, talked to her or looked at her. Curie had been under the impression that it was only she who was so physically attracted to her friend. But perhaps she really had been keeping Curie at an arm’s length to protect herself. Maybe Curie’s feelings were so strong because they were requited, but Amarli refused to admit it.

“You wanted to meet me because you were upset,” Magnolia said knowingly. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

Curie nodded slowly.

“So tell me, are you in love with Amarli?”

She was almost too afraid to answer. She had never, ever admitted it out loud, not even to Doctor Amari. But this conversation had gone down such a confusing path that she couldn’t help but murmur, “I am not aware of what love feels like.”

Magnolia was beaming. “Oh, you’ve got potential, honey. I think you might be exactly what Amarli wants.”

“Wants?”

“Well, she doesn’t know it yet.” Magnolia winked at her. “But I did tell her that it’s been right under her nose this whole time…”

“You believe that Madame – Amarli - could love me, too?” Curie asked hopefully.

“I don’t know.” Magnolia looked thoughtful. “But I think she should.”

They both sat in silence after that, listening to the noise of the crowd as it brought them back from the absurdness of their conversation and into reality. Curie wasn’t sure she believed a single word Magnolia had said. There were so many questions she had about Amarli’s past lovers, her friends, her husband. None of the pieces seemed to fit together.

“Madame, I think I am more muddled than before,” Curie sighed.

“You should talk to her, sweetheart,” Magnolia said seriously, looking her intensely in the eyes. “You’ll be less confused if you ask her about things like this.”

Curie shook her head immediately. “No, she will not answer my questions.”

“She will, Curie. You’re very important to her, and I’m sure she doesn’t want to see you so stressed and upset.” Uncertainly, she added, “You will go home again, won’t you? I realize she left without you and I was wondering what it meant.”

“I wanted to stay for longer,” Curie clarified. “And I was not sure if I was welcome in her home anymore.”

Magnolia tapped her glass with her fingernails. “I have a feeling you’ll always be welcome.”

Curie ducked her head to hide her blush.

“Anyway, my next set starts in five. Will you stay and watch so we can talk more afterwards?”

Curie was shocked to find Magnolia was being so friendly towards her. She’d disguised herself as a threat today, but it hadn’t worked at all. Magnolia seemed to respect her more because of her attractiveness, and there was no returning jealousy whatsoever. Beaming, Curie said, “Of course, Madame. You have a very beautiful voice. And I have enjoyed talking with you.”

Magnolia reached out and squeezed her shoulders with both hands. “I think your friend is waiting for you over there.”

Curie could see Big Al staring over the top of the crowd at them, his eyebrow cocked. She wondered what he was expecting them to do. As Magnolia returned to the stage, Curie pushed her way back through the crowd towards Big Al, stopping beside him. She was smiling despite her confusion, relieved in general that her conversation with Magnolia had gone so well. She felt raw and excited, full of new information and wanting to go somewhere alone so she could sort through it.

“So?” Big Al said.

Curie stared at him, her smile faltering. “Yes?”

“You… just talked to her. Is that all you wanted to do?”

“Of course, Monsieur.”

“Oh.” He frowned.

“Did you think there was something else?” Curie asked inquisitively.

“Most people who seek out Magnolia are looking for something more than a conversation,” he said, his voice gruff. “Thought I was losing innocent little Curie to the world of mindless sex.”

Curie laughed out loud, most of her entertainment having come from her conversation with Magnolia. If only Big Al had said that to her before – if only he’d made it clear that Magnolia was not the sort of woman to be in love, who courted many men and women, who aspired to be nothing more than a fling. Curie wouldn’t have embarrassed herself so much by making assumptions about Magnolia and Amarli. She still wasn’t sure she liked the idea of Amarli sleeping with so many other people, but she was convinced that it was all in the past now; she had a lot of information to sort through about her friend, and she was filled with a new sense of hope that she had thought was completely lost.

Amarli didn’t love anyone, but according to Magnolia – who had been her lover and therefore seemed to know her very well – there was a chance that Curie would offer her something different. Perhaps her heart was not doomed after all.

 ---

It was a Thursday morning, and Amarli was leaning back against the headboard of her bed, a cigarette held between her fingertips as she tried to make the most of her short period of freedom. She hadn’t slept last night. In fact, it seemed as if Curie had managed to switch things around in terms of her insomnia – rather than being unable to sleep at all, she was now capable of sleeping at night only when Curie was there. She just needed to know that her friend was safe and happy. That was all she wanted. But they had received no information about Curie over the past three weeks, and Amarli wasn’t even sure if she was planning to come back. She was losing hope by the day, and had lost sleep as well because of it.

Ada had come up with the newest location of a Robobrain two weeks ago, and the Minutemen guards had settled into their jobs easily, but Amarli still hadn’t brought herself to leave. She’d been determined that she still be in Sanctuary Hills if and when Curie returned home. If she was away again, Curie would probably never forgive her.

Amarli took one last draw of her cigarette and then stubbed it out in the ashtray on her nightstand. Reluctantly, she swung her legs out of bed and buckled her Pip-Boy to her wrist, booting up the screen. Sturges was hammering something outside, and it sounded as if he was talking to Marcy Long at the same time. As Amarli got dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a checkered shirt, tying her hair up in a ponytail before placing a faded visor on her head, she briefly considered going out and joining their conversation. It was something about a water shortage – Marcy needed more in order to keep her crops alive, and the summer sun was drying everything up. Sturges was good at carpentry, but he’d never known much about building machines. Marcy was meant to come to Amarli about issues like this.

“Shaun!” Amarli called, walking out into the living room in bare feet. There was an answering voice from his bedroom and then he came out, rubbing sleep from his eyes. As he stumbled over to hug her good morning, she said, “You up for doing something with me today?”

He blinked, more awake now. “Yeah,” he said.

“We’ve got a water shortage. I’ll need your help building more pumps.”

Shaun’s eyes brightened and he nodded vigorously. Happy to see that he was no longer gloomy – he’d been just as upset about Curie’s absence as she was – Amarli kissed his forehead and walked to get some cereal from a kitchen cupboard. Codsworth had been sent down to the city a couple days ago, as he was each month. He was the only one truly capable of carrying dozens of bags of groceries from the Super Duper Mart all the way back to Sanctuary Hills. Unfortunately, when he did go shopping for Amarli, that always meant they would have to spend a few days fending for themselves in the kitchen. Amarli was terrible at cooking. She could make toast, boiled eggs and sandwiches, and that was about it. Most of the time, she just called Mama Murphy in to make them something nice. Today, however, even Mama Murphy was out for the count – she’d caught a ‘flu’, apparently. Amarli was thinking she must have gotten her hands on Jet somehow and was trying to play off her trip as a sickness.

Once Amarli had made herself and Shaun cereal, she left the house with her own bowl and crossed the street to where Sturges and Marcy Long were getting more heated in their discussion.

“Don’t worry about it,” Amarli interrupted, casually eating a spoonful of cornflakes.

“What?” Marcy snapped.

Wincing at her usual cold tone, Amarli clarified, “I’ll build some more pumps. Been needing to do it for a while now, anyway.”

For once, Marcy Long looked lost for words. Amarli wondered, not for the first time, how Jun Long was able to cope with his monster of a wife. She seemed angry about everything, and she argued with her neighbours weekly. Amarli knew it was because she was still coping with the loss of their baby, but she herself had never understood the reaction. Her loss of Shaun had made her very unhappy, but she had never tried to hurt other people because of it.

“Thank you,” Marcy said stiffly.

“You’re welcome.” Amarli watched as the other woman began striding determinedly back to her house, seeing Jun poking his head out of the window. He quickly ducked back inside when he saw her approaching and Amarli had to resist the urge to smile at how anxious he looked.

“Jesus, that woman,” Sturges muttered. “Thanks for gettin’ her off my back.”

“No problem. I’ve made it clear that I’m the one she has to speak to about things like that – hopefully it’ll sink in one day.”

Sturges smirked. “I think you scare her a little.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because you’re so calm. She’s used to people arguing back.”

Amarli shrugged and turned away. “Whatever, Sturges. See you later.”

She heard a sound of surprise behind her as she was walking up the path to her house again, grateful for the shadow that it threw over her, and turned slightly to see what had Sturges so shocked. But he wasn’t even looking at her. He was grinning broadly with a hand braced over his eyes to block out the sun. “Is that who I think it is?” he drawled.

Amarli twisted her neck to see, almost dropping her bowl of cereal, and saw a small shape walking around the bend in the road. Her heart plunged and she found herself thinking only, Curie – Curie’s back!

She jogged back inside, slammed her bowl down on the counter and grabbed Shaun’s arm. “She’s here,” was all she could think of to say. Luckily, Shaun seemed to understand her, because his dark eyes widened with excitement and he jumped from his stool to follow her back outside, both of them barefoot.

They both jogged like mad towards the approaching figure, and Amarli saw her falter in her steps, apparently surprised to see them running towards her. She heard, “Madame-?” and then she was close enough to grab her around the waist and lift her in the air, hugging her close. She was laughing, and she heard Curie’s laughter too as she spun her around once and released her, dropping her back on solid ground. The woman’s face was red, her smile so wide that it looked painful. Amarli wouldn’t let go of her, still standing close, wanting to ensure that this was real, that Curie had really come home. She was wearing the baseball cap which Amarli had given her. 

“I did not expect this welcome,” Curie said shyly. “Madame, you have no idea how much I have missed you.”

Amarli cupped her face in both hands, grinning. “And you have no idea how much I’ve missed you. I was worried you’d never come home.” She thought for a second that something might happen then, realizing the heat in that moment that existed between them even without the sun, but she pulled away before she could consider it further. She knew she was just extremely happy to see her friend.

“Curie,” Shaun said seriously, drawing her attention.

Worriedly, Curie looked towards him, wringing her hands like she always did when she was nervous. “Shaun,” she said, her accent thickening. “You are doing well?”

“Ma chouchoutte,” was all Shaun said, his voice quiet. “You remember that you’re my favourite, don’t you?”

Almost tearfully, Curie reached forwards and pulled the little boy into her arms, hugging him to her chest. Amarli watched them with a huge smile on her face, unable to keep her happiness from showing. They were all here and together again, and even Curie and Shaun had reconciled after the bad terms upon which they’d parted. When Amarli looked at Curie’s face, there was no sign of the sadness she’d had weeks before in Goodneighbor. She looked healthy and happy.

“Oh, a dog!” Shaun said suddenly.

Amarli glanced down, only just realizing that Curie had brought her little Pinscher with her. Angustia’s hackles had risen and she was looking at them threateningly. Slowly, Amarli knelt and held out her hand for the dog to smell. “You remember me, don’t you?” she said. “We’ve met.”

After sniffing her, Angustia seemed to calm down a little bit. She really was rather cute, Amarli thought, and somehow like the dog equivalent of Curie. Small and vulnerable, mild-tempered when she didn’t feel threatened, and very loyal. She still had no idea where Curie had found her.

“It is very hot,” Curie said. “May we… go inside?”

“Yeah.” Amarli automatically slipped an arm around her again, beaming. “Welcome home.”

All three of them walked back to the house, Curie under Amarli’s arm while Shaun held her hand. Finally, their family was whole again.

Chapter Text

Things returned to normal – or as normal as they could be – surprisingly quickly. In fact, Curie was astonished at how easy it was to settle back into life at Sanctuary Hills. She had been so unsure about her complicated feelings for Amarli, and Shaun’s anger towards her, that she’d expected they would simply turn her away. Their greeting had told her she was still welcome. Never would she have imagined that they would come running towards her in the street; that Amarli would pick her up and swing her around like she weighed nothing; that Shaun would remind her she was his favourite and hug her. In fact, it had been more than she’d hoped for. All of the things she’d planned to say to them dissolved the moment she saw them so happy in her company, and she realized that there was no point in dredging up the past. Even speaking to Amarli could wait, as long as they could continue being friends. As long as Curie could still sleep in that bed beside her and not feel like she needed to touch her; as long as they could still talk about classical music and watch documentaries together; as long as they could both play with Shaun and tuck him in to bed at night. To be honest, she was treading a pretty thin line. She was barely coping. But it was enough.

Amarli never seemed to notice her internal crisis. She wasn’t impatient, cold or disgusted; she was warmer than ever. She touched Curie more, hugging her or stroking her cheek, and Curie continued to sneak off to the bathroom to find release whenever she needed it. Curie no longer tortured herself over the image of Amarli kissing Magnolia in the hallway. She no longer saw the singer as a threat. When she thought of Amarli, there was never anybody else in the picture. She put herself in it sometimes, when she was wondering what it would be like if she was one of Amarli’s lovers. Mostly, she asked herself if she would even be suitable. What if she didn’t like having a physical relationship with her? What if she was physically repelled by the female body? What if, when they were kissing or having sex, she didn’t know what to do? Amarli surely wouldn’t like that.

She didn’t know what Amarli wanted. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she didn’t know anything, and she remembered how both Magnolia and Doctor Amari had told her she needed to talk to Amarli to get the answers she wanted. But she was too scared.

Now that Curie was back, Amarli had thrown herself properly into her work with finding the Mechanist. She spent her days speaking to Preston over the radio, talking tactics and defence with Sturges, and ordering the Minutemen around Sanctuary Hills. She was a force to be reckoned with; a leader and a hero whom they all respected. Curie only wished she could be slightly less busy so that they could talk.

Curie had work to do, as well. Hoping to do Doctor Amari proud, she’d sat herself right in her lab the day she got back. She filed all of the notes she’d collected in Goodneighbor over the past month and began the slow and gruelling task of going over everything in her database. She believed she had been missing something this whole time, and the only way to find out what it was would be to go through all of her research again. This could take weeks, but it would be worth it. She also put away a few samples of the strain of wild mutfruit she had found on the way back from Goodneighbor – she’d seen the plant and, caught on a whim, decided to take a couple of the fruits home. Curie had assumed that only the farmed crops would contain the sorts of opioids she needed for her experiments, but she had realized now that she should not be dismissing other strains. What if the wild, Commonwealth-grown fruits were actually more mutated than domestic crops? What if the radioactivity of the soil, nutrients and rain had actually made them more suited for Curie’s research?

She re-filled the fridge with these new samples as well as the ones she had gotten in Diamond City. She put all the morphine tablets and injectors from Doctor Sun in there, too. For the first time in a long time, she felt organized. While she still knew that Amarli would be a serious distraction from her work, she was determined that she do better than before; she kept her mind securely on task, motivating herself with the thought of success, and had short breaks whenever she found herself just staring out of the window at Amarli again.

Now, she was on a ten-minute break, her third one of the day. She leaned back in her chair and wiped her hands off on her lab coat. The sounds of hammering and voices outside had distracted her, and she’d glanced up to see that Amarli was across the street with all of the Minutemen. Sturges was there, too, but only half-listening as he nailed down new panels on the walls of his partly built house. Even Shaun was sitting with them – recently, Amarli had been putting much more effort into involving him in her work and spending time with him – but he looked particularly bored, preferring to build little contraptions with the pile of spare parts by the workbench rather than listen to their conversation. Amarli, as usual, was the only person who Curie was fascinated by, even though she had met most of the new Minutemen and found them very interesting.

Curie’s eyes examined her with uncertainty, worried that Amarli would glance back towards the house and see her staring through the window. Expressive eyes bright with humour dominated her face as she was talking to the Minutemen, and from where Curie was sitting her voice was distinctively low, a satisfying purr. She had a strong jawline and definite cheekbones that gave her a powerful appearance. Her coppery brown skin was smooth and perfectly toned. And her hair, oh her hair, it fell down her back in silky black curls. Curie wanted to touch her hair; Curie wanted to comb her fingers through it. She looked perfect and strong, without a single weakness. Looks could be deceiving, but there was nothing misleading about Amarli. She was open, honest – Curie had always been able to see it in her eyes. After her chat with Magnolia, however, she wondered if Amarli only ever showed her what she wanted her to see. If there was anything, a spark of attraction, a hint of love, would she really want Curie to know about it?

Curie turned back to her notes. She lost herself in her work again, and when she next glanced up at the clock on Amarli’s wall it was nearly past lunch time. The group outside had already disbanded and Amarli and Shaun were nowhere to be seen. Quickly, she set her pen down and left the bedroom. Amarli was already in the kitchen, apparently waiting for her, sitting on a stool with one of her legs crossed over the other.

“You did not call,” Curie said, feeling embarrassed.

“Didn’t want to distract you.” To her surprise, Amarli reached around her waist with an arm and pulled her into an embrace. She felt completely flushed with heat when she pulled away and knew that it must be showing on her face. Why did Amarli want to touch her so much? How long would it go on for? She had decided a week ago that it was torture.

“So work is going well, then? You’re back on track?” Amarli asked hopefully.

Curie knew she just wanted her to be happy here. Amarli probably never wanted Curie to leave again. Little did she know, there was little chance of that anymore; Curie would not leave unless Amarli was with her.

“I have been scanning through all of my notes,” Curie said. “The work has not begun yet. But yes, Madame, I feel more so much more motivated.”

“Good.” Amarli smiled.

Curie immediately became locked on her eyes, their openness drawing her in. Something flashed beneath the surface of Amarli’s expression and Curie hurried to investigate the sudden shift. It was too late; the emotion disappeared before she could identify it, like she had been reaching desperately for an escaped balloon, the string dangling so tantalizingly close but the wind pushing it away so it was lost forever. She wondered if she would ever understand the things that Amarli didn’t want her to see. Would there be a time where they were completely open and honest with each other?

Shaun came running in through the kitchen door, Dogmeat and Angustia at his heels, and went straight to his room to change. Amarli shouted after him, “Hurry up, lunch is ready!”

There was a faint reply of, “Yeah, I know!”

“Wonderful day, isn’t it?” Amarli said, once his door had slammed. She had a beer in her hand and was sipping from it slowly as she stared out of the window. Instead of wearing one of her many hats today, her hair was tied back with a red bandana – Curie liked how casual it made her look, contrasting with the chocolate-black of her curls. She had also put on baggy jeans and a purple checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows; and, which Curie obviously hadn't failed to notice, the top three buttons undone, so that her lovely collarbone was on full display.

Amarli’s face turned and she considered Curie sitting next to her with a small smile. Realizing she was expecting an answer, Curie quickly replied, “Yes, it is nice!”

Green eyes surveyed her, entertained by her awkwardness. Tapping her nails on the glass of her bottle, Amarli finally seemed to find what she had been looking for and turned back to the view outside the window.

Curie glanced at Amarli’s beer and hesitantly asked, “May I have one, Madame?”

Glancing between the bottle in her hand and Curie’s expression, Amarli said, “Really? I thought you didn’t like alcohol.”

“The beer is not so terrible,” Curie told her. “But liquor is… it is too strong, and it has a significantly higher alcohol content. I believe it tastes very similar to… well, I would say gasoline is closest.”

“You’ve tasted gasoline before?” Amarli said with a laugh, striding to the fridge and fetching another bottle for Curie. As she used the countertop to pop the cap, Curie looked at her in awe.

“This is an interesting technique,” she said. “How do you do it?”

“When in doubt, hit it fast and hard.” Amarli winked and held out the beer. Pausing, Curie tried to decide whether that had been a sexual innuendo of some sort. She took the beer and their fingers touched. Amarli was looking very intensely at her and Curie couldn’t quite meet her eyes. She took a swig of the beer, having forgotten how bitter it tasted, and then screwed up her face in disgust.

Amarli was laughing again. “I thought you said it wasn’t so terrible.”

Embarrassed, Curie muttered, “I am sure will get used to it.”

“Do you feel like you need to drink alcohol? Because you don’t. It’s actually refreshing that you don’t like it.”

Curie wasn’t sure that was true. If Magnolia was right, and Amarli was the sort of person who enjoyed having fun above all else – which included drinking, smoking, and having sex – then Curie would need to step up.

“I would very much like to do the things that humans do,” Curie said unwaveringly. She took another brave sip and this time managed to keep a straight face. “See? I believe my taste buds are growing accustomed to the bitterness.”

“You have no idea how strange that sounds,” Amarli remarked amusedly. She leaned towards Curie across the counter and Curie tried desperately not to stare down the open neck of her shirt.

“Strange? How?”

“When you say ‘humans’. It takes a while for me to remember what you mean – you’re emphasizing you aren’t one.”

“Well…” Curie shrugged. “I am not.”

“Oh, come on.” Amarli rolled her eyes, leaning even further forwards so she could cover Curie’s hand with her own. “You’ve been human for months now, remember?”

Oddly touched, Curie lowered her head and nodded. She stared at Amarli’s hand on top of her own small pale one, a band of shining silver against the brown skin of her fourth finger. She thought about what Magnolia had said about Amarli’s preference for women and again puzzled over the fact of her husband. How could she have married a man, had his child, and still wear his wedding ring if she was not attracted to him at all?

Returning to the present, Curie said, “I still am not sure, Madame, if a synth can be considered a human being.”

“They are. I’ve narrowed it down to this: synths are mostly biologically human, and completely spiritually human.” Amarli leaned back suddenly as Shaun came walking into the kitchen. Her face hardened a little as she saw him, as if unwilling to continue a conversation about synths when he was in the room. Curie wondered how much Shaun actually knew about being a synth – was it wise to keep things from him?

Amarli flashed Curie a quick smile and returned to her seat. She touched Curie’s hand again when she’d sat down and didn’t acknowledge it. Curie felt her cheeks aflame with yet another blush, wondering how long she could possibly take all this physical contact before she exploded.

Shaun sat with them and glanced at the big plate on the counter in front of them. “Is that sandwiches again? Cram sandwiches?”

“My cooking list is limited!” Amarli protested.

“You can build a washing machine and fix the entire piping system of Sanctuary Hills, but you can’t make anything more than a sandwich…” Shaun muttered.

Curie giggled, agreeing, “Shaun is correct. It is rather hard to believe.”

“Just eat, both of you,” Amarli sighed.

The banter continued throughout lunch and Curie almost forgot about her flood of questions for Amarli, although she was reminded each time Amarli touched her hand or her arm, or amiably pressed a knee to hers, that there was still a conversation they desperately needed to have. The touching probably seemed very friendly from an outward point of view, but now that Curie knew there was a possibility Amarli could become attracted to her in turn, she was wondering about the physicality. Did Amarli even know she was doing it?

After lunch, Curie was buzzing with unnatural warmth after all the fleeting touches and immediately went back to the lab in Amarli’s room to continue working. She looked through all the microscope samples she had prepared, wrote down notes about the cells and their reactions with the opioid drugs, and forced herself not to think about Amarli for a while. Her efforts prevailed for the rest of the afternoon.

When it was almost time for dinner, Amarli came in and asked how Curie’s work was going.

“Good,” Curie said warily, aware that the other woman was standing very close behind her. This almost felt like a game – who would break first? Curie was certain it would be her. Hands gently squeezed Curie’s shoulders, massaging out the tension for a split second before Amarli hummed her approval, grabbed some clean pyjamas, and left the room. Curie was left reeling just from that simple touch, staring down at the random scribble she had written on the page. She couldn’t even read it. Sighing, she crossed it out and re-printed the figures.

Angustia, who had been spending time with Dogmeat and Shaun throughout the day, chose this moment to come bounding into the room and jump into Curie’s lap. She laughed, dropping her pen, and patted the dog’s little head. “Hello, you,” she said.

Angustia licked her face and then jumped from her lap onto the bed, leaving dirty paw-marks in her wake. Curie immediately jumped up and waved her arms. “Oh, no – bad doggie – get down!”

Angustia, surprised by her outburst, threw herself off the bed and ran out of the room. After examining the dirt on the covers, Curie sighed and sat down again. It was about time Angustia learned some rules; no chewing on shoes, no jumping on the beds, no climbing onto the kitchen counter, no rolling around in mud before coming indoors. Considering how little information Curie had on dog training, it was no surprise how out of control Angustia was. Maybe she could ask Amarli about it – after all, Dogmeat had never done any of these things, had he? And Amarli was always so eager to help with these things; so patient, so kind. Why did Curie no longer feel comfortable asking for her help with anything? It was strange, considering how close they had used to be.

She jumped when she heard the door to the room open again.

“Sorry – forgot my pants,” Amarli said, striding in through the doorway wrapped only in a towel. She climbed gracefully across the bed to the dresser and began rifling through her clothes. Curie stared at the line of her spine and the twin shoulder blades on full view as the back of the towel dipped below her waist. There was a scar right next to her spine that Curie immediately registered as a knife wound. She wondered when it had happened, and how Amarli had been so lucky as to not have her spine damaged. A few inches to the left and she might have been paralyzed for life. Curie was struck suddenly with the urge to reach over and stroke her fingers over the scar, to feel Amarli’s history and bravery as a tangible thing. As she continued to stare at Amarli’s turned back, her breath became short and she had to physically twist herself away. Her tenderness for this woman continued to multiply itself by a thousand with each passing second. If she really was in love, then she wasn’t sure she liked it at all.

“You ready for dinner?”

“Yes,” Curie said with attempted nonchalance. “I think my work is done for today.”

With a pair of soft grey trousers slung over one arm, Amarli came up behind her and touched her shoulder again. Curie braced for the torture of her body reacting to that touch, closing her eyes. “Would you mind getting Shaun? I think he’s next door with Mama Murphy.”

Curie’s thoughts swam frantically around in her head. Quickly, she replied, “Yes, of course!”

Amarli leaned so she could see her face, smiling with affection. Her voice softened. “Have I told you yet how glad I am to have you back home?”

Curie blushed, hardly able to deal with the smile, let alone the flattery. “Yes, many times.” Actually, in the week Curie had been back in Sanctuary Hills, she had said it pretty much every day. It was as if she thought Curie would just get up and leave again and needed to convince her constantly to remain. But Curie’s month spent alone in Goodneighbor already felt like a long time ago; she didn’t have anything to go back to. Big Al, her friend and protector, had already gone on to find another well-paying mercenary job in the Commonwealth, and she didn’t know if she’d ever see him again. Doctor Amari was busy with new patients. Angustia was here in Sanctuary Hills with her. And why would she need to leave again when she knew the answers to her questions were all here, with Amarli?

“Well, I am,” Amarli said happily. She leaned in and Curie felt her heart beat so hard she feared her friend would hear it – if she did, Curie’s secret would be secret no more. She was praying so hard that this would be the moment Amarli kissed her, that this long drawn out crush of hers would leap into the sort of relationship she’d been dreaming about. Her eyes closed, head tilted upward, and then she felt Amarli’s lips... on her cheek. Just a friendly, fraternal peck. It crushed Curie’s insides.

Completely oblivious to it, Amarli said, “Okay, I’m showering for real this time – by the way, can you try and invite Mama Murphy to dinner?”

Curie had given Mama Murphy two check-ups when she’d heard the old woman had come down with a flu. To her surprise, Mama Murphy hadn’t been sick at all. Instead, she had been showing clear symptoms of withdrawal. She was on drugs again. After giving her an hour-long lecture about the dangers of overdosing on Jet that the old woman barely listened to, Curie had left her alone with plenty of water, asking Shaun to go over every once in a while to keep her company. She had been improving, but slowly. Curie figured it might actually be good to get her out of that dingy house and around other people. There went Amarli again, suggesting another respectable idea, thinking about other people besides herself, giving up her precious time with her family for the sake of a woman she barely knew.

“Curie?”

Curie blinked. Her insides felt raw. “Hmm? Oh, yes, I will ask her to dinner. It will be good for her, I think.”

Amarli’s bare feet padded on the floor as she left the room, the bathroom door shutting immediately after her. As Curie heard the faint sound of rushing water as the shower was switched on, she stood and turned her mind away from the thought of Amarli naked. She took off her lab coat and neatly hung it over the chair. Running her fingers through her hair, she left the house in only her socks, the coolness of the night air hitting her like a slap to the face. It was exactly the sort of distraction she needed after such a torturous day. Now, she only had to survive another night of lying in the same bed as Amarli and bursting both with questions and the desire to touch her. She could think of worse things to have to undergo, but she hadn’t yet met anything as emotionally taxing as having to hide all of her feelings from her friend.

Shaun and Mama Murphy were in the living room when Curie knocked and went in, and they were both sitting and listening to the radio. In the past week, Shaun had figured out how to hack it; Curie heard the Radio Freedom tune emanating from the speakers, followed by the voices of Minutemen as they gave live updates on what was happening all over the Commonwealth.

Mama Murphy’s smile was twisted and looked as though it didn't belong on her pale sagging face. Her eyes, red around the grey irises, landed immediately on Curie. “Hey, kid. Ready for the Sight again?”

Curie frowned. “You will not be taking more drugs, Madame – it is not safe. I have already recorded the biochemical interaction of these chems with your system.”

Shifting in her chair, Mama Murphy sighed and shook her head. “Oh, not this again. Listen to me – I’m old. Older than you think. If the chems are gonna kill me, then I say I’ve had a good run.”

“Come on, Mama,” Shaun chipped in. “You can’t seriously think that.”

Folding her arms, Curie nodded in agreement. She walked over and clicked off the radio so that the living room was in silence. “As your doctor, I remind you that I have considerable medical knowledge of chems. I advise caution in their use. You are aware, of course, of the many dangers of excessive chem use, yes?                           

“You spent two hours explaining it to me the other day,” Mama Murphy sighed.

“There are many accounts of singers, poets, intellectuals, and others who dabbled with chems such as you. They did not end well-”

“Yes, I know,” she interrupted. “Let’s just agree to disagree, kid. Amarli for one would never have made it so far without the Sight. We need it. You need it. It’s part of who I am.”

Curie wasn’t sure how true that actually was. There was no such thing as a real ability to tell the future before it happened; she didn’t believe that Mama Murphy was some sort of Oracle due to drugs. But Mama Murphy had been right about one thing that she had predicted long ago: that the Commonwealth was about to face a wave of new invaders, and their way of life would be threatened. Was it possible that she’d had a premonition of the Mechanists’ arrival?                            

Wanting to have the last word, Curie said, “I have more than enough data on the physiological effects of chems. No need to provide more. Please allow your body to flush the drugs from your system, Madame.”

Mama Murphy shrugged. “Yeah, fine.”

“Is it dinner time?” Shaun asked, standing up.

“Yes, mon loulou.” She ruffled his dark curls with her fingers as he passed her and left the house, returning home to get ready. Once he was gone she glanced across at Mama Murphy, and then crouched before her, taking her pale, wrinkled hand. “Do you feel well enough for a meal with us?”

The old woman looked surprised. “Really?”

“Of course, Madame! I would be so very delighted if you would join us.”

Mama Murphy reached out and stroked the side of Curie’s face, smiling. “You’re such a sweet girl. I know things have been hard lately, and I wish I could say the future will be easy for you. But I’ve seen what’s next – you’ve got a long way to go.”

Curie felt a chill run through her, as if a bucket of ice had been upturned over her head. She wanted to ask Mama Murphy what that meant, what she thought she’d seen in her drug-filled stupor. Her mind instantly intervened, reminding her that Mama Murphy had only been high, that she didn’t know what she was talking about, and they were going to be late for dinner if they didn’t get going now. She pulled away from Mama Murphy’s grip, shrugging off the chills, and offered her arm. “May I help you stand, Madame?”

“Sure, kid.”

 ---

Amarli was pleased to see that Mama Murphy no longer looked so ill. She hardly ate and kept on staring towards the liquor cabinet but otherwise it looked as if Curie’s treatment was going well. Their dinner was finished with an atmosphere of warmth and friendliness, and they sat in the living room afterwards to listen to some music and smoke a cigarette or two – she and Mama Murphy did, anyway. Curie just stared disapprovingly at them from the armchair in the corner and Shaun went straight to bed. Angustia sat on Curie’s lap and fell asleep and Dogmeat curled up on the carpet. Everyone seemed very satisfied for once; Amarli almost felt as happy as she had when she first moved into Sanctuary Hills.

Mama Murphy didn’t preach about the future at all during dinner; instead, she made small talk. It was only when she was leaving and Amarli was seeing her to the door that she clutched her arm and turned back on the doorstep, her bloodshot eyes urgent. “There’s something you should know,” she said quietly.

Amarli stared at her. “Mama Murphy, please don’t do this now. Not tonight. It’s been a good night.”

Mama Murphy loosened her grip a little bit. “It has,” she agreed.

“Go home and get some sleep. Stay off the chems. You’ll be fine.” Amarli began to step back and shut the door, but the old woman grabbed her again and pulled her close, glancing worriedly towards where Curie was still sitting, engrossed in the little dog sitting in her lap. She wasn’t listening.

“You need to know what I saw. I saw you surrounded by outstretched hands. Everyone will need your help, kid. And whether you want it or not, you’re gonna have to decide which ways of life keep on going in the Commonwealth… and which end…”

Amarli physically recoiled at her words. “Mama Murphy, please!”

“Wait!” she hissed. She gripped Amarli’s wrist tighter. “You’re lookin’ for a man – but he ain’t gonna be what you expect. He’s somewhere deep, and dark. Alone. And you’ll have to make a terrible decision once you find him. One that will end in loss, whichever path you choose to take. You will have to sacrifice something. That something might be yourself.”

Amarli ripped her arm away, glowering at the old woman. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said defensively.

“I’m not on chems now. Not anymore,” Mama Murphy said in a lower voice, coughing. “Your friend made sure of that.” She glanced furtively at Curie again. “That Sight… I had it a long time ago. Do you know what else I saw?”

“What?”

“I saw another way.”

“Another way?” Amarli repeated blankly, impatient. “Seriously? Could you be anymore vague? It’s like you don’t want me to believe you.”

Mama Murphy frowned. “A key, lost and forgotten. Left down below, with a glow that outshines any other…” She trailed off. “You found it, kid – you know you did. That girl sitting over there, she’s already changed how it all ends.”

Amarli looked confusedly at Curie, and then returned her gaze to Mama Murphy’s face. “What’s your point?”

“Now that she’s a part of this, my Sight will be different.” Mama Murphy licked her lips. “I tried to see how the future had shifted, but it was too blurry – for the first time, I have no idea what’s gonna happen. The outcome could be better than what I told you… or it could be worse.”

Amarli felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “Look, I’m not going to say you’re crazy, because you’ve said things before that have rung true. But I really don’t think you’re right.”

Mama Murphy stepped back, letting go of her. She looked small and tired now, her shoulders hunched. “You’re my friend, kid, and you’ve taken good care of me. I only wanted you to know.”

Amarli rubbed her forehead with her palm, deciding to humour her. “Okay, okay. Thank you. You know I’m grateful, and I’ll… I’ll think about what you said. But if you’re right and finding Curie has somehow changed all of it, then what’s the point in telling me what you saw?”

Mama Murphy didn’t answer right away. She lifted her hand in a half-hearted wave and turned to go. “You’ve gotta be aware of what’s coming, kid,” she called over her shoulder. “The Mechanist has much more in store for the Commonwealth. If you want to stop him and avoid making a terrible sacrifice, keep that girl with you.”

Amarli stared after her as she disappeared into the darkness and then slowly shut the door. She leaned against it, thinking through what Mama Murphy had said, and then finally peered over at Curie. The woman was looking back at her quizzically. “Madame – is something wrong?”

“No, no… just Mama Murphy preaching again.” Amarli stepped away from the door, rubbing her hands down the goosebumps on her arms. She had always hated how Mama Murphy’s ‘predictions’ affected her. It was like living in a horror story.

That girl sitting over there, she’s already changed how it all ends.

She smiled tightly at Curie. “Tea?”

 ---

Amarli spontaneously decided five minutes into lying in bed next to Curie that she needed some space. She didn’t mind sharing her bed, especially since she’d realized it actually helped her sleep. After what Mama Murphy had said about Curie earlier, however, she felt uncomfortable even being nearby. She needed time to think. She took her pillow and left the bedroom, deciding she would go back to sleeping on the couch again, at least for one night. Whether Curie was some sort of ‘key’ to how her future turned out or not, Amarli wasn’t going to go to the trouble of doing exactly what Mama Murphy said; she wasn’t going to stick to Curie like glue. She wasn’t going to change her ways completely because of something a batty old lady had told her. Even if Mama Murphy had been right before.

There were also issues with the other things she’d said; what if Mama Murphy had been right, and the Mechanist was only going to inflict more terror on the Commonwealth? It was already pretty bad, but if he started striking fear into the hearts of people like the Institute had, then Amarli would have a serious problem on her hands. Most settlers in the Commonwealth didn’t even know about the Mechanist yet. It was for the best that the escalating danger stayed under wraps.

To clear her head, Amarli read through one of her favourite technical manuals before she slept, smoking another cigarette over a glass of bourbon. Then she switched off all the lights and took a motheaten blanket out of the closet to sleep with, tucking herself in on the couch.

A few hours after she had curled up asleep, Amarli woke with the sense that someone else had entered the living room. Expecting that perhaps Shaun was getting a glass of water or Codsworth had come in and powered down, she blearily opened her eyes and looked around. She jolted awake; Curie was standing right by her head, gazing down at her.

“Jesus – maybe a little warning next time!” she hissed. And then, realizing that Curie’s being here probably meant something was wrong, she sleepily demanded, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

The other woman shook her head slowly. Amarli only became more confused when Curie bent, hands pressing against the pillow on either side of her head, and climbed onto the couch with her. Her heart beat hard against the inside of her chest with dismay. Now the pillows had sunken beneath her as Curie swung one leg over her body and straddled her hips. Shocked, she let out a noise of alarm, but stifled it at the last minute when she saw Curie smile. It was a wide and very un-Curie-like smile, with a forced heat behind it that made Amarli’s heart beat even faster. Curie was wearing a white t-shirt that she always used for sleeping, but her legs were surprisingly bare where they touched Amarli’s hips. Was she even wearing pants? Amarli quickly withdrew her hands so she wouldn’t be touching anything she wasn’t supposed to. She felt like she was hyperventilating.

What the hell is going on? she thought frantically. If Shaun walks in and sees us, what’s he going to think?

She tried to sit up and glance towards the opening of the corridor, but Curie’s hands gently and firmly pushed her shoulders back down against the pillows. Amarli knew that she was strong enough to overpower Curie in any situation, but – to her own frustration – she realized she just couldn’t summon the effort. Not when there was all that warmth sitting on top of her, and Curie’s soft hands stroking over her shoulders, teasing at the opening of her shirt. Jesus, this was already going too far. She needed to stop it. She needed to do something.

As if to distract her, Curie hooked her fingers under the hem of her t-shirt and swiftly lifted it over her head. The t-shirt landed on the coffee table and Curie sank back against Amarli’s thighs, looking down at her and waiting for her reaction. All of Amarli’s frantic thoughts and attempts to make sense of the situation came to a halt, her mouth dry, as she stared at Curie’s naked upper torso. Amarli tried to sit up again, automatically wanting to move out from under her, but Curie’s hands were already pressing against her sternum and making her still. Quite obviously, she wasn’t going anywhere. She certainly wasn’t putting up enough of a fight to get out. It was only now that she realized she didn’t want to move; she wanted to lay there and let Curie do whatever the hell she wanted.

Amarli tried not to look, knowing the image already from several occasions of getting changed in the same room as Curie. She had seen the slender shoulders and jutting collarbone, the pale rounded breasts, the flat abdomen and narrow waist. She hadn’t allowed herself the indulgence before, guilt mixing with modesty, when she was supposed to be treating Curie like her family. But now she swallowed hard and found herself greedily taking in the view, peculiarly excited by the fact that she couldn’t escape even if she wanted to – and she didn’t. That was the whole problem.

“Curie…” Amarli said weakly. “What are you doing?”

Curie ignored her. She reached for Amarli’s hands and moved them towards her bare waist. As she brought her palms stroking up her ribcage and onto her breasts, Amarli’s breathing became heavier. Her breasts were so soft, warm, and Amarli felt the contrasting hardness of her nipples as Curie trapped her hands there. She squeezed Amarli’s hands beneath her own, making her grip tighter, and there was a soft intake of breath. Amarli’s eyes widened as she scrambled to understand the situation. She could not believe that Curie knew anything about this – getting pleasure, being with somebody else. But now she was suddenly like a seductress, with a skill that made Amarli question whether this could possibly be real. Curie, climbing on top of her in the middle of the night, getting undressed, and making Amarli touch her… she couldn’t possibly deny that it was one of her fantasies. A very hidden, suppressed one that she hadn’t dared indulge in. Nevertheless, she was hopelessly aroused.

She felt the subtle movement as Curie rolled her hips, hearing a quiet groan leave her pink, parted lips. It was impossibly erotic – Amarli could barely take ahold of herself. Her more dominant side almost took over; she wanted to be the one in control, to be stroking, touching, making Curie groan like that. Her breath caught in her throat and she squirmed a little bit beneath Curie, in awe of the intense heat of her across her hips. She managed to free one of her hands from against Curie’s breast and tried to clear the fog from her mind, gripping the side of the couch tightly.  

“Please, touch me,” Curie said, speaking for the first time.

Amarli jolted up into a sitting, gasping for air and clutching at the couch pillows as she stared around her. Curie was gone, having never been there to begin with. There was bright sunlight streaming in through the windows.

“Is everything all right, mum?” Codsworth called cheerily from the kitchen.

Amarli twisted to stare at him, images from her dream still vivid in her mind – touching Curie’s breasts, her heat, the way she’d moved her hips – and muttered, “Oh, yeah. I’m good.”

Oh god oh god oh god – oh shit, oh shit…

What was happening to her? Where the hell had that dream even come from? Sure, she’d had that epiphany back in Goodneighbor when she’d realized that Curie was attractive, and she’d had a very physical reaction to it. But she hadn’t had such an intensely realistic dream for a long time. Was it to do with Mama Murphy’s preaching? Had Curie inadvertently done something to make Amarli feel like lusting after her? Or had this been building slowly over time?

All of a sudden, she became aware of the dampness between her thighs and quickly jumped to her feet, striding to the bathroom. It was time for a very cold shower.

 ---

Amarli picked at her breakfast, resting her chin on her fist as she stared down at the omelette in front of her. Her dream about Curie had her frayed around the edges, and she kept on glancing worriedly towards the corridor, where she knew her friend would eventually appear as she did every morning like clockwork. Amarli both looked forward to and dreaded seeing her. She normally enjoyed every moment spent with her closest friend, but she knew things had changed overnight after both Mama Murphy’s fortune-telling and her explicit dream. In hardly a few hours, she had gone from being completely comfortable with Curie to being unsure how to even talk to her anymore. Again, there was an invisible barrier between them, and she had no idea how to approach it.

Act normal, she told herself. If you start acting weird, Curie will know something’s up, and you’ll have to tell her.

It had only been a week since Curie had returned from her time away in Goodneighbor, and she was still settling back into life in Sanctuary Hills. If anything made her feel anxious again, she might leave on another journey of self-discovery. Amarli absolutely would not have that.

“Good morning!” Curie called cheerfully, her face nearly as bright as the daylight itself. She wore a grey t-shirt and a pair of jeans which had been cropped into shorts – not the white t-shirt Amarli had seen in her dream. She came over and threw her arms around Amarli like an excited child, looking up at her from beneath long eyelashes. She wormed her fingers into the side of Amarli’s ribcage and asked, “You did not sleep last night?”

Amarli smiled down at her, forcefully pushing all memories of the dream out of her mind. “I had some work to do,” she lied. “But I fell asleep on the couch.”

“Hmm.”

Amarli decided she liked the feeling of this woman pressed up beside her, even if it was disorienting to let the reasons catch up with her. Was it because Curie was her best friend, or because her subconscious was craving connection from her? The seductress of last night was nothing like this sweet, cuddly Curie. But just the thought of that dream still made Amarli’s breath catch. She almost regretted it when Curie pulled away, but was glad when there was considerable distance put between them. Curie had been awkward with touching her for a while now, ever since Amarli had run into her in Goodneighbor, but it seemed she was back into cuddling, which was a good thing. Amarli wouldn’t ruin it.

“Codsworth, may I have an omelette also?” Curie asked politely.

“Of course, miss.”

Taking a sip of coffee, Amarli finally gave up on her omelette and pushed the plate away. She cleared her throat. “Uh… I have plenty of work to do. I’ll see you at lunch.”

Curie caught at her arm as she slid off her stool, preventing her from walking away. “Madame, I have a proposal.”

Amarli’s mouth went dry. “A what now?”

“Ada has said she has the location of another robobrain, yes? So you must go and terminate it soon.”

“Yeah.” Amarli hadn’t been planning to leave anytime soon, but as more and more settlements were attacked, she was running out of time. She hadn’t expected that Curie would be the one to remind her to get back to work. “I wanted to let the Minutemen finish defences all over the Commonwealth before I focused on our method of attack.”

“Yes, but you still must do it as quickly as possible.” Curie swallowed. “Madame, what I am trying to say is that you must stop this Mechanist before he ruins everything. I do not want to lose our home, and our friends. And I have seen you becoming more stressed with each day, which is very worrying.”

Amarli hadn’t known it was showing. “I agree,” she said hesitantly. “But I’m not ready to get that final beacon yet. Ada said it’ll be dangerous, maybe even too dangerous for just the two of us if I don’t have the right weapons, defence and tactics. I’m still working on that.”

Curie nodded. “Perhaps, if you would allow me, I could help you. I would like to be your partner again.”

Staring at her, Amarli waited a beat before she said, “Really?”

“Yes.” Curie beamed. “My research is going well, Madame, and it is surely a priority. But the immediate danger proposed by the Mechanist is more important, and I feel we must all work together – it is… what do you say, a ‘group effort’, yes?”

“Yes.” Amarli, hardly even thinking about the night before now, grabbed Curie’s hands and repeated, “Yes! Of course you can be my partner again. You have no idea what it means to hear you say that.”

Blushing, Curie said, “So I may travel with you when you go and get the radar beacon? You will not worry about my safety or my abilities in the field?”

“Are you still worried about that?” Amarli inquired seriously.

Curie searched her eyes. Finally, she drew herself up and said, “No. I have grown, Madame. And I have learned some things while I was on my own.”

“Come here, you.” Amarli drew her into a big hug, laughing happily. “Are you sure you’re ready for serious danger? Things can only get harder from now on.”

“Your continuing existence is all that matters,” Curie told her confidently, pulling back to look up at her face. “As long as I am with you and I can protect you, I will be just fine.”

“Really?”

Curie shrugged noncommittally. “After everything that has happened in the past month, I have realized what you mean to me, Madame. And I also know what you mean to little Shaun. If you truly were lost to us, I have no idea…” She trailed off and scratched her head, her voice straining. “…I do not know what I would do.”

“Oh, Curie.” Amarli squeezed her hands, not liking how sad she looked.

The other woman struggled to keep a straight face, her eyes brightening. “So, how do I begin? May I help with the defences, or shall I collect weapons-?”

“Leave that all to me,” Amarli said, interrupting her.

“But I must do something to help, yes?”

Smiling at her enthusiasm, Amarli shook her head. “Curie, we’ve got plenty of people around here to deal with the defences and the weapons. For now, just continue with what you were already doing.”

“My work?” Curie wrinkled her nose in confusion. “But I thought-”

“Your research could end up producing something incredibly useful someday,” Amarli said seriously. “It could help all of us when we finally find the Mechanist and end him once and for all.”

Curie’s eyes flitted away, and she drew back her hands and turned towards the counter as Codsworth set another omelette down. She didn’t look convinced. “But I am coming with you, yes? To find the beacon? You will need my help.”

“Yeah.” Amarli watched as the other woman began to eat. “Like I said before, it’ll be a little while before we leave. Continue with your training – get Shaun to help you – and try to remember all the little things I taught you.”

Curie smiled. “Madame, I do not forget a single thing that I learn. My mind mimics the characteristics of an eidetic memory.”

“You have photographic memory?”

“In some sense, yes.” Her eyes flashed, and Amarli wondered what kind of intelligence really lived in that pretty little head of hers. Amarli had never doubted that she was extremely clever, but it was often easy to underestimate her because of her naivety and lack of emotional development. Would Curie remember the little details of this moment – including their conversation word-for-word – ten years in the future? By then, would she have invented a medicine that cured all illnesses and afflictions, more powerful even than the one she had helped create in Vault 81? Would she have eradicated the dangers of radiation from the wasteland? The possibilities were endless. Curie could very well represent the future of the Commonwealth – Amarli was reminded yet again, just as she had been upon meeting Curie, that she must be protected at all costs. And if Curie wanted to protect her in turn, then so be it. As long as they were together and could take care of each other, the future of their world was secured.

“All right – I’m off. I’ve got to finish building the new water pumps,” Amarli said. She paused. “Since you’re so involved now, I guess you can join our meeting at ten…”

“Meeting?” Curie glanced up interestedly, pausing in chewing.

“We’re going over all the information we already have on the Mechanist – it might help for you to hear what Ada has already discovered, and what’s waiting for us when we go and collect the next radar beacon. Preston will be on standby so we can communicate with him about how well-protected all our other settlements are. It’s basically just logistics from there.”

“Logistics,” Curie repeated, humming thoughtfully. “Yes, I will be there.”

“We could definitely use a mind like yours.” Amarli grinned, thinking of all the possibilities. “Obviously Ada’s always got it in the bag, but she’s no scientist...”

“I will do what I can,” Curie said determinedly, though she had bristled at the mention of Ada’s name. “My skills are in medicine, Madame, so I can upgrade medical equipment. But I also have extensive knowledge in the field of chemistry. Perhaps I can assist in the manufacturing of weapons?”

“You think you could build… a weapon?” Amarli was surprised.

“No.” Curie grimaced. “But I think you must be aware of the “Syringer” rifle, yes? My data tells me that none of the injectable ammo is very efficient. With help from Shaun, I could put together a substance much more powerful, primarily made to target robotic adversaries. This weapon could be very useful.”

Amarli stared at her. Curie, the saviour of the Commonwealth, healing the world and living as an eternal saint… was perhaps a rather simple way of thinking. Curie knew how to kill, as well. She could use science to destroy. She knew about efficiency, and accuracy, and backed up absolutely everything with numbers – it was actually a little bit intimidating. Amarli was pleased. Mama Murphy may be crazy, but there was perhaps a little truth to her words: Curie’s existence as Amarli’s partner would change everything in the battle to come. She was like a secret weapon. Now that she was back by Amarli’s side, everything seemed possible.

“Do what you can,” she said finally, squeezing Curie’s shoulder. “Get Shaun to build the rifles. He’s been waiting for something interesting to do for over a week. I’m sure he’d love to help.”

“Yes,” Curie agreed. “Shall I prepare something to say for the meeting, Madame?”

“No, don’t worry about that. I’ll introduce you.” Amarli grinned. She feigned gesturing towards a large audience in the living room. “Hey everyone, this is Curie, our new combat medic and chemical weapons expert. She’s also an incredible genius, my best friend, the most wonderful woman in the world…”

… and also apparently the most attractive, considering my dream last night...

Curie blushed. “Ah, perhaps do not use so many details, Madame.”

“Would that embarrass you?” Amarli teased.

“It would… I think I – well, perhaps if you-”

Amarli snickered at her discomfort. “Chill out. Combat medic and chemical weapons expert it is.” She stepped away, heading for the front door. “See you at ten, partner.”

Curie was smiling delightedly after her, and Amarli returned it just before she left the house, revitalized despite the dreams and prophecies which had given her so much discomfort this morning. She wasn’t going to allow an old lady or an erotic vision to ruin her friendship. Not when they were on the brink of war. She needed Curie, and Curie needed her. This was just how it needed to be.

Chapter Text

Curie awoke with a feeling of dread. Within seconds of recognizing the loud, repetitive blaring of an alarm outside and seeing Amarli moving around in the dark strapping on armour, she was on her feet with her eyes wide, dreams not just forgotten but erased. She sluggishly drank in all the feedback of her senses and tried to come to terms with what was going on. She fumbled for her own armour, disoriented by the wailing siren. Amarli, who had a metal mining helmet lopsided on her head and had already finished hurriedly strapping on her armour, turned and snapped, “Don’t even think about leaving this house.”

“Madame-”

“I’m serious.” And then she jogged out of the bedroom, sprinting to the front door, called to duty as General. Curie was frozen, unsure of what to do. Were they not partners now? They had gone through several meetings together, and Curie had already made two new Syringer capsules which the Minutemen had successfully tested in Concord. She had made friends with all the Minutemen; they all seemed to appreciate her intelligence and depend on her for her medical skills. Whatever was happening in Sanctuary Hills right now… they needed her, right? She was one of them. Amarli couldn’t tell her what to do.

Curie rapidly began to grab the rest of her armour off the shelf, jogging to the desk as she put it on and trying to peer out into the darkness. All the streetlamps had been switched on, casting a spooky glow over the street, and there were a dozen dark shapes moving about, footsteps slamming on the asphalt. They were dragging sandbags and tables across the road to form barriers. The acrid smell of gunpowder reached Curie’s nostrils immediately, and she saw that everyone was carrying heavy weapons. One of the shapes in the darkness was Amarli, standing in the middle of the street and shouting at all of the Minutemen, waving them to their stations. She was still in her pyjamas, but with full armour over the top, a minigun resting against her shoulder and her mining helmet headlamp switched on so that the light made it impossible to see her face. She was in full warrior mode. Whatever was attacking Sanctuary Hills, it was bad.

Over the deafening noise of the alarm whining for all to hear, Curie strained and finally heard the gunfire much further away – at the entrance to Sanctuary Hills, in fact. It sounded as if there was a whole army out there. She knew instantly what was happening; this wasn’t Raiders, Gunners or scavengers. These were the Mechanists’ robots attacking them. Sanctuary Hills was a sanctuary no longer.

All at once Curie felt her fingers trembling, and she could hardly finish buckling her chest plate. She gritted her teeth and tightly strapped it across herself, grabbing her laser rifle from where it was leaned against the window, caught with a sudden desperation to get out there and protect her home from these dangerous invaders. Before she left the room, she also grabbed the first aid kit she had packed herself, tying it to her belt. Dogmeat and Angustia were both barking in the living room, their hackles raised. The cats were all in the kitchen, moving around nervously, refusing to go outside. Shaun was with them, his eyes wide and round with fear, still dressed in pyjamas and striped socks. The moment he saw her, he grabbed her arm and said, “What’s going on?”

Curie bent to clutch his shoulder with her free hand, trying to outwardly seem calm. “It is fine, mon loulou. You will stay in here with the dogs and cats, yes?”

Shaun only gripped her tighter. “Please!” he said. “Stay here. What if you-”

“I will be fine,” Curie told him firmly. “They need me.”

There was no time to put on her hiking shoes, so Curie tore herself away from Shaun and ran out the front door in bare feet. Now that she was out in the darkness, everything was much scarier – all she could really see was silhouettes and random flashes of bright light. In hardly a minute, barricades had been set up all along the road and the Minutemen were kneeling behind them, yelling to one another over the noise. Amarli was striding in between them, Ada and Sturges with her, giving orders. Jun and Marcy Long had come out of their house to join the rest of the soldiers, both of them wearing leather armour and carrying shotguns. Even Mama Murphy had left her house, a pistol clutched in her hand, leaning against the wall of Sturges’ porch. Far down the road, the first robots could be seen battling against the turrets and traps which had been set up every ten metres as protection. The men who had been stationed in the guard posts were already dead. Soon enough the turrets would be disabled and it would be up to the people of Sanctuary Hills to protect themselves from the wave of incoming danger.

Curie dodged forwards under the burning streetlights and grabbed a metal helmet from the pile behind one of the barricades, strapping it tightly under her chin. She still had nothing for her feet, but there wasn’t enough time to consider foot injuries – it was only a matter of seconds until the robots were upon them. She needed a better vantage point so could see all of the Minutemen and tell when they got injured. Lifting her rifle, she sprinted past her friends and stopped in the doorway of the house next to Amarli’s. She was well in front of the barricades, but the robots would not be able to see her in the shadows.

The machines would have no PTSD, no empathy, no remorse, never fail to kill on command. They didn't know what it was to be human, and Curie was willing to protect her humanity at all costs, even if it meant giving her life to the cause. This was her home, and her family, and she would not let the Mechanist and his unfeeling, immoral robots destroy it. It could not happen. Not after everything she had been through.

She was trembling even more now, but she crouched and brought the rifle to her shoulder, peering down the night-vision recon scope, eyeing the approach of the swarm of robots as they steadily moved past the turrets. They didn’t care much about the robotic defences – they were quite clearly here for the living people, the enemies with heat signatures.

"Fire!" Amarli ordered suddenly, a wave of red and blue lasers leaving the barricades only a moment after her order. Jun and Marcy Long were firing along with all the Minutemen. Even Sturges had a pistol drawn and was crouching beside Amarli, letting loose as a cloud of Swarmbots came their way. Curie managed to can one as it flew past, and it skidded and exploded against the side of the house, sending metal sailing in all directions. She dodged the shrapnel and the returning machinegun-fire, stepping back into the doorway so she couldn’t be hit. Her heart was beating fast and hard, and her system was full of adrenaline. There were so many robots, and so few of her friends. Would their defence really be good enough? Curie thought about Shaun still inside the house, wondering what was going on, completely vulnerable. She couldn’t let the robots get that far.

“Hold your positions!” Amarli yelled, her voice distant over the siren and gunfire.

Curie ducked out of the doorway to see what was going on and drew in a shaky breath as she saw one of the men behind the barricade closest to her be completely mowed down by bullets. He jerked like a ragdoll and then collapsed. Overcome by duty, Curie completely ignored the danger facing her and left the safety of her doorway, running as fast as she could towards the barricade. As she skidded behind it, a volley of red-hot lasers passed over her head and she felt the heat against her face. The fallen Minuteman was coughing blood, and his chest was torn and bloody. Curie felt a warm spray of blood on her face, but she ignored it. Immediately, the sounds of battle became just a drone in the distance; nothing mattered now but treating her patient. She dropped her rifle and crouched over him, yanking his body back behind cover. He was gurgling, his eyes rolling with pain and fear – her systems told her he would not survive these wounds. A stimpack could not be wasted on him. Still, she drew gauze from the first aid kit at her hip and pressed it against his wounds, tapping his face with bloody fingers so he would stay awake. “Monsieur, you must not sleep.”

He warbled helplessly and then his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Curie released the gauze, frozen for a moment as she stared down at him. She searched for his pulse point, knowing he was already dead, and quickly backed herself up against the sandbags. The sounds of the battle had returned, ear-splitting and unavoidable, and she felt dizzy. One patient had been lost. What next?

She picked up her rifle again. All of the robots were close now – the Swarmbots had been incapacitated, but the much bigger machines had finally reached the barricades and were blowing them to pieces with heavy fire and explosives. Shouts of pain and alarm could be heard from all directions under the constant wailing of the siren, and Curie could hear the motorized voice of the Mechanist coming through, proclaiming about peace and safety.

Was Amarli all right? Hadn’t she been right in the centre of the fray a minute ago? What if she got hurt? Curie looked around in fear and saw the light of Amarli’s mining helmet – she had ordered the rest of the men and women to fall back and find better cover. Her minigun was tearing viciously into the plates of one of the Sentry bot models. The only people who hadn’t fallen back at her command were the injured and the dead.

Curie knew what she needed to do.

She forced herself to be calm, quickly lifting her head to peer over what was left of her own barricade – the most intact of all of them – and then calculated her next move. If she went into the open without a diversion, there was a lower than 50% chance she would survive; she would immediately catch the attention of about six of the closest bots. And if she took too long to move, if she didn’t run fast enough, there was almost a 90% that she would die instantly. So, she needed to protect the barricade, create a diversion, and run as fast as she possibly could.

Curie untied the first aid kit from her belt and leaned it against the sandbags. She lifted her rifle and, with surgical precision, rose to one knee and shot one of the approaching Junkbots exactly where she knew the fuel tank would be. Studying General Atomics blueprints had apparently come in handy – it exploded, momentarily incapacitating most of the other robots. With this success, Curie wasted no time in sprinting out from cover and keeping low as she moved to the next pile of sandbags, and then the next. She stopped by another dying Minuteman. This one had been caught in an explosive blast; his arm had been blown off. Curie looked at the gruesome wound critically. He was losing a considerable amount of blood by the second, so she needed to quickly staunch the bloodflow and inject a stimpack. He was just barely keeping his eyes open, but he looked up at her as if she was an angel.

“I will take care of you,” she promised over the deafening noise of battle. She tucked her small frame under his body and lifted him, still keeping low. The gunfire was mostly going over her head, with the rest of Sanctuary Hills’ inhabitants keeping the robots at a distance, but there was still a chance she could be caught in the line of fire if she wasn’t careful. Dragging this man’s body was next to impossible. Curie was much smaller than he was, and while she did constant training, she still was not very strong. She tucked one hand under the straps of his armour and continued to haul him across the asphalt with determination, her heart beating out of her chest. Finally, she reached the first aid kit and managed to prop him against the barricade. With one hand, she hurriedly slapped his face to keep him conscious, and then grabbed a stimpack from the kit. As she injected it directly into his shoulder, she used her other hand to press gauze to the open wound where his arm had been. He would never get it back, but at least he would live. She used a piece of bandage to tie a tourniquet around his shoulder and cut off the arterial bloodflow and then strapped the open wound tightly. As the man weakly reached for her face and thanked her, she nodded at him and moved out again, heading to the next couple of blockades.

“Curie, what the hell are you doing?” a voice yelled.

Amarli was hardly a few feet away, standing in the doorway of Sturges’ house for cover, staring at Curie as if she was a ghost. She must have moved back towards the barricades when she saw that someone hadn’t fallen back with the rest of them.

Curie ignored her. She continued to crawl along the lines of tables and sandbags, already seeing a body a few feet away. A trio of Junkbots intercepted her and she ducked back as they swung at her head with wicked-looking saws. Her rifle wasn’t propped properly for her to shoot at them; they were too close. Either she let them cut her to pieces or she ran back to where she’d come from. There was the deafening rattle of bullets as a heavy weapon tore into all three of them at once, making them jerk and spark. Curie ducked and braced herself as one of them fell to pieces, another blew up in a shower of metal, and the third simply collapsed onto the pavement. There was shrapnel in Curie’s shoulder, but at least she was alive. She ignored the resonating pain and glanced up through her fingers to see Amarli watching her angrily, the barrels of her minigun smoking. “Get out of there!” she shouted.

Curie could only shake her head stubbornly. This was her job, and she was going to do it. Her systems were primed enough to tell her when she was immediate danger. She climbed to her feet and ran in a crouch, dropping to her knees beside the body she had seen from afar. When she saw it was Sturges lying there with an arm pressed to his stomach, she almost recoiled. “Monsieur, where are you hit?” she demanded in dismay.

“Hey there,” he murmured incoherently, blood running from the corner of his mouth. “You think you can get me outta here?”

Grimacing, she slung his arm over her shoulder and glanced back to where Amarli was. The woman paused in her shooting to meet Curie’s eyes, looking exasperated at not being obeyed. Then her eyes flitted to Sturges, perhaps understanding what Curie was doing, and they seemed to fill with reluctant respect. She nodded curtly. Curie straightened, no longer worried that she’d be shot or stabbed while carrying her friend to safety, and limped as fast as she could towards the first aid kit and her other two patients. At Amarli’s command, the rest of the soldiers moved to attack rather than defence, shooting at any of the remaining robots who tried to intercept Curie.

When Curie finally reached her checkpoint, her limbs were burning and she could taste coppery blood in her mouth. She must have bitten her tongue. As she set Sturges down and crouched to treat him, she heard another shout – another Minuteman had fallen. Quickly, she gave Sturges something to staunch the blood leaking from his gut, and sprinted to provide aid. The battle was already almost over, but there were so many who had been injured – most of them had continued to fight despite flesh wounds, but some had been fatally mutilated. Curie helped up a female Minuteman who had been crippled by one of the Junkbots. They limped together back towards Curie’s makeshift medical post, neither of them even bothering to return fire anymore. Once the lady had sat down against the sandbags and Curie had wrapped her leg with a bandage, checking on her other two patients only momentarily, she straightened and moved on again. Her mind was surrendered to duty; she was a combat medic, and her job was to retrieve and protect the fallen soldiers. She trusted that Amarli and Ada were defending her progress.

Finally, the last couple of robots were exterminated and Curie had carried a fifth live body back to her small group of patients. She was sweating and exhausted, and all of her muscles hurt, but she still checked on each and every charge, searching for fatalities, injecting stimpacks, binding wounds. There was one thing which provided her comfort even despite the shock of the battle and their losses; had she not risked her life to collect these people, they would have died out there. The number of fatalities had decreased significantly due to her effort. Stimpacks and other medical provisions were dwindling, however – if any of the others needed her help, they would need to wait until another nearby settlement or the Minutemen supply lines had provided resources.

The siren was finally disabled and Amarli began commanding her soldiers to check on all casualties and damage. Several of them did a full patrol of Sanctuary Hills, ensuring that all of the robots were demolished. The sky had lightened with the colours of dawn, and the street looked like a scene from Bosch’s Hell painting. Curie didn’t stop working, keeping her patients awake and handing all of them painkillers, moving in between the barricades and pulling bodies from beneath piles of rubble and metal scraps so they could be counted. It was only now that she was able to see the full extent of the damage the Mechanist had inflicted: most of the road had been torn up by bullets, the pavements had been blasted to pieces, and the house which Sturges had taken so long to repair and build had collapsed in on itself after several grenade blasts. Those perfect roof shingles were all smashed now, and the walls would never stand again. Sturges would be very upset.

Curie was glad to see that Marcy and Jun Long were both still alive and uninjured, and she saw Shaun from a distance as he ran over to hug his mother, free to move around now that the battle was over. Amarli was limping and her armour looked damaged, but Curie didn’t think it was anything incurable. She didn’t go over and join their little family reunion; she had ignored Amarli’s orders, and she figured she’d probably be in trouble. Best to stick to her job for now and prove she was actually doing something useful.

Sturges was in need of an operation to remove the bullets from his gut, but Curie couldn’t help him until she had a sterile room with the right apparatus. After she’d requested this from one of the Minutemen, they had gotten to work setting up one of the derelict houses as a surgery room. She was now just waiting restlessly, holding Sturges’ hand as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Several of the others would need surgery, too, but they at least did not have pieces of metal lodged inside them. Curie was in for a very long day.

“Hey, over here!” someone shouted.

Curie stood up and glanced over, seeing that Marcy and one of the uninjured Minutemen were crouching over the remains of Sturges’ house. They were tugging at something – an arm, connected to a body that was buried under the rubble. Nausea flared up in Curie’s gut as she jumped into action, grabbing what was left of the first aid kit and running to help.

The arm was still clothed in a baby-blue cardigan. Even before they removed the rest of the concrete from the corpse, she knew who it was. She’d seen Mama Murphy standing in the doorway of Sturges house before the battle started; she must have gone inside to find cover when the robots got too close, but the roof had caved in and crushed her. Curie covered her mouth with one hand, sickened by the dazed expression on Mama Murphy’s dead face. Even though she already knew what she’d find, she reached and pressed her fingers to the pulse point in her wrinkled neck. She looked up at Marcy Long and shook her head grimly.

“She’s dead?” For once, Marcy looked shocked and vulnerable. She turned away quickly with a hand pressed to her chest and her husband rushed to comfort her. They stood embracing in the middle of the road, surrounded by ruins, and Curie watched them without expression. Amarli had said they were all part of the original group who had first populated Sanctuary Hills. Curie herself had only known Mama Murphy for a few months. How must they feel?

She wiped sweat from her forehead and sat back on her haunches, trying to control her breathing. All she could really think – rather selfishly, in fact – was that she was glad it wasn’t Amarli who had died. Or Shaun. Was it so bad to value some human beings over others? Curie didn’t think so.

“Should we put her body with the others?” the Minuteman beside her asked.

“Leave her for now.” Curie touched Mama Murphy’s hand. “We must bury them before the sun hurries their decomposition, but we still have time.”

Mama Murphy had always been a kind old lady, even if she did have her vices. Her recuperation with Curie as her doctor had been going well recently. She’d been leaving her house more often and had been taking walks past the creek. There had been something about her, though, which had struck Curie as odd. She’d been much quieter than usual, and she spent more time alone, even when she was outside. It was as if… as if she’d been saying goodbye. As if she’d known that she was about to die.

Curie closed her eyes. Behind her, she heard a man calling her name: “Hey, Curie – we’ve fixed up a room for ya! You’ll have to set up all the equipment, but it’s clean and there’s good lighting. Want us to start moving people in?”

She waved a hand over her shoulder, too nauseous to stand up yet. “Thank you, Monsieur! No, I shall do that.”

A gentle hand landed on her shoulder, squeezing, and Curie opened her eyes in surprise to look up into Amarli’s kind face. She felt a jolt of warmth and desire, and then grim sadness. Mama Murphy and Sturges were Amarli’s friends, weren’t they? And Sanctuary Hills was her home – it had been her home for over two hundred years. How must she feel to have been attacked here, to have her friends killed, her family endangered?

Curie stood and threw her arms around the other woman, burying her face in her shoulder, wanting some sort of relief. Amarli clutched her back with a hint of desperacy. She still smelled wonderful beyond the sweat and blood; there was still sweet lavender and shampoo.

“I can’t believe you,” Amarli said quietly.

Curie pulled back, afraid she was in trouble. Amarli cupped her face with both hands, the green of her eyes bright still from the adrenaline of the battle, and added, “You were amazing.”

Curie froze. So Amarli was pleased with her, then? She had expected she would be in trouble for having disobeyed her orders.

“There were people who I could not save,” Curie clarified, her chest only just beginning to contract with sadness. “Wounds to the chest and gut are often very severe and difficult to treat-”

“It’s okay,” Amarli said softly. She smiled, stroking Curie’s cheek. “It’s okay, you did all you could.”

Curie’s lungs hurt when she breathed in, and there was a lump in her throat. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t realize why. It must have been the shock of having Sanctuary Hills attacked, the place she had thought was safer than any other settlement in the Commonwealth. She figured she hadn’t had time to recover from the shock because she’d been too busy trying to save people. Was this how it would always be from now on? Would these robots ever stop attacking them, trying to kill her friends and destroy her home?

“We’re okay, and that’s all that matters,” Amarli said. “And you’ve saved lives. You’re a regular hero.”

Curie was too distraught to blush and feel flattered. She simply glanced past Amarli to see Mama Murphy’s body. The old woman didn’t look like herself at all; she was grey. There were bruises already beginning to form where the rocks had been crushing her.

“She suffered,” Curie said matter-of-factly. Suddenly, all she could think about was numbers and facts; to the contrary of how it had always been in this body, now she could not put a name to any of her emotions and it was easier to look at things without feeling.

“Curie…” Amarli shook her head slightly, frowning. “Why would you say something like that?”

“I have made an examination.” She wrung her hands nervously, unable to hide her distress. “I could not help it.”

Amarli looked at her with concern, reaching for her hands and squeezing to make them still. “She looks peaceful. You don’t know that she suffered.”

Sharply, Curie shook her head. She tore her hands away and gestured to the corpse. The words bubbled out of her: “The tissues in parts of her body were compressed and died. When the pressure is released, a build-up of toxins from muscle breakdown floods the body and it is unable to cope.” Her mind whirled as she went through all the facts she had on the matter, unable to stop. “Being trapped in a confined space also means a rising temperature and an increase in carbon dioxide, which, if it reaches too high a level, leads to suffocation.”

Amarli’s eyes narrowed and she looked away as if she was reluctant to listen. The Longs and several of the Minutemen had turned to watch Curie as she spoke, drawn by her rising voice.

“It takes the average human seven minutes to die from complete loss of oxygen intake,” Curie clarified. “Normal room air is approximately 21% oxygen. Impairment of cognitive and motor function can manifest at oxygen concentrations of 10 to 15%, loss of consciousness at less than 10%, while death usually occurs at less than 8%...”

“Curie, stop,” Amarli warned her softly.

“It is a fact, Madame. If I had discovered her much sooner, or if the rubble had not crushed her body, she may have been resuscitated…”

Amarli’s face darkened. She grabbed Curie’s shoulders violently, forcing her to look her in the eye, shaking her. “Curie, stop it, for god’s sake!”

Curie could do nothing but stare at her, shocked. Amarli’s fingertips were digging into her shoulders but she was too scared to tell her that it hurt. This was the most emotion she had ever gotten out of her friend. 

Amarli noticed her mistake and her hands released Curie at once, her face lined with guilt. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“It is okay, Madame,” Curie said quietly.

“How can you possibly think this is your fault?”

Curie could feel everyone watching them, and she wished she and Amarli were alone. She swallowed thickly and lowered her eyes to the ground.

“She’s right,” Marcy Long said, surprising everyone, her voice uneven. “It’s not your fault. We all saw what you were doing, running around and dragging people out of danger. All you did today was save people.”

“Yeah, you did good.” The Minuteman who had discovered Mama Murphy awkwardly reached forwards and patted her shoulder. “We owe it to you.”

“Thank you,” Curie said quietly, her voice barely audible. With tears now falling properly, she tried to struggle against them quietly, overcome by her own distress. To her surprise, Amarli reached and wiped them away for her.

“I hate it when you cry,” she said lightly.

Curie tried to stop, but it was no use. She hiccupped, and then tentatively asked, “Why?”

“Because I don't like knowing you're suffering.” Amarli raised a hand and stroked Curie’s face. “Come here.”

Curie wrapped her arms around Amarli’s waist, feeling calm instantly at her touch. She rubbed the tears away with her fingers and let the shock and anxiety from the battle come leaking out of her. Amarli’s arms closed around her and swayed her gently from side to side. Everyone else had already moved away, giving them some privacy.

“Do you ever cry?” Curie finally managed to ask, her voice muffled.

“I haven’t for a long time,” Amarli mused. “But I do, yes. Sometimes the only way to feel better is to let all the emotions out.”

Curie moved her head in a nod of agreement. She thought for a long moment. “I do not ever want to see you cry.”

Amarli didn’t answer for a while, and Curie continued to grow calmer and calmer in her embrace. Finally, Amarli said, “Hopefully you won’t have to.”

“I think Madame Murphy knew she was going to die,” Curie said.

Amarli stopped swaying. “What?”

“There were signs.”

Amarli’s hand stroked over the back of her head. “She was right about the Mechanist – he’s endangering our whole way of life here. He’s attacked our home, killed our friends, taken away our security...”

“He must die.”

Surprised, Amarli pulled back to stare down at Curie’s face. Curie didn’t normally say such simple, emotionally-driven things. Curie did not hate things in the way that other people did. But she could not say that she believed the Mechanist deserved anything other than death after what had happened today, and what had been happening all over the Commonwealth. Just one attack could take away everything she loved.

“He will,” Amarli said after a moment. “You and I will stop him.”

“And Ada.”

She smiled faintly. “Yes, and Ada. And Preston Garvey. And anyone else who’s up for saving the world and getting some revenge.”

“Will we be safe here anymore?”

“I don’t know. None of the settlements have been attacked twice before. But the Mechanist could have targeted us on purpose. Maybe he knows who I am, and he knows I live here.”

“So we must get him before he gets us,” Curie said.

“Exactly.”

Curie reached forwards and hugged Amarli again, enjoying the embrace more than she wanted to admit. Now wasn’t the time to be giving into her feelings, but there was something about narrowly surviving death which made her rethink everything. When she pulled back, she looked over to where the injured were all sitting and sighed. “I must go into surgery,” she said.

“So you’re like a real doctor now, huh?” Amarli smirked half-heartedly.

“I know enough to help them.” Curie tried not to look at Mama Murphy’s corpse. “Madame, I will see you later.”

“You did good today,” Amarli said, grabbing her attention. “Even if you ignored every single thing I said, I’m proud of you.”

Curie nodded, squeezed Amarli’s hand, and then left her. She sensed that the other woman was watching her closely as she walked away.

 ---

1 WEEK LATER

Right now, Sturges’ building was no more than an ugly skeleton on steel girders and prefabricated concrete slabs. After Preston had sent ten more Minutemen to Sanctuary Hills to help with the rebuilding and to provide extra defence, they had cleared away all of the rubble left behind from the battle and begun to store materials for repair. Amarli oversaw the entire project, especially since Sturges was still in recovery. Curie had removed all three bullets from his gut and the wounds had been closed, but he had developed an infection. After a week, he was still sleeping for most of the day and needed to be sustained by IV. Curie took very good care of him, abandoning her own work in the lab so that she could sit by his bed and ensure he was getting better. Even Shaun visited him at least once a day to keep him company. The Longs had gone to see him only after his operation, but they had left quickly to return home. Amarli hadn’t seen them for a while.

Only Mama Murphy was absent. She had left a gap in the neighbourhood that could not be filled. Two days after the battle, when the rest of the Minutemen finally arrived, Amarli had made them carry all the dead bodies up the hill to where Nate’s grave was. She had them dig five more holes and spent an afternoon engraving slabs of concrete herself to use as gravestones. Mama Murphy’s grave was next to Nate’s, and Amarli couldn’t help but think that at least her husband wasn’t all alone now in his secluded graveyard. If Nate knew about everything Amarli had gone through so far – first the Institute, and now the Mechanist – he’d have burst out laughing. He’d always told her she had the worst luck. She attracted danger like a magnet, and extraordinary things always seemed to happen around her.

Amarli had never been much of a leader when she was growing up. She’d been the type of kid who preferred books and comics over socialising with her friends. She’d liked to build radios, fix her own toys, go to the drive-in to watch sci-fi movies. So how had she made herself the General of the Minutemen? How had she become one of the most well-known heroes in the Commonwealth? Many of her friends had told her after the fall of the Institute that, had she not come along, no changes would have been made. Somehow, despite her characteristic desire to be alone, to stay out of the spotlight, she had forced herself to do exactly the opposite. She became the symbol of transformation. Her need for revenge and redemption had led her directly into the Institute, and her desire to do what was right had burned the Institute to the ground. And then it was her duty which took over the Minutemen and expanded it throughout the wasteland, improving lives where she could. Now… perhaps it had been because she wanted excitement that she’d drawn the Mechanist’s attention. She’d wanted to be in the grit, fighting monsters, living on a high, and she had only ended up becoming a target. Mama Murphy had been killed because of her recklessness, and Sturges had almost gone the same way. Settlers all over the Commonwealth were suffering the way they had when the Institute had still been in power, and for weeks now Amarli had been doing nothing about it. It was only now that her incredibly safe home had been attacked that she woke up to the danger that the Mechanist posed.

So, once the Minutemen had a handle on the rebuilding of Sanctuary Hills and there was ten times the defence as there had been last time, Amarli would be heading out to retrieve the radar beacon. She didn’t care how underprepared she was, or even whether or not Ada and Curie would come with her. It needed to be done before anyone else got hurt. And she desperately wanted revenge.

She worked extra hard with the Minutemen after the attack, ordering them around, cutting their breaks, getting materials delivered through the settlement supply lines, and even getting her own hands dirty trying to manufacture a new and improved defence system. The turrets she had spent two sleepless nights designing would shoot missiles rather than the usual bullets, and they could fire multiple times within a second thanks to their triple barrels. She had been designing contraptions and weapons since she first arrived in the Commonwealth, letting her mechanical imagination run wild, but she’d never gotten herself into designing such lethal things. She liked to assemble machines which were useful in day-to-day life; she hadn’t imagined these missile turrets would become such machines.

As much as she liked building, and as frantic as she was now to finish off the reconstruction of Sanctuary Hills so she could head out and find that final radar beacon, her work was going much slower than she liked. Most of the Minutemen were still injured, and the new soldiers were skilled for defence, not hard labour. Curie – bless her – had her hands full most of the time just playing doctor and trying to be there for anyone who needed her, so she couldn’t be much help to Amarli. She spent her days walking between the tech lab in Amarli’s bedroom and the little clinic she’d set up in the house next door.

Today, on one of her rare afternoons off, she had come out to spend time with Amarli while she was putting together the first of the missile turrets. Her soft, unskilled hands weren’t very helpful with the actual building, but she had made herself useful by passing tools whenever they were needed. She sat on a patio chair beside the porch space where Amarli worked, a baseball cap perched on her head and still wearing her lab coat. Shaun was with Sturges currently and everyone else was busy with re-paving the road and moving rubble. They were more or less alone.

Amarli had come to value her time spent alone with Curie even more than before. After Mama Murphy’s loss, and the loss of several others in that battle, it was Curie who seemed to care about what Amarli was feeling the most. She had been there for Sturges and all those other people who could have died – she had saved important lives. Amarli realized now that Curie’s existence allowed her to focus on the greater good rather than the lives she came into contact with. Curie watched over her friends and family, and Amarli made the big decisions that would change the rest of the Commonwealth. Mama Murphy may have been right about how much Curie would bring to the table; she had seemed vulnerable and untrustworthy before, but she had become an invaluable member of Amarli’s team.

“Blowtorch, please,” Amarli said, wiping sweat from her forehead with a rag she’d had tucked in the waistband of her jeans. Immediately, Curie picked a piece of equipment from the tray beside her and tossed it over with measured dexterity. Amarli caught it and flipped down the visor of her helmet to protect her eyes from the sparks. As she welded two curved plates of metal together, concentrating so as to keep the line smooth and straight, she could sense that Curie was watching her closely.

Finally, with the plates finished and rapidly cooling, she set the blowtorch and welding rod down and took off her helmet. After a few deep breaths of humid air, she glanced down at Curie and raised her eyebrows. “I’m exhausted. Will you have a beer with me?”

“Yes!” Curie said quickly. “I would love to.”

She walked over to the backdoor and rapped on it. “Codsworth, would you mind-?”

“Already on it, mum!” Codsworth called cheerily, kicking open the door and already hovering out with two ice-cold Gwinnet bottles in his metal claws.

She grinned at his efficiency. “Now that’s my favourite Mr Handy.”

“Where would you like them, mum?”

“Just on the table over here is fine.” Amarli pulled off her gloves, plucking at the fingers one by one as she waited for Codsworth to put the drinks down and go back inside. Curie had crossed her legs, still somehow fitting in the patio chair, and had taken her hat off. She watched as Amarli put her apron, gloves and helmet to the side and came to sit in the patio chair opposite the table. They smiled at each other, the sort of bright sunny smile that meant they didn’t even need to speak to ask if anything was amiss. For the first time in a week, they were both almost satisfied. Amarli grabbed her beer and took a thirsty swig, glancing back across the porch to the road. Three Minutemen were heaving bags of cement across the street to Sturges’ house. Another two were working on filling in the cracks in the road.

“It is looking much better, I think,” Curie said positively.

“You’re right.” Amarli frowned, however. “Have you… been down to the graves yet?”

“Yes.” Curie was quieter now. “It is a requirement as a human being that I must pay my respects to the deceased.”

Hardly even thinking about it, Amarli found herself reaching across the table and grabbing Curie’s free hand, giving it an affectionate squeeze. “We’re lucky to have you.”

“The Minutemen are lucky to have you,” Curie insisted. “You are doing everything in your power to protect your people, Madame. Even I can see that, and I do not have much data on leadership.”

“My power isn’t all that it used to be,” Amarli sighed.

“You are very powerful. You are… extraordinary. I think you are letting these losses weigh too much on your guilt.” Curie sat forward. “In every war, lives are lost. This is a war. And war never--”

“War never changes,” Amarli interrupted automatically, turning to stare at her friend in disbelief. She swallowed against the dryness of her throat, and for a second she saw the tall, lean form of her husband sprawled in the chair beside her. If he were here, he’d have smiled at her with that usual glint in his eye and then he’d have sobered up; perhaps he’d have confided in her how worried he was about the future ahead of them, how worried he was that next time he went to war, he would never come back. Her heart clenched with its usual throb of grief, and she lowered her eyes to the ring on her finger. It was terribly unfair how Nate had died before all of this, how he’d been unable to see the woman she had become. It was also unfair how much freer she had felt without him, able to be exactly who she’d always wanted to be.

“Madame?” Curie looked concerned. “Did I say something to upset you?”

“No, no, it’s just… I was thinking about my husband, Nate,” she admitted. “He always used to say that – that ‘war never changes’. I’d roll my eyes and ignore him until the next time he told me, and the next. He repeated it like a mantra over and over until I thought it would drive me mad.” She glanced up from her ring and met Curie’s eyes over the table. “And then he died, and it became my mantra, giving me everything I needed to survive. Ironic, isn’t it? War doesn’t change. Even now it follows the same rules as it has for thousands of years.”

Curie didn’t speak for a long moment, looking at her partly in awe. “Your husband… it seems he must have been a brilliant man.”

Amarli nodded. “Well, yes. He was never the smartest, or the strongest, or the fastest. But he was brilliant. Nate had this way of thinking that put him far above everyone else, and I loved him for it.”

“And you still love him?” Curie ventured.

“Yes, of course. I mean, it’s different now he’s gone. But I’ll always appreciate him for…” Amarli trailed off, steeling herself. “For what he did for me.”

Now she had caught Curie’s attention. “But what did he do for you?” she asked inquisitively.

“It’s a long story.”

“I would very much like to hear it.” Her cheeks pinked. “Of course, only if you are comfortable.”

Amarli laughed a little awkwardly. “It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my pre-war life with anybody. Normally I prefer to keep it to myself.”

“Oh.” Curie cleared her throat. “I am sorry, Madame, if I-”

“No,” Amarli said, frowning. “No, no… I didn’t mean it like that.” She put her beer bottle down and tucked one leg under her, turning to face Curie. “I’ll answer anything you want. I think I owe you that much. You’ve never really heard anything about my life from before.”

Curie nodded meekly. “This is true. And I admit, I have had certain confusions about how you have changed. You had a husband, and now you…” She blushed again. “Now, you do not seem to like men.”

Amarli smirked. “That’s another story altogether.”

The other woman looked at her expectantly.

“Right.” Amarli tried to think of a place to start. “So, we’ll have to begin with my childhood, I guess. I never had boyfriends growing up. As a matter of fact, I was never interested in any of the boys who were interested in me. When I was in school, when the rest of my friends were swooning over movie stars and such, I was bored and uninterested. I had plenty of male friends, of course, but I was just never… physically attracted to them.”

Curie blinked at her curiously. “So, you realized you were…?”

“Gay, yes. I realized when I was about sixteen that there really was something different about me. My first real interest in anyone was one of my female teachers.” Amarli smiled just thinking about it. “She was this beautiful older woman, and I used to look forward to every class with her because I could subtly stare at her for about an hour. I never actually told anyone about my realization. I’d hardly even heard much about gay people. My parents were very conservative, and they’d always sheltered me from such things. Back then, people like me were not welcomed by society at all. We were frowned upon, even despised.”

“Ah.” Curie sagged a little bit. “You underwent a personal crisis at such a difficult time.”

Amarli smiled at her. “I’m glad you understand. But it wasn’t really so bad. When I finished high school, I wanted to go to a university across the country to do engineering, somewhere I could be myself where my parents wouldn’t be watching. But – as you know – they had other plans for me. So I ended up doing law here in Boston.”

“You must have been a very intelligent lawyer,” Curie decided.

“I was good at it. Honestly, I liked to think I was good at anything. And my time at university turned out to be some of the greatest years of my life.” Amarli was forced for a second to relive those days in her youth, when the third world war was barely beginning to stir, and she’d had new friends who loved her. “Since I knew I was interested in women, and since university is normally the place people like to explore themselves in every way, I began to look around for anyone who was interested in me. There was was a fairly overwhelming response, believe it or not. Finally, I could confirm who I was. I had a couple of lovers, though I kept them under wraps. We could never publicly show our affection, especially with me training to be a lawyer. It could have destroyed my career before it even started.”

“Would it have mattered?” Curie asked. “You said you did not wish to study law in the first place. Perhaps you could have been happier with a woman, training to be something else, yes?

“Perhaps.” Amarli shrugged. “But I think that life would have been much harder. And as much as I hated how little my parents accepted and understood me, I didn’t want to lose them forever.” She rolled her eyes. “Well – I did, eventually. Someone at the university must have told them I was sleeping around with girls, and they didn’t take it lightly when they found out. My mother wouldn’t even see me.” She took another swig of beer, sighing. “After that, I didn’t talk to them except to say ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Birthday’. It hurt a lot at first but soon I just began to detest them and their lack of interest in my wellbeing. I had friends who I considered family. One of my greatest friends at university was Nate.”

“Oh!” Curie smiled in understanding. “So, he did know you were…?”

“He knew everything, and he'd never really cared. I always had this sense that he might have been in love with me once, but he never tried to make a move on me. He respected who I was. We loved each other the way very good friends do, and I knew even after one year that I would like to know him for the rest of my life.”

“What happened?”

“I’d taken too many liberties in exploring my sexuality. Most of the university knew how ‘out there’ I was. Plenty of people looked down on me. There was this rumor going around that I would never be a lawyer, that I’d fail university – after all, who'd trust a dyke to defend them in court? And my parents of course fed on it and hated me even more. They told me I’d be homeless, that I’d have no one to turn to, if I didn’t fix the issue before I graduated.”

“You married Nate.”

“Yes. I talked to him about all of it. I’d broken up with the woman I was seeing at the time, even though I might even have been in love with her. As much as it upset me, I didn’t want to lose everything just because of who I was. Nate was a pretty selfless guy – I think, even if he didn’t love me, he would have wanted to marry me just to help me out of that mess. He didn’t pressure me into it. In fact, it was only a suggestion at first, but I seized it. Who better to marry than your best friend in the whole world?”

“So…” Curie looked confused, still. “But you had a son, yes? So you were attracted to Nate later on?”

“Not really. We got married as the great war was beginning, and Nate had to enlist in the army. Actually, my parents were much happier with me then – they liked him a lot. But they were like strangers to me at that point, and Nate was my only real family. Nate started leaving for long periods of time to serve in the war, and while he was gone I’d be sleeping with women, doing what I’d always done in university. It was a wonderful little set-up. I was always happier when he was home, though. We lived in this little apartment in the city, and some of the happiest times of my life were spent there with him.

“Eventually, it was the war that made both of us realize we were in danger of never being able to settle down. The year that I’d gotten my law diploma and we’d gotten married, the war had become terrible. We were constantly in danger, it seemed, and it felt like we’d never be safe. While it wasn’t the best time to bring a child into the world, we both knew we wanted children and didn’t know if we’d ever be able to if we waited too long. So, we tried for one, and we were successful.” Amarli smiled with nostalgia. “We had Shaun, and he was wonderful. I didn’t need to be that attracted to Nate to want to have a child with him. I loved him, and that was enough. Of course, the rest is history – you know what happened after we had Shaun. Nate was going to give his speech at the Veterans’ Hall, titled ‘War Never Changes’. We never made it there.”

Curie’s face crumpled with sadness. “Oh…”

Amarli shrugged. “I wouldn’t say my life before the war was perfect in any way, even if it seems wonderful compared to what happened after. When I was pregnant with Shaun, I knew already that I’d have to sacrifice that part of myself that was interested in women. I could not be sleeping with other people while Shaun was growing up in our household. Nate had heard stories about children who suffered psychological issues later on in life due to having an unstable home. We talked about it, and I eventually resolved to dedicate myself to him, at least until Shaun was old enough to understand. So… I was living a suppressed life. As happy as I was, that happiness probably wouldn’t have lasted for long.”

“And in the Commonwealth, you found it did not matter, yes?”

“Yes.” Amarli sighed. “Of course, I miss Nate. After everything that’s happened, I miss him the way I’d miss a piece of me. He was my family. But there are things that I must admit are better now. I have freedom. Before the war, a woman could never have been the things I am today. I’m the general of an army and people look to me as a hero. I can more or less sleep with anyone I want, and go anywhere I want. I can spend my days doing exactly what I’d always wanted to do: mechanical engineering. It’s like the world would only let me do the things I wanted if I made one big sacrifice: no more white picket fences, no more playing happy families, no more safety…”

“I am sorry.”

“Me too.” Amarli looked out over the sunny road of Sanctuary Hills, seeing the neighborhood it used to be mirrored against the one it was now. “It’s been a long journey since I woke up in that vault, but if I said I’d change any minute of it, no matter how hard and terrible it was, I’d be lying to myself." She turned to Curie with a smirk. "If I’d done anything differently, I probably wouldn’t have met you.”

Curie smiled, looking adorably flattered. “Oh, that is… you are very sweet. I am glad as well. They do say the longest and toughest journeys are normally the most rewarding.”

“Exactly.” Amarli grinned. “So, there you go. My life confined to a little speech. What did you think?”

“I think I would have liked to have known you before,” Curie said seriously.

“Why’s that?”

“I could have helped you.”

“As a robot?”

“If I had been human.” Curie frowned. “I think I would have struggled in very much the same way.”

Now it was Amarli’s turn to be confused. “What do you mean?”

Curie paled suddenly. She cleared her throat and put down her half-full bottle of beer, grabbing her cap off the arm of her chair. “I – I have just realized, I have a job to do.”

“You… really?” Amarli stood up and looked at the other woman worriedly. “Curie, is everything all right?”

“Yes, yes, it is fine. I am sorry, I must go.” Still looking pale, Curie bowed her head and left quickly around the side of the house, heading for her makeshift clinic. Amarli gaped after her, not quite understanding the rapid change of events. She wasn’t sure if it was the story of her past or something Curie had said afterwards which had made her flee. I would have struggled in very much the same way – what did that mean, really? She was missing something.  

She sat back down and finished her beer in two gulps, shifting her mind to the task at hand. Now the armoured shell of the turret had been formed, she’d need to work on the engine and the missile barrels. It was work for the rest of the afternoon and tomorrow morning. Then, as she’d promised Shaun, he’d get to test fire it up on the hill.

Sighing, Amarli donned her apron, gloves and mask and got back to work.

 ---

Perhaps it was just her imagination, but Amarli felt as if Curie was ignoring her for the rest of the day. She saw her several times, twice visiting Sturges, once walking Angustia and Dogmeat up the road, and another time just standing and watching the Minutemen work on clearing up the rubble of Sturges’ house. She’d had her hands in the pockets of her lab coat, her stance particularly closed-off, and Amarli had watched her for a full ten minutes while she smoked a cigarette on break. Curie always had her up and down moments, but she really had been acting so odd since she returned from Goodneighbor. She was back to being cuddly and cute, but there was something much more serious that she seemed to be hiding. Amarli had already known that. After she’d seen Curie break down crying before she left Goodneighbor, she’d had a feeling that there was something going on. She had realized at this point that Curie was doing what most humans do: harboring secrets. Amarli knew to let her alone. She had her emotional crises to deal with as she developed fully as a human, and there were some things she needed to do by herself.

Still, Amarli really wanted to know what was going on.

When Codsworth reminded her about dinner, Amarli went in to have a shower and ask Shaun how his day had been. By the time they were sitting down for their meal, Curie had returned from the clinic and looked exhausted. Amarli thought the exhaustion must be more mental than physical. The other woman didn’t talk much, but she shot Amarli cautionary glances throughout the meal, and although they were subtle, Amarli couldn’t possibly miss them. The good thing about Curie being involuntarily honest and unable to hide things: Amarli always knew when something was wrong. She decided to give her space until they were alone, so they could talk without the worry of someone overhearing them.

After checking over the work that the Minutemen had done that day and dismissing all of them to sleep, she returned to the house and sat in with Shaun for a little while, talking to him about Mama Murphy. She left him shortly after, switching off his light and stepping out into the hallway. When she entered her own room, she almost crashed straight into Curie, who looked as if she was just about to leave. Amarli clutched her arm to steady her, feeling her flinch in surprise. Softening her hold, Amarli absently grazed her skin with her thumb, then ducked her head and studied her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. You all right?”

Curie nodded stiffly, her gaze fastened to the hand on her arm.

Worry wrinkled the bridge of Amarli’s nose; with both hands, she turned Curie around properly to face her. Amarli could swear she felt a hint of a tremble. “No, I can feel it,” she said grimly. “Something’s bothering you.”

Curie jerked back from her hold, crossing her arms. “No!” she said much too quickly. “It is… nothing.” She turned away. “I must get ready for bed. It is late.”

Amarli watched her, nonplussed, as she crossed the room and began digging through the drawers, her back turned and her shoulders squared as if in defence. Eventually, she couldn’t help herself. She asked, “Curie… did I do or say something to upset you earlier?”

Curie stopped. “No.”

Although she wanted to ask more questions, Amarli bit her tongue and decided to give the other woman space. Again. Space, space, and more space. When would she be able to push through this awkward wall between them?

She left the room and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. Just as she was finishing up and had braided her hair for sleep, she turned to see that Curie was standing in the doorway. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest and she looked forlorn.

“I am sorry,” Curie sighed.

Amarli frowned at her. “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m just… surprised you’re hiding things from me. I thought we were always honest with each other.”

“Some things I cannot be honest about, Madame. It is essential I keep them to myself.”

Stepping closer, Amarli tucked her thumb under Curie’s chin and raised her head; an easy, affectionate gesture that both of them had grown used to. This time, however, the woman’s lips parted and her eyes flashed. It was at the sharp intake of breath that Amarli saw it: the soft blush in her cheeks and the skittish look in her eyes. Sudden understanding sent a stab of shock through her body, thinning the air in her lungs. Amarli’s gaze became softer, taking in the vulnerability in Curie’s eyes, the uncertainty in her face, and she drew her hand away slowly to put some distance in between them.

“Curie,” she said firmly. “You can tell me anything.”

“It is not so important…” Curie trailed off, and Amarli could see the rapid pulse in the base of her throat moving as her chest rose and fell with each breath. She was purposefully looking anywhere but into Amarli’s eyes, her cheeks still pink against the pallor of her skin. Finally, Curie painstakingly cleared her throat and said, “You are so very, very distracting. You know this, yes?”

Amarli’s gaze was drawn to her lips, parted and full, and the sound of her shallow breathing filled her with a sudden and fierce longing. It made her recoil in surprise, trying to swallow down the abrupt outburst of emotion before it got out of hand. After that dream the other night, and the dreams she’d had on subsequent nights, Amarli supposed she should have seen something like this coming. She’d been aware of her own reluctant attraction, but she hadn’t exactly expected an answering interest from the woman in question. Amarli sighed, drawing away. She turned back to the mirror, but she could still see Curie in the reflection, and she still couldn’t drag her eyes away from her face. “So, you’re distracted? Is that it?” she asked lightly.

Curie had the grace to look embarrassed, her eyelashes fluttering as she stared resolutely down at the floor. She seemed to be having a hard time stringing words together, which wasn’t very unusual for her – still, the lack of enthusiasm and certainty was out of character. It was endearing to see her struggling with an emotion of any kind, but knowing why she was struggling now was bothersome. Amarli felt as if she had ripped a band-aid off a raw wound; there were so many things about Curie right now which were confusing. After months of knowing one another, of living in the same house and sleeping in the same bed, Curie was unable to even speak to her about how she felt. And she felt ‘distracted’. At least her barrage of questions from earlier made sense now – all her attempts to figure out Amarli’s past, and her sexuality, and the people she had loved. Curie was evidently trying to justify her own interest. For a little over a month now, Curie had been acting very unusual, very secretive. It turned out she had been going through an intense crisis of her own, and Amarli hadn’t even known about it. She wasn’t sure if she felt guilty for not being there, or if she was upset with Curie for not telling her. Even if this situation was strange, they should be able to trust each other.

She turned around and took Curie’s hand. “It’s all right,” she said softly.

“You are not angry?”

Amarli raised her eyebrows. “Why would I be angry? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Curie looked even more embarrassed than before. “But it is… you know, it changes things, yes?”

“No.”

“No?” Curie rubbed her forehead. “Oh, I am confused.”

Amarli laughed. “If I’m being really honest, I’ll say I am genuinely surprised you’re not… you know, attracted to men.”

“Me also,” Curie agreed.

“Maybe I never saw you being attracted to anyone.”

Curie looked slightly distressed. “Are you not upset? You are my closest friend. I would not like to lose you.”

“Well, I’m flattered – obviously.”

“Really?” Her eyes locked on Amarli’s face and an embarrassed little smile broke out on her face. “You are not making any of this easier... you.”

“I know.” Amarli’s eyes automatically swept over her once more, and as she saw the vulnerability in those wide eyes, heard the tremulous breathing drifting from those soft, parted lips, she felt her smile fade. Her heart beat hard and fast in the base of her throat as she swallowed down her desire to move closer. It was possible that she’d subconsciously noticed Curie’s interest in her and developed an interest of her own. That must be it. She’d been trying so hard to treat Curie platonically, and she didn’t think it was a good idea to stop. Still… when Curie was looking at her like that, all rosy-cheeked and embarrassed, with her appealing French accent and her delicate sensibilities, she was absolutely the most attractive thing that Amarli had ever seen.

In a slow and careful motion, her hands reached up and cupped the sides of Curie’s face. The other woman flinched, but only slightly, and then she leaned into Amarli’s body almost immediately, as if drawn by a magnet. And that was that – Amarli needed hardly any more encouragement to forget her principles.

She didn’t try to kiss her. She wasn’t sure she was senseless enough to try. But seeing Curie so affected by her, the way she had been affected herself so many times before, just made Amarli crave at least the touching of her. She stroked her fingertips over Curie’s face, thumbs lightly tracing her cheekbones, then moving across the bridge of her nose, the arches of her eyebrows, her forehead. Amarli’s fingers trailed into the silk of her dark hair and then returned to her velvety cheeks, moving ever downwards, mapping out her face so she would be able to tell how she looked even with her eyes closed. As she paused to feather the pad of her thumb over Curie’s lips, she felt the warmth of her breath as it caught, and while it shook something in her, she was too captivated to want to stop. Curie looked both confused and awed. “Madame… I think--”

“I can stop.”

Curie grabbed her wrist as she began to pull away. “No, no.”

For what seemed like a long, long time, Amarli paused. She didn’t really know what she was doing, or where it would go. But if Curie was all right with it – if she didn’t want her to stop – then there was no reason to hesitate. She let her fingers follow the line of Curie’s jaw, and then stroke the soft, sensitive skin of her throat, searching for the movement of her pulse. It was beating evenly, although a little bit fast, and Amarli could imagine blood pumping just beneath the skin. She felt dizzy with the sudden desire to touch her lips to that point, to tenderly kiss the pulse that made Curie alive and inexplicably human. The silence around them was already deafening, and she felt faint with the implications of what she was doing. Was this already going too far?

Amarli paused again to clear her head, her fingers dancing along Curie’s collarbone, and then cupped her shoulders, feeling the delicate bones beneath the warm flesh. She cleared her throat. “Your skin is so... perfect. Is that a synth thing?”

“The synth regenerative process is very efficient. However, I do develop a scar if the wound is deep, as the skin grows back unevenly--”

Amarli couldn’t help but laugh, clearing up a little bit of the tension. “Okay, never mind – switch off the scientist for a moment.”

Curie smiled awkwardly. “Sorry.”

They were hardly touching apart from with their hands, but Amarli couldn’t imagine a more intimate embrace. It was different to how it had been before. Touching Curie, knowing that there was some sort of spark there now, was thrilling. Curie was looking straight into her face, examining it so intensely that it felt like she was physically touching her in return. With a sigh, Amarli told herself to snap out of it. She reached for both of her hands, and the woman offered them up without any resistance, still staring at Amarli without saying a word.

“You know I care about you very much, but... this cannot happen.” Nevertheless, Amarli raised those delicate, slender fingers to her lips and kissed them. It was a mild indulgence – affectionate without being too sexual. But it was enough. And then, because she was too caught up, she softly kissed the insides of the wrists, too, and the faintly calloused palms, glancing up each time to gauge Curie’s captivated reaction. Her skin was so clean and smooth, and again Amarli wondered if that was because she was a synth or if it was because she went to such lengths to maintain her body. She hadn’t felt anything like it.

Ever so slightly, the other woman was now smiling with a swirling mixture of affection and anxiety. “You are confusing me,” she said.

“I’m sorry.” Amarli kept Curie’s wrist pressed to her mouth for several long seconds before she let her go, knowing she should back away. She didn’t want to. Her lips seared with the delivery of such affection, and she was almost scared of what she might be driven to do next.

“Are you okay?” she asked unevenly.

Hesitantly, Curie nodded. She reached daringly for Amarli’s hand and lifted it to her face again. “Please,” she said. 

“Curie-”

The other woman’s hand covered her own, trapping it against her cheek. And then, with uncertainty, she turned her head to kiss Amarli’s palm in turn. In fact, it was barely a kiss – a light press of lips to skin – but it was enough to bring Amarli to sudden recognition.

Curie initiating anything was like a shock to the brain. She was a little bit more like the version of herself in Amarli’s dreams. Amarli felt wrong – she felt almost sickened by herself. She was so attracted to Curie right now that she was in danger of losing her carefully maintained control, which had never quite happened before. But Curie was not one of those women in Goodneighbor or Diamond City. She couldn’t be an easy fling, or even an affair. She was a synth, first and foremost, manufactured from Shaun’s DNA. That made this all shades of wrong. Amarli was, in some twisted way, her grandmother;her ancestor. And, second of all, she had the countenance of a child – she may look like a woman, but she had only been properly alive for a few months. She knew nothing about this; she knew nothing of desire, or attraction, or sex. Did she?

Either way, whatever Amarli had just caught herself doing was completely and utterly wrong.

She looked worriedly into Curie’s eyes. Curie seemed just as vulnerable as she had before; now she looked stricken as well. “But…” She grasped desperately for words. “You have stopped?”

“I’m sorry,” Amarli whispered. She dropped her hand and let out a breath of frustration, returning her fingers to her braid so she wouldn’t be tempted to touch Curie again. “I should have never started this, and I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

Curie stared at her for a few seconds with impassivity, and then glanced away. She shuffled a little bit, fidgeting with the sleeve of her shirt. “This is… very overpowering. This feeling.” She frowned. “I just want to – to touch you. Always. Why must you be so very beautiful?”

All at once, Amarli’s hands seemed to itch with the need to touch Curie again, too. She wanted to run her hands over every inch of that soft skin and cover the same space with her mouth. She wanted to feel Curie sigh and shiver again –

She wanted Curie to belong to her in more ways than just one. Amarli craved her, in that moment, more than she had craved anyone else. Curie wasn’t even the kind of woman she was normally interested in. She was small, shy, sweet, vulnerable, and answered to nothing but science with any real passion. And yet this made her extremely charming, almost magnetizing. It was a dangerous combination, especially with that accent of hers. Amarli had long ago sworn she would protect Curie at all costs, but she hadn’t realized she might end up being the one to hurt her the most.

With a heavy sigh, she forced herself to step past Curie and return to the door. She felt jittery and full of adrenaline, like she was high. So close, yet so far. Curie didn’t even turn to look at her; the feeling of rejection must be just as new as her feelings, and Amarli wished she had an idea of how to help her. This was an absolute mess.

“Get ready for bed, okay?” she suggested, trying to act as if nothing had just happened. “I’ll be back in five minutes – I, er, just need to get some fresh air.”

In the mirror, Curie’s face fell completely, and Amarli turned away so she wouldn’t have to look at her crippling disappointment. Her own disappointment was impairing enough.

Chapter Text

Curie, Amarli and Ada were sitting around the meeting table next to the kitchen, each of them poring over the notes and information that Ada had provided. This time spent together was crucial; it would ensure that they could get to that radar beacon without being killed instantly by the Rust Devils – unbeknownst to any of them, this was a Raider-like faction which had been rising slowly in the Commonwealth. They scrapped parts from robots and hacked machines to protect and fight for them. They were considerably more dangerous and much better at defence than any of the other Raider or Gunner gangs in the Commonwealth. Ada had been collecting information on them for almost a month now, using the Minutemen and settlers to feed her data banks; apparently, Rust Devils had been occupying most of the old forts and army bases. They lived well-fortified and well-supplied by pre-war armories. The place where Ada had detected another Robobrain – the Robobrain they needed – was extremely secure. Just getting into the fort would be life-threatening.

Curie was scared. Just the notion of fighting a wave of robots again, this time alongside Raiders, made her wonder if any of them would return in one piece. To think that they would be doing all this just to get to a tiny piece of metal seemed illogical. But Curie knew better than to question Amarli’s judgement. Amarli always knew best, and despite everything, Curie still trusted her completely.

“Getting into Fort Hagen Satellite Array is much less of a problem than the Rust Devils themselves,” Ada said. “They are ruthless. My old caravan encountered them once while crossing the river into the city. What they can’t capture and reprogram, they strip for spare parts. I realize they pose a greater threat to me than either of you… but I want you to be well-informed.”

Curie swallowed thickly. She looked like a human, and there was no way the Rust Devils would be able to tell what she actually was, but if they found out… would they want to strip her apart piece by piece, too? Would her humanity be something they wanted to enslave or reuse? That was, if they didn’t put a bullet in her head first.

Seeming to notice her discomfort, Amarli reached out and touched her arm lightly – as expected, Curie felt a sinful burst of electricity run through her. “We’ll be fine as long as we know exactly what to expect,” Amarli said.

“Yes, I agree,” Curie said hurriedly. “The Syringer capsules I manufactured should work well on the robots if used correctly. And robots can be very predictable. They follow a set path.”

“Exactly,” Ada approved. “It’s the Rust Devils who will prove more difficult to manage. They will likely be prepared for an attack.”

“I will be ready with medical assistance whenever necessary. However, it would be better to avoid injury, yes?”

“We’ll be careful.” Amarli shuffled some papers. “Whatever happens, we’re getting to that radar beacon. The Mechanist needs to be stopped. Even if we can’t be the ones to do it, we can at least retrieve the tools to help someone else do so.”

Curie preferred to think that she and Amarli would be returning alive. But it was true – if either one of them died trying to get to that radar beacon, Ada at least would need to survive in order to figure out the location of the Mechanist and give it to the Minutemen. So, as well as protecting themselves, they would each need to watch Ada closely and make sure she wasn’t destroyed or captured by the Rust Devils.

As if this mission couldn’t get any harder.

“We’re leaving in two days,” Amarli said. “By then, Sanctuary Hills should be safe enough, and we’ll have a new shipment of weapons to take with us. I sent a scout to watch the satellite array and inform us of any sorts of routines the Rust Devils have – the timings of their patrols, how many people keep watch at night, how many robots they have… ideally, we’ll also know how to get in discreetly so we don’t have to walk in through the front door.”

“I previously recommended we bring more soldiers with us,” Ada said. “Have you reconsidered?”

Amarli’s face closed up. “All the Minutemen are needed here and at the other settlements.”

“You must understand that our odds of survival are therefore much lower than-”

“I know,” Amarli said impatiently. She glanced at Curie, her eyes softening. “If that means you don’t want to come, I’ll understand.”

“Of course I will come!” Curie said quickly. “Three is better than two, yes?”

Amarli’s lips twitched into a careful smile. “Yes.”

“I will need to back up my systems before we leave,” Ada said. “Just in case my systems undergo serious damage. Amarli, I take it you’ll have the tools and the skills necessary to repair me if that happens?”

Amarli smiled. “Do you really have to ask that? Of course I do.”

“I… must also backup my systems,” Curie said. She added, “In a different way, of course. My research has a large potential and it must be protected at all costs.”

“There’s no way you won’t be coming back here,” Amarli said dismissively.

“We must be prepared for every outcome,” Curie countered, her voice thoughtfully quiet. She pushed her chair back and stood up. “Thank you for the briefing. I will be prepared to leave on Tuesday.”

“Glad to have you aboard,” Ada said automatically.

Amarli’s brow creased at the middle with a frown. “Curie-”

But Curie was already walking away, back to the bedroom and all her notes and equipment. She didn’t care much for a one-on-one conversation with Amarli – not now. She was stressed and worried, and still coming down from the sting of her rejection. It hadn’t been as bad as that first time in Goodneighbor, when she’d seen Amarli with Magnolia and felt like she had been torn apart; this time, she’d been expecting it, so she felt more disappointed that depressed. Still, she needed time to clean her wounds.

Once she was back in the room, Curie sat at the desk and stared blankly out of the window. For the first time in a long time, there was no overbearing sun. The sky was slate grey and bruised with clouds, and the entire neighbourhood looked dull and miserable. It matched Curie’s mood surprisingly well. Three Minutemen were walking past on patrol, and two others were standing with Sturges outside the ruins of his house and conversing with him grimly. He’d been able to get out of bed and walk around the day before, and he seemed to be fully back on the road to recovery. However, his easy-going attitude was gone; he seemed to be grieving Mama Murphy’s loss just as much as the rest of them. After all, it was the house he had spent months building which had ended up killing her.

Dogmeat and Angustia, now seemingly best friends, were prancing about somewhere behind the house with Shaun, perhaps playing chase with him. Curie missed the constant company of her little dog, but she was glad to see that the Pinscher had made friends. Angustia had been so scared and lonely when Curie had saved her life. She’d come a long way.

Curie had, too.

The idea of retrieving the final radar beacon was frightening, but she wasn’t incapacitated by her fear. Her mind was no longer immediately overcome by emotion; she’d somehow managed to reprogram herself to think logically first, reminding herself of tactics and the best ways to evade gunfire. She’d even gone through her things the day before to check that nothing needed to be repaired or enhanced. Her newfound efficiency at camping and travelling alone meant she didn’t necessarily need Amarli’s company at all, even if she wanted it desperately. And now that she’d filled her databanks with scenes from war movies, tactics from strategy textbooks, and procedures from Amarli’s technical files, she was basically a full-fledged combatant. One thing she had that other humans (and synths) didn’t have was her robot mind; she could envision all the outcomes of every given situation in a split second, calculate probabilities of survival, estimate trajectories and angles to ensure her bullets struck exactly where she wanted them to, and even react much faster than a normal human being. She’d been working on her reflexes in morning training recently, and she was pleased with how quickly she responded to danger. She also had an advantage over the robots: since her mind matched a human’s so perfectly, she had much better morals and reasoning skills; she could make drastically different choices regardless of the set, logical path she had arranged. She was not confined to her system, nor was she confined to her humanity.

In truth, Curie had decided she was a perfect example of a human-robot hybrid. She was capable of things that would be impossible for either race. While she had struggled so hard with getting accustomed to her synth body, she had now begun to recognize how much more powerful she was despite her vulnerabilities. Enemies would continue to underestimate her, and she would continue to overcome them. She figured, had she not previously been programmed as a scientist, she might be able to fight as a soldier. Curie was glad her interests extended beyond bloodshed. Science would always prevail over battle; she would always choose knowledge over violence.

There was a knock on the door. Curie turned, expecting to see Amarli and bracing herself for it. A miniature boy version of Amarli was standing there instead, with the same russet skin and curly dark hair, but with eyes as dark as coal. Curie decided Shaun was just as nice-looking as his mother – if he had the chance, he would grow up to be a very handsome man. But the Institute synths were not blessed with the gift of ageing. He would be a child forever, just as Curie would be a young woman forever. It was hopelessly tragic to imagine him stuck like that for eternity. Curie still thought rather optimistically that at least she would always be there for him, even when his mother had grown old and no longer could.

She smiled fondly at the little boy. “Hello.”

“Hi, Curie.” He came over and sat on the bed. “Mom said you’re leaving in two days.”

“Yes,” Curie agreed.

“Are you taking the dogs?”

Curie shook her head sharply. “No, they must stay here. It is not safe.”

“Have you tested out the modifications I made to your rifle?”

Now, Curie smiled again. She reached for where it was leaning against the desk and examined the new sharpshooter grip and quick-eject magazine Shaun had installed the day before. At her request, he’d also switched the long recon scope with a shorter one so she’d be able to shoot enemies from nearby. “It is very well-done,” she praised him. “And you have added this… marker?”

“Yep.” Shaun grinned. “You just have to focus on an enemy and it’ll be marked on the HUD with a red tag. No matter how far away you are, you’ll know exactly where to shoot.”

Curie leaned in conspiratorially. “You might be even more clever than your mother, little Shaun.”

“Oh, I am. Even she admits it.” He scratched his head. “Though she’s much better at big machines and projects than I am. I like to freestyle with mods.”

“To each their own.”

Shaun examined her, his dark brown eyes narrowing slightly, and for a second he looked just as concentrated as Amarli always did when she was working on a project. There was this overwhelmingly sharp jolt in Curie’s chest, and she forced herself to turn away.

“My mom’s not mad at you, is she?”

Curie twisted back to him immediately. “No, no – of course not!” She frowned, suddenly a bit worried. “…Is she?”

“Okay, maybe mad’s not the right word for it.” Shaun cocked his head, still studying her. “I just noticed over the past few days that something’s off. I’m used to you being all friendly with each other, and now you barely talk at all unless it’s about the mission.”

“We have been very busy,” Curie said, struggling for a justification. “So much to prepare, so little time.”

“You’re hiding something.” Shaun huffed dramatically and slumped back on the bed to stare up at the ceiling.

Curie swivelled fully in her chair to face him, biting her lip. She watched him as he watched the ceiling and tried to come up with an explanation that would give nothing away. “I am sorry, mon loulou. There is nothing very wrong, I assure you. Your mother and I are still great friends.” She peered at him bashfully. “You are very intuitive, you know.”

“I just know when something’s bothering my mom,” he clarified, rising up onto his elbows. “She’s never obvious about anything unless she’s upset.”

Uncertainly, Curie cleared her throat. “So, I will speak to her. And ensure she is not upset. If it pleases you.”

The little boy’s eyes sparkled suddenly, and he looked like he was restraining a smile. Very slowly, he pushed himself back into a sitting position and brushed some curls out of his face – he was desperately in need of a haircut, but recently no one had found the time. “You’re even more obvious than she is, Curie,” he said almost knowingly.

“Pardon?”

“Just ‘cause I’m a kid doesn’t mean I don’t notice everything that goes on around here,” he said. “I saw the way you looked at her that day we played kickball – her against the both of us, remember? She won, and while I was asking for a rematch you just stared at her like you’d been hit over the head too many times. Pretty sure you drooled.”

Curie felt a deep red blush slowly spread across her cheeks. Her mouth opened but no words came out; she didn’t know what to say.

“And also when she fell asleep watching that documentary with Angustia curled up in her lap, and you looked like you wanted to climb in and cuddle with them.” He grinned. “I had to snap you out of it.”

Curie began to protest, “I was only…”

He continued, unstoppable: “And there’s also the hat collection, the comics, the sci-fi movie posters on the walls… even I know Mom’s an absolute geek, but you seem to enjoy that about her. I know you brought her back a comic from Goodneighbor – whenever she was reading it you’d always be there looking all happy and pleased. And you share her hats, and her lab which even I’m not allowed in, and…” For a moment, he seemed to run out of examples, trailing off.

“You have noticed all this?” Curie said quietly.

“And more.” Shaun looked like he was desperate to convince her of what he’d identified, sitting forward on the bed and bouncing a little. “You even laugh at every one of her jokes, even if they’re not funny. And when she’s working you find every excuse to help her.”

Curie wondered for how long Shaun had known about all this. He had not acted any differently towards her, and he hadn’t let her know what he’d figured out. To him, it didn’t seem to matter at all. He just thought it was amusing.

“Oh…” Curie pressed her hands to her cheeks, feeling the unbearable heat of her blush. “I did not realize…”

“It’s okay,” Shaun said suddenly, as if only just realizing he’d made her uncomfortable. “Mom sort of acts the same way around you, too.”

Now Curie was shocked as well as embarrassed. “Shaun, you could not possibly… that is not true.”

“She stares at you, too – I don’t think she even notices. Even I know that friends don’t act that way. My mom and Preston are good friends, but it’s not the same. And I met Robert MacCready, who’s meant to be her best friend, but they’re always just joking around. There’s no staring or anything.”

“Mon dieu,” Curie said softly.

Shaun became serious all of a sudden. “I’m ten years old. Most people don’t take advice from little kids. But I really think you should talk to her.”

“This does not worry you?”

Shaun looked around the room, as if taking in all the familiar details of his mother’s personal life. “See, I’m sure my mom misses my dad, but that doesn’t mean she should be alone forever. I… just want to see her happy. She was always happy here with me, but when you came along, she was even happier.”

Curie’s chest swelled with a devastating sort of love for this little boy and how open and sweet he was. There were so many things he didn’t know about the world – he was more naive than even Curie was – but he understood his own mother probably better than anyone. He truly believed in what he was saying, so Curie would have to as well.

“Thank you, mon loulou,” she said softly. “But are you really sure this does not bother you? After all, I am a woman. I am sure it must seem… odd.”

Shaun shrugged. “I dunno.” He looked around the room, as if searching for a way to describe his thoughts. His eyes fell on the movie poster beside the door and he brightened. “Look, Night of the Fishmen’s Revenge – did you ever watch it? Do you know the story?”

Curie silently shook her head.

“Well, I watched it ages ago, and I’ve read the comic it was based on, too. It’s kind of a sci-fi horror movie, so there’s loads of screaming and guts and stuff, but there’s a little bit of romance in it, too.”

“It does not sound as if it would suit my sensitivities,” Curie said immediately.

“Just listen,” Shaun said, impatient as he drew her attention from the poster back to his face. “So, the romance isn’t the main part of the story, but it’s pretty strange. The actress Mae Whitley plays this supporting character, a pretty lady called Anne, who lives in a town by the sea. She’s married to Boone, the main guy played by Carl Dickinson, but she doesn’t really love him and she’s unhappy. When the Fishmen attack and the main characters are busy defending themselves, she meets this one Fishman who is gentle and doesn’t want to kill. Actually, he thinks she’s really beautiful, and instead of hurting her, he just kidnaps her and takes her to an underground cave. Soon, she realizes he’s not like the others. While her husband is searching for her, she’s falling in love...”

Curie wasn’t entirely sure this story had anything to do with her. She forced herself to listen regardless, intrigued to know what would happen next.

“At the end of the story, the people in the town win. They kill most of the evil Fishmen and the ones left are forced to escape back to the sea.” Shaun paused as if to gather his thoughts. He seemed to like this story very much – Curie had rarely seen him so animated while he was talking. She wondered how many times he had seen it. Leaning her chin on one fist, she watched him with open amusement as he suddenly retrieved his train of thought and continued:

“Boone finally finds Anne and tries to kill the Fishman who took her. The Fishman wins against him in the fight but he’s wounded and he’s slowly dying without water. Anne realizes that, no matter how much she loves him, she and the Fishman can’t be together, because they’re from different worlds and her people will kill him if he stays with her. And he knows that he will be exiled by the rest of the Fishmen if he decides to live among humans. So, she decides to let him go. She takes him to the sea and they say this heartfelt goodbye before he melts back into the water, never to be seen again.”

Curie looked at Shaun in horror. “That is very sad,” she said. She frowned, displeased with the ending. Why did some romance stories have to result in such heartbreak? It was upsetting to realize how few of those so-called ‘true loves’ ended up together.

“I had a point,” Shaun said earnestly. “My mom always said that society tells us one thing, and our heart tells us another. Just because people say something’s wrong doesn’t mean it actually is. This movie was made before the war, right? So they were showing a romance between a human woman and a guy who is half-fish, half-man, and it even had a sort of happy ending. The Fishman escaped, and she survived. I don’t understand why that’s okay, and happy endings between humans in real life are not. If a woman can love a fish, why shouldn’t she be able to love another woman?”

Curie giggled. “There is a very tenuous link here. But I think I understand.”

Shaun blushed a little. “I know this isn’t a movie, and Fishmen don’t exist, but it’s not that different. I think, even if it’s not something that’s ‘supposed’ to happen, you’d make my mom really happy.”

Reaching out to touch his cheek, Curie said, “You are very wise, little Shaun. Wiser even than me.”

“All I know is what my mom taught me,” he told her proudly. “And I don’t think she’s ever been wrong about anything. She’s really smart.”

“Yes, she is.” Curie was certainly glad that his mother had taught him the modern open-mindedness she’d been taught herself. Not everyone had access to it.

The little boy stood up. “So, you’ll speak to her?” he asked hopefully.

“I promise.” Though Curie had no intention of telling Amarli she loved her before they went on their mission, she knew that she might actually have the confidence to confess afterwards. If even Shaun knew and was rooting for it, there was no reason to keep on hiding. Amarli had touched her like that in the bathroom for a reason, even if she’d said afterwards that it was a mistake. There was something here – something – and Curie was going to fight for it. Why shouldn’t she?

She pulled Shaun into her arms and hugged him tight, giggling when he began trying to struggle out of her hold. With her fingers, she quickly patted down his curls and then let him go. “Go on and play, mon loulou,” she said affectionately. “I will see you later.”

His face pulled into a grimace. “The dogs can’t play basketball. Will you come and play with me? There’s a hoop in one of the other lots and I pumped up the ball…”

Curie took a single glance at her notes, recalling why she’d come into this room in the first place, and then sighed. There would still be time to backup all her notes and knowledge before she left. For now, she might as well spend time with Amarli’s wonderful little son, because she genuinely didn’t know how much time she had left.

“Of course,” she said, turning to look at him with her eyes narrowed playfully. “I shall race you there.”

Shaun was off like a bullet before she’d even finished her sentence, and she was forced to give chase immediately, crashing down the hall and into the living room before bursting out the front door in pursuit.

For the first time that day, the sun peeked out from behind its blanket of clouds and shone over them as they sprinted laughing down the fractured road.

 ---

They arrived at Fort Hagen Satellite Array just before sunset. It was a pretty spectacular sunset: the sun cast its golden rays down upon the clouds of billowing smoke coming from within the Rust Devil camp, turning them bright red; fire red. Amarli’s eyes drifted to the horizon in the other direction and she saw that the sky was already purpling into darkness where it touched the land, bare trees ripping holes in the clouds. She let her eyes shift to Curie and Ada, curious to know what they looked like reflecting all the bright colours. They were similarly hidden by the foliage like she was; Curie’s eyes were round and wide as she stared up at the sky, as if she’d never seen something so beautiful. Amarli was sure she had, but maybe they’d never taken a moment to properly enjoy the radioactive beauty of nature. She found herself smiling slightly just witnessing the power of her friend’s awe.

The sky continued to darken as they waited for night. According to their Minuteman scout, the robots did all the patrolling at night time; the Rust Devils would retreat behind the walls of their fort and spend the night playing cards, or sparring, or meddling with more junk. Their newfound robotic power seemed to have made them arrogant and careless. Amarli would be glad to put them in their place. First, though, the robots would need to be properly taken care of.

Amarli closed her eyes as her skin was cooled by the breeze, trying to clear her mind. Their scout had only seen four bots while they’d been watching the array over the past two days, so that meant Amarli would need to focus on taking down two while leaving one each for Ada and Curie. The Syringer rifles were extremely slow to reload, so she’d decided that for one of them she would need to get close enough to manually stick in the syringe. Curie had apparently found two ways to take down the robots silently; for those that ran on fuel, there was a Syringer capsule which needed to be injected directly into the tank. The substance would bind to the fuel and make the robot incapable of turning any of it into energy. It would simply collapse. For the other kind of robot, which ran directly on nuclear energy and had a core instead of a tank, Curie had made a capsule which released a cryogenic substance directly into the core; this would halt the constant splitting of atoms which provided the nuclear power in the first place, quite literally freezing them from the inside out. Again, the expected outcome was that the robots would simply cease movement. If they could silently take down all the robots without the Rust Devils knowing, they were free to move onto the next step: stealthily infiltrating the camp. This would primarily be Amarli’s job.

Amarli had considered taking her power armour with her for this mission, but yet again she was faced with how little ability for stealth it gave her. She’d also briefly wondered if maybe Curie should wear a suit for protection, even if that meant she’d give their position away, but she’d never trained her on how to use it and she didn’t want to have her frozen or stumbling around in the middle of a battle. So, here they were in their usual armour, dressed in as dark colours as possible. Amarli was wearing a black hard hat normally used for construction, and she’d given Curie an army helmet to protect her head. She was also wearing combat gloves she’d made herself, with sharp metal studs sewn into the knuckles. If she somehow found herself disarmed and had neither her shotgun, her pistol, her Syringer rifle, or the sharp combat knife tucked in her trousers, she’d be able to give as good as she got in hand-to-hand combat. Ideally, this would not be against a robot.

“My sensors have detected one of the robots nearby,” Ada said, her voice volume turned down so that she spoke in a hum. With a curt nod, Amarli reached into the bag at her back and pulled out a pair of goggles, rather eager to use them for the first time. She’d modified them with Shaun’s help just the day before once she’d figured out this would be a night battle. She tightened the band around her head and lifted the goggles to her eyes, the whole world seeming to invert around her – the sun, which was disappearing overhead, was so blinding that she winced and was forced to look down at her feet. After blinking the pain from her eyes, she lifted her head again, careful not to look up, and discovered that every tree and stone ahead of her was lit in pure detail. She could see all the way to the big, corroded gates of Rust Devil territory, and the burning fires within. She could even see one of them stationed just above the gates, a slender woman by the looks of it, dressed in heavy metal armour.

“Can you see them, Madame?” Curie asked interestedly.

“Yeah.” Amarli turned her gaze towards movement nearby and saw a Mr Handy armoured in rusted spikes calmly drifting across the boundary between them and the satellite array. “Okay, that’s one.” She continued to watch as the gates opened up ahead and, right on time, another two robots exited the camp for patrol. They were both protectrons, but they were so modified and fit with odd parts that they looked like the stuff of nightmares. “Two more,” Amarli muttered. She watched as they joined the Mr Handy in circling the camp and watching the forest. After another minute of waiting, a robot appeared from around the side of the camp – one more protectron. “Okay, there’s the fourth.”

Amarli lifted the goggles onto her forehead and moved closer to Curie and Ada. “It’s too dangerous to try taking them down now. They’re all watching the forest at once. We need to wait until a couple of them have moved round back, then we can split up.”

“Affirmative.” Ada’s systems whirred. “My sensors detect there are no Raiders patrolling within the camp. Still, you will have to time your infiltration perfectly after the robots are dealt with so you are not caught.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got it.”

“I also recommend you be very vigilant once you are inside. While the robots themselves provide a high level of defence, the Rust Devils are known for the fatal traps they build in addition. Flame-throwers, powerful assaultron laser beams, powerful turrets…”

Amarli sighed. “I’ll be fine. Once I’m in there, I’ll get the gates open so you can join me. We’ll find a way into the fort together.”

“Should either of you be injured, you must call for me,” Curie said. She patted the first aid kit at her belt. As well this, she was also carrying a robot repair kit which Ada had gotten Amarli to build. While Curie had little idea of how to use it, all she’d need to do was carry it around and stay close so that Amarli could take it from her if Ada needed help. Her job, as it had been in the battle at Sanctuary Hills, was to stick to them and provide aid whenever necessary. She was not one of the front runners, and she certainly wouldn’t be expected to head right into the heart of battle. If Amarli saw her forget her duties and try and join the fight, she was sure she’d flip. She was already worried enough about Curie getting hurt; she didn’t need added stress. Still… she had to allow that Curie was a good shot and would be useful reinforcement if they were up against terrible odds.

The sky was so dark now that it was all purple. Amarli couldn’t see past the vegetation in front of her without using the goggles. She pulled them back over her eyes and watched the robots for a long while as Ada and Curie shuffled impatiently beside her. One of the robots had already ventured around the back of the camp, but three were still remaining. It took at least twenty minutes for a second robot to disappear from view and go in the opposite direction around the camp. Amarli counted to ten slowly and then momentarily lifted her goggles to look at her friends. “Okay, we need to move. Ada, you go left. Curie – come with me and then go to the right. Syringer rifles at the ready.”

They all lifted themselves into half-standing positions. While Ada held the Syringer rifle awkwardly with her metal joints, Amarli trusted that her robotic precision would do the job. Curie had a much better stance with the weapon, but she looked a little bit nervous. Amarli pressed the goggles back over her eyes. “Okay, let’s go,” she muttered.

Ada left them to move towards the other side of the camp, staying behind cover, and Amarli and Curie ventured forwards so they had a better view of the front and right side. As they stopped, Curie’s arm brushed against her own and Amarli involuntarily moved closer to increase the contact. Even though her forearm was armoured, she could imagine the softness and warmth of Curie’s skin. She glanced sideways, realizing Curie was watching her, but refused to acknowledge it. “You ready?” she asked instead.

Curie nodded vigorously.

“Good.” She swallowed down her worry. “Uh… good luck.”

To her surprise, Curie intentionally turned her arm so she could gently curl her fingers around Amarli’s palm, giving it a soft squeeze through the glove. The movement sent warmth pulsing up Amarli’s spine. “You also, Madame,” Curie whispered with a small smile. “I will see you inside.”

Without even looking back, Curie dropped her hand and began moving towards the right side of the camp in a crouch, rifle held aloft. Amarli stared after her blankly, watching her with the goggles on until she disappeared from view behind a copse of trees. She shook her head to snap out of it and quickly returned her eyes to the two robots ahead of her. One was the Mr Handy, and the other was a protectron which had been fitted with assaultron legs. It could probably move very fast. How would she get close to one of them?

She crawled forwards until she was in danger of breaking the treeline and then looked again. There was one way she could do this, but it was quite risky and she didn’t have much time. With a grimace, Amarli looked down and searched around her for an object heavy enough to make some noise. She picked up a jagged rock and tested it with her palm. Perfect. Drawing her arm back, she aimed for a boulder a few feet behind her and threw the rock as hard as she could. It smashed in two with a loud crack! and immediately drew the attention of both robots. She’d expected only one of them to come and investigate – to her surprise, they began moving together in her direction. She cursed under her breath and lifted the Syringer rifle, unsure of which one to shoot and which one to inject manually. They were only a couple feet away now. If she didn’t make a move in a second, they would see her and she’d have blown her cover. Cursing again, she chose the capsule made to disable fuel tanks and inserted it in the gun. She aimed for the robot at the back of the pair and pulled the trigger.

Her breath caught in her throat – had she hit the right place? The substance must have worked very fast because the Mr Handy bot simply stopped in its tracks, juddering a little, and then its thrusters switched off. It collapsed with an alarmingly loud metallic crash, and Amarli braced herself in shock, wasting precious seconds as she watched the protectron turn. “Suspicious,” it said in its robot voice. A light began to flash. “Threat detected.”

Amarli had the other syringe already in her grip and she gritted her teeth as she crawled on her hands and knees up behind the protectron. Three, two, one…

She jumped up and jammed the syringe with all her might through the glass panel protecting its core and let the substance drain out. A metal arm laden with spikes crashed back into her shoulder and made her spin as she stumbled back. It had been an incredibly hard hit, and she knew the spikes must have broken her skin through the gaps of her armour. The pain of the lacerations stunned her, but she still righted herself and reached for her shotgun just in case. To her relief, the protectron had hardly turned towards her before it froze completely and the warning it had been about to send off became disabled. She sighed, satisfied, and took Deliverer out of her bag. While she trusted Curie’s work, she also didn’t want to risk having the robots recover and come after them. She fired a silenced shot into both of the robots, careful not to blow them up, and then put the pistol away. Two down. Had Curie and Ada succeeded? She had to assume so, considering an alarm hadn’t been raised within the camp.

Amarli crouched and began to move towards the right, hoping to see how Curie was doing. She reached a shrub and ducked behind it, her goggles helping her pick out a single moving shape – a slight, female shape. So Curie had succeeded, then. There was the protectron lying at her feet, and she was crouched over it with her hands expertly removing pieces of metal and wires. Smart girl. As Amarli watched, she viciously tore a circuit board from within the protectron’s systems and then tossed it aside, straightening and turning towards the forest. Where she was, behind the satellite array’s main building, she couldn’t be seen by anyone inside the camp. Amarli knew Curie was looking for her so she could tell her this. Smart, smart girl.

Hoping that Ada was finished and just waiting for her command, Amarli used the same copse of trees as Curie had to slip around the side of the camp and join her. The other woman’s face was shining unnaturally through the goggles, and her smile looked like a ray of sunshine.

“Nothing better than a plan that actually works, huh?” Amarli said, unable to stop herself from grinning back.

Curie bowed her head in a nod. “We must not… what is the word…”

“Jinx it?”

“Yes!” Curie giggled a little. Then her face grew serious. “Please be careful, Madame.”

“I will,” Amarli promised. She slung her Syringer rifle over her shoulder and checked out the wall of the building towering over them. When she’d been a little girl, she’d absolutely loved climbing trees – more than anything, in fact. She’d been like a little monkey. While a building was certainly nothing like a tree, Amarli figured she was strong enough to make it up onto the roof. From up there, if she laid on her stomach, she’d be able to stay out of sight and see everyone within the camp. She didn’t have a sniper rifle, but if she aimed right, her silenced pistol would do the trick. She turned back to Curie. “Go and hide back in the forest,” she said. “Or try and find Ada, if she’s not there yet. I’ll be up on the roof, so watch everything I do.”

Curie nodded.

Turning away from her, Amarli set her foot in a crack in the stone and hoisted herself upwards, reaching automatically for another hold. The wall was very flat, and she immediately realized how much harder than a tree this was to climb. She could sense Curie watching her again but couldn’t afford to lose concentration. Wincing at the pain in her shoulder, she kept on climbing without pause, using momentum to carry her up the wall, finally reaching a ledge and window. It was boarded up on the inside. As she moved to climb higher, the ledge cracked and some of it fell away beneath her feet. She knew there must still be something there, otherwise she’d be falling, but she couldn’t see it at all. If she turned her head too far she could lose her balance, and the drop was further than she could see by now. Amarli clenched her jaw and kept her gaze on the roof above her. She was halfway now, and she would not stop. Once she got up there, she could take a break before she began sniping the Raiders. She would get up there.

A few more strong pulls and her breath was rattling in her lungs – she was pressed so close to the wall that she could hardly breathe. Amarli didn’t dare move back to give her lungs more space to inflate. Her arms and legs were shaking with the effort of just holding her there, and she didn’t want to fall. The one thing that motivated her more than the fear of her hurting herself was the embarrassment of almost dying before the battle had already begun. She wouldn’t have Curie fretting over her just because she’d not been strong enough to climb a wall.

Finally, Amarli could see the edge of the roof was only a few feet ahead of her. It gave her more adrenaline, and even though she was breathing heavily and worried she was making too much noise, she pushed on. Her hands closed around the edge and she used all the muscles in her arms and her abdomen to lift herself up and over, gasping as she rolled onto her back on top of the roof. Her whole body was burning, but she had made it – finally. For a few seconds, she just let lie there and stare up at the night sky, entranced by the clouds and the few stars she could see through the radioactive haze. Then her mind clamped down on her and she knew it was time to move on. She couldn’t waste time here. Sooner or later, the Rust Devils would realize their robots weren’t protecting them anymore.

Amarli shuffled on her stomach across the flat roof until her head could peer over the edge into the camp. It was well-lit, so her goggles became flared with bright white. Frustrated, she pulled them off and tossed them beside her. There was that one Raider standing on top of the gate, looking bored. Then there were two more she could see in one of their wooden shacks, sitting at a table and playing cards. At least two more could be heard, but Amarli couldn’t see them at all. There was a wooden bridge stretching from the shack to the second floor of the building below her, so she assumed they were inside. She had no idea what they were looking at, but their conversation sounded heated, so she hoped they were more focused on each other than their comrades.

With Deliverer back in her grip, Amarli whispered a prayer and lined it up with the guard at the gate. She knew she was a good shot, but there was a reason pistols weren’t used for long-range fighting. They were inaccurate. Still, she rested both forearms on the edge of the roof and, after drawing in a slow breath, she released the trigger with an exhale. The sound was supressed, but she still winced at it. The Raider’s chest exploded outwards with the force of the impact and she slumped over the edge of the gate, instantly dead. Her heart beating rapidly, Amarli quickly cast her eyes around the camp, hoping no one else had seen. The conversation below her was still going, and the two men still seemed focused on her cards. Good.

Now, she would need to take a risk. She couldn’t shoot both men at the same time so one of them would inevitably react to her and probably see where she was. It was also likely that the card payers were directly in the line of sight of the Raiders who were arguing in the building below her. No matter what decision she made now, the battle would officially begin. Her priority was finding a way to open the gate so that she wouldn’t have to fight it alone.

Amarli lifted herself into a crouch and checked that her incendiary shotgun was still over her shoulder with the rifle. Just to make herself calmer, she reloaded Deliverer and slung the night-vision goggles around her neck. She had to be glad for one thing; at least it was humans they were fighting this time rather than the Mechanist’s robots. She’d had enough of those.

Amarli took the shot – the man on the left, who had been about to set a card down, jolted sideways as a bullet went straight through his neck. It didn’t kill him immediately, but it still alerted his opponent. The other man threw himself behind the table with a shout and Amarli heard answering shouts below her.

“There’s someone here!” one of them yelled, raising the alarm.

Amarli tightened the straps of her bag, replaced her pistol with the shotgun, and stood up completely. She wasn’t sure Curie and Ada could see her, but she hoped they could – surely they’d start towards the entrance and try to get some shots in to help her.

A man and a woman dressed in heavy robot armour appeared below her, staring up in her direction with their weapons drawn. Amarli took a running jump off the roof before they could shoot, twisting through the air so she could land safely on the wooden bridge below her. The impact vibrated through her legs, but she didn’t let the slight pain stop her; her reflexes carried her through the motions. Amarli drove her booted heel into the groin of the man while she simultaneously used the barrel of her shotgun to disturb the woman’s aim – she fired wildly and the bullets rattled against the wall of the building. Amarli hit her again with the shotgun and she stumbled back just far enough for Amarli to pull the trigger and shoot her directly in the stomach. The Raider gasped in pain and tumbled sideways off the bridge, though it didn’t seem she was dead yet.

Her instincts telling her there was a threat to her left, Amarli spun with the man remaining so that he was between her and the cardplayer. Bullets struck him in the back and he yelled in pain, slumping onto Amarli. She held him up, continuing to use him as a human shield as she tried to fire back. The cardplayer ducked out of sight again and Amarli shoved the dying man off of her, sprinting towards the wooden shack. As she approached, she heard the tell-tale firing up of a turret as it locked onto her as an enemy. It must have been hidden in the shack – one of the traps Ada had been talking about.

Shit.

There was absolutely nowhere for her to go except down to avoid the incendiary bullets that began firing out of nowhere. Amarli stumbled, feeling the bullets whip past her, and jumped gracelessly off the wooden bridge, landing so hard on the floor below that she felt the force spread through her like lightning. While she laid there, winded, a shot landed near her head. Forcing herself to roll aside, Amarli raised her shotgun and fired blindly. The woman she’d shot in the stomach earlier now collapsed as her face was blown to pieces. Amarli tried to get her breath back, stumbling to her feet, as the turret’s attack continued, somehow managing to reach her below the bridge. The ground was torn up beneath her and she quickly moved back out of view. The cardplayer had come out from hiding and she could hear him laughing above her.

“That’s right, bitch! Run away!”

Amarli had no intention of leaving so soon. Instead of wasting her energy dodging bullets, she sprinted off towards the gates. Taking the stairs to the top of the gate two at a time, she pushed the guard’s corpse out of the way and pulled the lever that operated the entrance. The gates creaked loudly as they swung to and Amarli ducked as a bullet whistled over her head. Curie and Ada were already running towards her, ready to provide backup. Amarli waved her hands frantically to show them where she was and then stumbled forwards in shock as a bullet hit her shoulder, tearing through the flesh to the bone. She bent over in agony, clutching the wound and trying to make herself as small a target as possible. Her arm was quickly going numb from the pain. She turned back towards the wooden shack and saw that it was the man who had shot her – and he was about to do it again. She tried to fire at him with one hand, but she couldn’t hold the shotgun steady. Grimacing, she rolled down from the top of the gate and reloaded, using the stairs as cover.

“Madame!” Curie cried.

Amarli half-turned to see that both Ada and Curie had stopped suddenly before passing through the gate. She frowned in confusion and frustration, and then gestured for them to join her. “What are you waiting for?”

“You must disarm the trap from inside,” Ada explained calmly.

Amarli glanced down and blinked as she saw the gas canisters and flame throwers angled towards the threshold of the camp. Disarming them would take too much time. Time she didn’t have right now.

She ducked out from cover and shot at the man above, hoping to knock him off the wooden bridge, but he ducked out of sight as soon as she appeared. He knew the turret was protecting him.

Amarli scowled and turned back to her friends, crouching by the first canister and beginning to pry at the metal gears with her fingers. A few shots rattled off the wall above her, but none of them hit home. Already, both of her shoulders were injured. Her right shoulder was bleeding freely, so she figured it was the worse wound. There was no time to tend to it, so she’d just have to push through the pain.

Ada and Curie both returned fire for her while she worked on disabling the trap, able to see the man and his hiding place from where they stood. Curie crouched and put her eyes to the scope of her rifle, taking precise shots one after the other. Amarli didn’t think either of them were doing much other than driving him out of sight – the man was too good at hiding. But then there was a particularly loud explosion, and Amarli turned in surprise and confusion to see shrapnel fly in all directions. The turret had just blown up. She turned back to her friends and saw Curie catch her eye with a particularly pleased expression. How she’d seen where the turret was through the wall, Amarli had no idea. But she deserved a particularly large amount of praise for that. Amarli couldn’t help but grin.

She turned to the trap and worked more vigorously, yanking out a wire and using the combat knife retrieved from her pocket to cut it in two. She did the same for the other flamethrower and then jogged to the other side of the gate to deal with the last two. Once they were disabled, she waved Ada and Curie into the camp and they approached the wooden shack together. The moment the Raider peeped his head out of the shack, he was dead – Amarli made sure she was the one to do it, to get revenge for her ruined shoulder. 

They all went upstairs to check the coast was clear, searching the bodies for explosives and extra ammunition. While Amarli considered the metal door to the fort, wondering how they’d get in, she felt a hand gently touch her arm. She flinched automatically, her shoulder flaring with pain, and then met Curie’s eyes.

“You are hurt,” the other woman said. “May I…?”

Amarli was charmed by the concern in her eyes, but she tried her best to disregard the answering warmth in her chest. “No time,” she said curtly.

Curie’s hand tightened as if she was about to argue, then she simply squeezed once and then let go, walking to the edge of the wooden bridge. “There is a terminal, Madame,” she said calmly. “I believe it is our way inside the building.”

Amarli moved to join her, seeing that it was connected with wires to the metal door below. Fort Hagen Satellite Array was on lockdown, but they could fix that. She smiled and nudged Curie’s arm to thank her, and approached the terminal. “Pretty high security on this,” she remarked, noticing how long the password was. “Curie, you hacked that terminal in the General Atomics Factory, right? Could you do this one?”

Curie came up beside her, brushing close as she leaned over the screen and examined the lines of code. “Perhaps,” she said. The green lit her face with a sickly glow as she began typing away, selecting different options. “It is a simple pattern,” she explained. “There is a list of possibilities, and many are intended to throw me off. But as soon as I have at least three letters – like this, you see? – I have broken the code.”

Amarli nodded. “So one of those is the actual password and you have to find out what it is by testing the others?”

“Exactement,” Curie murmured. She picked one of the words and it registered as having two extra similarities to the actual password. Curie frowned and scrolled through the list, searching for another with the same letters. Leaning in, Amarli tapped her finger against the screen. “Here,” she said softly. “The ‘T’ and the ‘A’ are in the same place. And so is the ‘E’.”

Curie’s eyes brightened and she turned to Amarli with a brilliant smile. “Very good.” She sounded so happy that Amarli immediately felt gratified, and she tried to ignore the heating of her own cheeks as she watched Curie select the word and move on. While it still wasn’t the password they needed, they now had four correct letters. Amarli instantly saw the word it matched with and pointed at it with unbridled enthusiasm. “So that’s it, then.”

“Yes,” Curie agreed. She selected it and the terminal let out a beep as they passed through security and logged in. They grinned at each other. As she skipped past the personal entries, Curie found a tab that controlled the building’s system. Her eyes darted across the screen and her fingers typed out a quick command, and then there was a hiss below as the door swung open. Curie continued to surprise her at every turn.

“Thank you, my little smarty-pants,” Amarli grinned, hurriedly pulling Curie into a one-armed hug before she rushed back across the bridge and returned to the ground. Curie was blushing when she joined her in front of the fort’s door. Ada quickly the scanned the entrance to check there were no traps before giving them the go-ahead to go in. With a furtive glance back over her shoulder at the night sky, Amarli took a deep breath and stepped into the fort. She hoped she’d be coming out again.

 ---

Unfortunately, the Rust Devils had been given plenty of time to prepare for an invasion. The first ten minutes spent inside the fort involved all three of the companions ducking into cover every which way and trying their best to disable all of their robot attackers. There must have been ten of them, and although Curie had made plenty of Syringer capsules, it was evident that they could not aim accurately when they were being shot at. Amarli finally decided to use one of her precious pulse grenades, blowing up the rest of the robots in one go. She had one more to use, and she wasn’t going to waste it.

They moved from room to room, mowing down Raider after Raider. Curie was nimble and careful, and she did a good job of staying out of the fight when she wasn’t needed; nevertheless, Amarli automatically shielded her with her body whenever they were facing enemies, knowing she’d rather be shot first than see Curie hurt or killed. Ada suffered several bad shots, but none of them hit vital parts of her system, so they ploughed on. In fact, the further in they went, the more Amarli realized the advantage they had over the Rust Devils. Evidently, these Raiders relied almost fully on the robots under their control; by themselves, they were absolutely terrible at both offense and defence. Most of them tried to run and hide. Some of them shot blindly from behind barricades or tried to throw Molotov cocktails and catch their invaders in a ball of flame; Amarli had been in too many battles for any of it to faze her. She ducked, and rolled, and used obstacles to get better vantage points. When she ran out of shotgun bullets, she moved on to her pistol. Even as her shoulders stung and ached – even though her hand was sticky with her own blood – she refused to slow down. They would get to that Robobrain. They needed that radar beacon.

Ada’s radar began pinging when they got closer, beeping faster and faster. They entered a large chamber; some of the walls were crudely dug out of earth rather than fortified with concrete, implying this must be somewhere far underground. The room mostly seemed dedicated to the safekeeping of protectrons. There were empty pods lining all the walls save one, each lit with a lantern. Half the room had been raised into a platform on which a bank of computers was set. As was the Raider way, the area behind the computers was decorated with spikes, chains, and the occasional hanging corpse. After they’d exterminated the Rust Devils who had chosen to hide in this room, Amarli paused to take a good look around.

“Is this it?” she asked.

Ada turned towards the computers. “Yes.”

All three of them walked up the stairs to the higher part of the room, breathing heavily from their battle and still too anxious to lower their weapons. The closer they got to the computers, the more loudly Amarli could hear the familiar metallic voice of the Mechanist vibrating through the speakers. She hadn’t heard it since the battle in Sanctuary Hills, and just the sound sent a wave of anger riding through her.

She stopped just in front of the computers, unsure of what exactly she was looking at. There were some banks of buttons and levers, terminal screens, and a desk – but the centrepiece was a glass bowl inside which floated a human brain in a greenish substance. A piece of tape was plastered across the bottom of the bowl, spelling JEZEBEL. In fact, the glass bowl looked exactly like those that were attached to the heads of the Robobrains. This, therefore, must be another of the Raiders’ modifications. They’d obviously captured a Robobrain and decided to use it to power and control all of their systems.

“You don’t look like one of the Rust Devils,” a voice said, surprising Amarli so much that she took a step back. “What are you doing here?”

It sounded quite like the voice of the weapons' dealer KL-E-O in Goodneighbor, with a flirtatious lilt to it. Narrowing her eyes, Amarli peered curiously at the brain in the liquid. Had she ever heard one of these things speak before?

“Hunting down a radar beacon,” she said after a moment, deciding to be honest.

“A radar beacon,” Jezebel repeated. “How very interesting. That’s a rather specific part to be searching for, and you don’t look like the typical parts scavenger to me.”

Amarli glanced back over her shoulder at Curie and Ada, unsure of what to make of this.

“I calculate a 98.8% chance that you are looking for the Mechanist.”

Her jaw almost dropped.

Jezebel continued smugly: “If I’m correct, and it looks like I am, then perhaps we can help each other with our respective… predicaments.”

“I’m listening,” Amarli said cautiously.

“How refreshing,” Jezebel drawled. “Then allow me to explain. Now, how can I put this as simple as possible so someone at your processing speed can understand…?”

Amarli wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be stung at that comment. She found herself staring bemusedly back at Curie, and saw the other woman smiling slightly. Was it possible that the brain in there was real? Had General Atomics started making robots into which humans could download themselves? It was a rather easy test for longevity, once they knew how to make the brain last. Amarli had no idea whether this was true, but she felt she wasn’t far off the mark. Jezebel must have been a person once, and now she was just a brain in green juice, being manipulated by Raiders. If that was the case, Amarli felt sort of bad for her.

“In order to find the Mechanist, you’re going to need more than just my radar beacon. You’re going to need access to the facility. I’m willing to provide said access… but you’ll have to fulfill two simple conditions. One: you need to get me as far away as you can from these lunatics.”

Amarli’s lips curled up in a smile. “Easier said than done.”

As if she hadn’t spoken, Jezebel added, “And two: find me a new body. Once both conditions are satisfied, I’ll gladly provide you with everything you need.” She paused. “Do we have a deal?”

Amarli couldn’t really think of a reason not to accept her terms. Jezebel hadn’t asked too much of her, and she knew she could easily provide safety and a new body back in Sanctuary Hills. But there was something crafty and arrogant about this Robobrain – could there be a second agenda? Amarli still wasn’t sure whether the Mechanist had found a way to hack the Robobrains to do his bidding, or whether Jezebel was working for him voluntarily.

“How do I know you’ll keep up your end of the bargain?” she inquired.

“Even though there’s a human brain floating in bio-gel inside my head, I’m still bound by my original programming. It pains me to admit it, but one of my directives states that I cannot lie. Ever.”

Again, Amari found herself glancing back towards Curie. Her friend nodded slightly, cheeks pinking a little. It certainly seemed to be true. Even as a human, Curie was nearly incapable of lying – all she was able to do was withhold the truth. That must be a thing for all robots.

“So, that’s not your brain? You didn’t use to be… human?” Amarli wondered.

“Robobrains weren’t created for the sake of humans,” Jezebel said impatiently. “The use of a human brain simply allows me a wider range of responses and functions than any other robot. I am intuitively superior to most robots… with the exception of a few.” Although she didn’t necessarily have eyes to use, Amarli knew that if she did, she’d be looking straight at Curie. “Now, if a robotic system could be downloaded into the body of a synth, that would be a different story...”

Jezebel had hit so close to home that it quite literally emptied Amarli’s lungs of air. This time, she refused to look back towards Curie, afraid that any interaction would affirm the truth. Nothing and no one had ever guessed what Curie was before, and Amarli felt safe with that. She didn’t need her friend being tracked down and kidnapped for the sake of that precious chip in her head. No, Curie was human. More human than most. Jezebel knew nothing – except how to get inside Amarli’s head, apparently.

“While I’m not the most charming robot you’ve ever encountered,” Jezebel said, bringing them back to business, “the last thing I’m going to do is violate an agreement we’ve made. Now that we have that out of the way, do we have a deal?”

Amarli had a feeling Jezebel was cunning enough to cause plenty of problems back in Sanctuary Hills. If she’d had a choice, she would have turned the deal down. But she needed to get to the Mechanist, and it was true that she had no access to the facility. If Jezebel could help her, she would need to trust her.

“Deal,” Amarli sighed.

“A wise decision. Once we’re at our destination, I’ll happily relinquish my radar beacon as a gesture of good faith. Now, I strongly suggest you stop loitering in the middle of a hostile location and get us out of here at once.”

Amarli rolled her eyes. She leaned forward to see how Jezebel was connected the machine and was pleased to find it was by a few screws and some wires. For the next five minutes, Curie and Ada left her to look around while she worked on removing Jezebel’s head from the machine the Rust Devils had bolted her to. With a feeling of accomplishment, she severed the wires, and tucked Jezebel under her arm. “Surely you won’t mind being inside a bag until we get out of here?” Amarli said smoothly.

“I’m going to assume you know exactly what my answer to that would be.”

Amarli grinned. “Too bad.” She called Curie over and shoved Jezebel straight into her rucksack, drawing up the zips tightly. She met Curie’s eyes. There was another small smile on the other woman’s face, but it had been a little while since Amarli had seen her smile properly. When they got home, she'd need to fix that.

There was a loud hiss and an answering rumble behind her, and Amarli froze, her instincts immediately telling her something was wrong. She’d thought there was nothing else in this room besides Jezebel. She’d imagined there might only be a few more Rust Devils to kill before they were back outside and running home.

Oh, how wrong she’d been.

“Did I forget to mention this was a hostile location?” Jezebel said smugly from inside Curie’s bag.

Amarli turned, eyes wide as she saw the hulking, well-armoured metal shape standing beyond the Raider decorations, hidden against the wall but now coming to life. She’d always been terrified of Sentry-bots. A modified Sentry-bot wearing a mask of Brahmin skull was about three times as terrifying. Immediately, she stepped in front of Curie, thinking of nothing else other than protecting her.

“The doors have all been locked,” Ada said. “We have been registered as a threat.”

“So… we have to kill that thing?” Amarli could feel her pulse getting faster at the base of her throat. She knew that she should have saved all those shotgun bullets. And she shouldn’t have wasted all the explosives she’d taken from enemy corpses. All she had was her pistol, the Syringer rifle, and her last pulse grenade.

“Do you think your capsules will work on it?” Amarli asked Curie, still backing away as she saw the Sentry-bot coming online. A hellish red light flickered on behind the mask and a deep, rumbling monotone began to list threats in the area.

“I do not think they are big enough. Or powerful enough.” Curie sounded more scared than she was. Amarli had backed so far into her that they had reached the edge of the platform, and Curie put her hands on her hips to press back and keep from tumbling over the edge. Her hands were trembling.

“We’ll be fine,” Amarli said. “Just trust me.”

Ada already had the right idea, shooting at the Sentry-bot before it had fully come online. It didn’t seem she was doing anything. Its armour was shockingly thick. Even though it seemed hopeless, Amarli began to join in, shooting with her silenced pistol and feeling her heart drop as she saw what little effect she had.

“Exterminating threats,” the Sentry-bot said suddenly, its voice rumbling throughout the chamber. In a split second, as its limbs raised and she saw the fire power the Rust Devils had gifted to it, Amarli imagined that time had stopped. She didn’t even need to make a decision.

She twisted, no longer caring much about fighting back, and grabbed Curie tightly around the waist, propelling both of them over the edge of the platform. As they fell, a missile darted overhead, searing them with its heat as it smashed into the opposite wall in a bright orange explosion. Amarli had turned in middair so that she landed on the floor first, Curie on top of her, and the impact was so painful that she wondered if she’d cracked her ribs. She couldn’t breathe for a long time – too long. Hands grabbed her arms and pulled her into a sitting. Her chest opened, and she inhaled a long, shaky breath before letting it out in a gasp. She only had a second to meet Curie’s eyes before another missile landed hardly a few feet away and she was thrown forwards into Curie, again wrapping her arms around her and trying to shield her from the blast. All she could hear was ringing when she pushed herself up again, and Curie helped her stand. She couldn’t see Ada – she also wasn’t sure if Jezebel was still alive in Curie’s bag. All she could do was press herself against Curie and hope that the Sentry-bot would take a while to see them so she could come up with a plan.

Another explosion, and this time Amarli managed to stay on her feet, her mind racing to find a solution. What did she know about Sentry-bots? They were extremely powerful, tearing down their enemies with machinegun-fire and missiles. They could move quickly on their track wheels, and they were so well-armoured that it was impossible to get a shot in. Unless…

Unless they entered their cooldown state. It lasted only a few seconds, but if Amarli could get up there and get to its core before it woke up again…

She reached hurriedly for Curie’s hands, wide-eyed and trying to impart her idea, but it was no use. Neither of them could hear very well, and there wasn’t enough time. But, if this didn’t work well, Amarli at least needed to say goodbye. As another explosion landed even closer to them – the Sentry-bot must have finished targeting Ada and was now coming after them – Amarli pressed herself in so close to Curie that their faces were touching. The other woman’s pupils were dilated with fear, and her lips moved as if she was saying a prayer. But Curie didn’t pray; she didn’t follow any religion. Amarli knew she was most likely reading through her data to find some way to resolve the issue of their upcoming death. But that wasn’t her job. Amarli had sworn to herself a long time ago that she would do whatever she could to keep Curie safe. The Commonwealth needed Curie, but there would always be another Amarli. The Minutemen would find another General, and the Mechanist would die whether she was alive or not. She had nothing real left to offer the Commonwealth now that the Institute was gone. If it came to a decision between her and Curie, or her and Shaun, she would always put herself in front of the bullet.

Amarli grabbed Curie’s face with both hands, forcing their eyes to meet, and then tried for a smile – it quickly turned sad. “Stay here,” she mouthed. And then she leaned in and pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek. There was nothing else she could think of doing, no other way she could think to reassure her, especially if she might not come back. Curie looked at her with sudden fearful alarm, grasping her wrist with surprising strength. She wasn’t strong enough, however, to keep her there.

Amarli darted away, yanking her arm free with the momentum, and ran at full-speed towards the stairs. She certainly felt a missile arcing over her head, but the Sentry-bot was forced to stop and reload before it could try and hit her again. All she had to do was run around and keep it busy until it overheated. She ducked behind a pillar, hoping for luck and survival, and then braced herself as the first missiles hit. There was the terrible sound of track wheels moving quickly on concrete, and Amarli knew it was coming around the pillar. She ducked and darted away again, sprinting to the next. An explosion to her right blinded her – shrapnel hit her in the face, and she felt the heat as if she had been branded. Gasping, and stumbling a little, she kept going, ducking from pillar to pillar and swearing that she would continue dodging until the Sentry-bot brought the whole building falling to the ground. She passed a pillar behind which Ada was still standing; she must have duped the robot into thinking she’d escaped. Amarli left her immediately, not wanting to give her position away. Ada and Curie at least needed to get back to Sanctuary Hills alive – they had Jezebel, anyway. And Sturges could build her a new body. And as long as Shaun had Curie, he didn’t need his mother so much.

Amarli felt tears sting in her eyes, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the most recent explosion, or if it was because she’d realized she might really die. She ducked once more, this time feeling the missile skim her as it passed, and she jumped to safety behind the computers as it exploded close behind her. The Sentry-bot rumbled something she couldn’t hear, and then there was the sound of it powering down into its cooldown state.

Amarli wasted no time.

She had two Syringer capsules in her grasp before she even reached the Sentry-bot, and then she was close enough to even see the label the Rust Devils had pasted along its front: AHAB. She ran around the back to where she knew the core must be exposed and the moment she saw it, bathed in bright red light, she injected both syringes directly into the centre. She saw it begin to freeze and backed away slowly, hoping the cryogenic liquid would work.

Instead, there was a low hum, and steam began to pour out for the Sentry-bot’s back panel. The ice which had slowly been inching its way around the core began to melt from the incredible heat, and Amarli’s heart dropped as she realized her mistake. By injecting ice into the Sentry-bot’s core, she had given it exactly what it needed. The core was too big for a little bit of ice to stop it from working; she had only cooled it down and halved the time it needed to cease movement.

No, no, no…

The core disappeared behind a layer of thick metal armour and the Sentry-bot rumbled again as it came back online, releasing another cloud of steam. Now, it could last even longer without needing to cool down. Why the hell had she thought that would work?

Amarli turned to run, but the Sentry-bot was much faster than she was. It slammed into the back of her so hard that she went flying, and had hardly rolled to a stop on the floor before it was on her again, smashing at her with its giant metallic arms. She could see nothing, hear nothing – all she could feel was the incredible pain of metal hitting her all over. It didn’t need to use missiles or bullets if it could smash her to death. She tasted blood in her mouth, pouring from her lips, and she could do nothing but lie there and stare up through blurred vision at the Brahmin skull through which there shone a haunting red light. It might as well be modeled after death himself.

A shrill shout drew the Sentry-bot’s attention. It spun quickly away from Amarli, and she gasped for breath through the pain in her bruised body, clutching at the ground with her fingers. Her pistol had fallen somewhere, and she didn’t know where it was. Her Syringer rifle and her shotgun certainly weren’t on her back anymore. All she had was the rucksack and, inside it, her last pulse grenade. 

The Sentry-bot began shooting rapidly in the direction of whoever had shouted, and Amarli again made a split-second decision. Her or Curie? Always her.

Through the excruciating pain and slow loss of consciousness, Amarli set both palms on the ground and growled at the effort as she forced herself onto her knees, then onto her feet. Each inch was worse than the last, and when she was finally standing, she knew that some of her ribs must be broken – maybe her arm, as well. There was blood pouring from her mouth, and from her nose, too. But there was one thing left to do, and she was going to do it. Pulling the pin from a grenade was easy, and after that there would be no more hurt.

After shouting to draw the bot's attention, Curie must have ducked very quickly back into cover; the Sentry-bot was simply waiting in the centre of the platform, unsure of where to shoot. Through her blurred vision, Amarli saw the skull mask the Sentry-bot wore and wondered if it would be the last thing she ever saw. The pulse grenade was already in her hand, and she’d pulled the pin, her quivering fingers pressing down the spoon so it wouldn’t explode just yet. She couldn’t speak, so she just thought it: Come here. Come and get me.

As if the robot had heard her, it turned its big hulking body towards her. In the split second before it could either shoot or rush forwards, Amarli dropped the grenade and it rolled a few feet from her. She barely had time to lift her eyes from it before it exploded – she was thrown back with so much force that she hit the wall behind her. The explosion had been so close to her feet that she’d physically felt the energy tearing through her legs, parting the flesh, rupturing nerves. And then came the agony; searing, splitting, horrific. She imagined her heart had stopped from the might of it.

And then the world was black.

Chapter Text

In a brief moment of lucidity after the battle, Amarli realized she could hear voices.

“Madame… can you hear me?” a frantic voice was asking. “Can you feel your legs?”

Amarli drifted away again in her sea of darkness.

She was outside – as she came to for the second time, she knew that much. She was on her back, and despite her whole body being in complete agony, she could also feel the prickling of grass, and could smell the soil as if it had just been raining. The night sky was stretched out above her, speckled with more stars than she could count. She hadn’t seen so many stars since before the bombs fell and the sight of them made her smile. There were also tree branches, and all sorts of birds sat upon them, staring down at her. There were bright yellow songbirds, and bald eagles, and owls, and crows. She noticed there was a vulture, too, and it was looking at her hungrily. I’m not dead yet, she wanted to say. You can’t have me.

But was she?

She imagined she was lying in a graveyard, waiting to be put in her grave. Despite the pain, Amarli shifted her head to the right and saw that Nate’s grave was beside hers, the soil upset at the foot of the tombstone as if he’d just climbed out. He was sitting cross-legged on top of the soil, smiling down at her.

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” he said conversationally.

Amarli’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and she passed out again.

 ---

“Please – she is in need of immediate medical assistance!”

A furtive pause. “You sure you’re not in any kinda danger?”

“No, no… not anymore.”

“We have dealt with the danger,” came a new voice, this one robotic. “There is no threat here.”

“Please!” The woman with the accent sounded as if she were about to cry. “I must have a bed, and access to medical equipment. Her injuries are very severe.”

Another pause, this one longer, and Amarli’s ears picked up the huffing of a horse – no, it was a Brahmin. There were two huffs at once, indicating there were two heads. The Brahmin smelled like a farm; there was soil, and hay, and cows. Deliriously, she tried to smile, but her face hurt too much to complete it.

“She looks familiar,” the man said warily. “Where are you from?”

The woman’s voice grew desperately impatient. “She is familiar, yes. She is your General. You must stop with this – speed is essential!”

There was a light gasp of shock. “That’s… the General of the Minutemen? Amarli Lorenzen?”

The Brahmin grunted, and Amarli suddenly heard hurried footsteps around her. She let out a wheeze of pain as big hands tucked under her shoulders, lifting her off the ground. The world spun even behind her closed eyelids.

“Be careful!” someone cried frantically.

She was dragged, her legs bumping against the ground, and she cried out again, unable to help herself from answering to the pain. What had happened? Why did her legs feel so numb? Several hands helped lift her onto what felt like a slab of wood; then it moved slightly, and she realized it was a cart. This man must be a trader, or maybe he owned a farm. She could hear her own blood rushing in her ears, and it distracted her momentarily from the pain; she felt her mind beginning to slip away once more.

 ---

Amarli jolted back awake when she felt everything moving around her. One of her arms hurt too much for her to move, but she used the other to try and understand what was going on, feeling around her to take in the cart and the people in it. Her legs were terrifyingly numb and she couldn’t wrap her mind around the reason why. It must be shock, or something close to it. Happened to soldiers all the time in battle.

Amarli opened her eyes and saw the sky again but this time there were no stars or multicoloured birds. It was just gaping blackness, going on and on forever. They weren’t even moving that fast in the cart, but the road was so uneven that it bumped at every turn. Amarli had no idea where they were, and her throat didn’t work, so she couldn’t ask. Instead, a rasping, groaning noise came out.

“Amarli?” The voice was soft, thickly-accented, and familiar. Dark hair and part of a face appeared above her. “Hello. Can you hear me?”

Amarli made a noise of affirmation, her chest aching just at the effort.

“Do not try and speak,” Curie said sternly. She moved then, shifting behind her; Amarli felt delicate hands reaching beneath her shoulders and rising her gently so she was sitting in the cart and could see around her. It was night-time still, and they were passing fields of grass and crops. She could see her legs, too: they were completely soaked with blood. Her stomach roiled with nausea as she saw a bone sticking from her right leg, piercing through the skin and muscle. Her left leg had been twisted sickeningly in an unnatural direction. It was a wonder she hadn’t lost the limbs completely. Would she ever walk again?

Her eyes filled with tears just from the sight, and she sighed, closing her eyelids again so she wouldn’t have to look anymore. Curie tugged her so she moved backwards. She found herself pressed against a comforting warmth and she realized she wasn’t wearing her armour anymore. All of her possessions were missing. Curie’s arm snaked around her chest to hold her tight, letting her lean all of her weight against the front of her body. “You must relax,” she said softly. “I will fix you. It is a promise.”

Amarli felt a tear fall from beneath her eyelid and was surprised when Curie’s soft fingers wiped it away. She knew Curie couldn’t promise her that, but she wanted to bless her for trying.

Amarli let her head fall back against Curie’s shoulder, feeling the arm around her chest tighten to hold her closer. Even despite the pain jolting through her at every bump, she felt comfortable here. It was more comfortable even than her bed back at home. She turned her head and buried her face into Curie’s neck so the other woman couldn’t see the tears fall. It was the shock of it all, the pain throughout her body, and the recollection that she’d thought she was going to die; she couldn’t help but feel overcome with emotion.

Were they really alive? Had they escaped, with Ada and Jezebel still in one piece?

“I have given you two stimpacks already,” Curie said into her ear. “Would you like a third? Does it hurt very much?”

After a short pause of consideration, Amarli shifted her head in a nod. The throbbing pain was only getting worse by the second. She felt the hand leave her chest, but Curie didn’t try to remove Amarli’s head from her shoulder. In fact, she let her continue to lay there while she reached into her first aid kit for a stimpack and expertly injected it into Amarli’s thigh. There was a feeling of sweet, wonderful warmth spreading through her, and Amarli slumped against Curie with relief. The slender arm came back around her chest to hold her tight, this time joined by another. Amarli was completely enveloped in the warmth and softness of Curie’s body. She closed her eyes in satisfaction.

“Do you know,” Curie said thoughtfully, “I have something I must say to you.”

Amarli buried her face further into the crook of Curie’s neck, breathing in the familiar smell of her. She smelled like the shampoo back at home and the laundry detergent they used. Even her sweat and blood smelled familiar.

“I had thought…” For a second, Curie’s voice wavered, and she clutched Amarli even more tightly. “I had thought, you might be dead. And I would never be able to tell you.”

Amarli was so concentrated on the feeling of the stimpack spreading through her veins that she didn’t want to open her eyes. Instead, she lifted a hand and reached blindly backwards. She finally found Curie’s face and gently pressed her palm to her cheek, trying to express for her to continue.

Curie took a moment to tilt her face into Amarli’s hand. “I have been reading many novels. I have read Charlotte Brontë, and Emily Brontë, and Jane Austen, and Leo Tolstoy. There are such beautiful romances in literature, and I thought… I thought I could not possibly understand what that feels like.” Curie sighed. “But I do, very much.”

In her realm of soothing pleasure, Amarli wondered only briefly at Curie’s words and the emotion in her voice. She kept her hand planted firmly against her face, wanting her to keep on speaking. It was only a matter of seconds now until she drifted off, anyway.

“The way Mr. Rochester feels for Jane Eyre, and how Anna Karenina feels for her Count Alexei Vronsky… it is the same as how I feel for you.” Curie had skipped over the names as if she knew those people very well, but her accent tripped over itself, as if she’d almost forgotten how to speak. She added, “I had thought it was because you saved me from that vault, or because you had given me what every human needs: a family and a home. But this is not accurate.” Curie took a deep breath. “You treat all people with honour and respect. And you are so very selfless, and so kind. Madame – Amarli… I believe there is no denying it. I love you.”

There was a faint feeling of shock first, and then an intense swelling in Amarli’s chest that made the pain return momentarily. She wanted to reply, to say something wonderful in return, but her mind was already running away from her. Her hand fell from Curie’s cheek and her body slumped, retreating from consciousness as the stimpack did its work.

Before she slept, she thought she felt a kiss pressed to the side of her head – the first time Curie had really done that, been physically affectionate without having Amarli initiate the contact. It was the softest, sweetest kiss imaginable, and Amarli wanted to luxuriate in it for a little while longer.

But she drifted away.

 ---

Amarli woke up in a bed, but it was not her own. Her eyes felt as if they were glued shut and it took a great effort for her to open them and look around. All the walls were wooden and a little dusty and there were toys and books on all the shelves. This was a room that belonged to a child – or had belonged to a child once. Through the gaps in the ceiling, Amarli could see a second floor, and beyond that, the arching roof. She could tell from the level of light that it must be daytime, but she had no idea what time it really was. For how long had she been asleep?

She could remember the gruesome sight of her own legs more than anything, but when she sat up and looked down, all she saw were bandages, a great many of them wrapped from thigh to ankle. With a sudden fear, she tried to wiggle her toes. They moved weakly, but at least they had moved at all – she let out a sigh of relief. Somehow, despite all the damage, she still had feeling and function in both legs. She doubted she’d be able to walk for a while, though. Perhaps she’d never be able to walk the same way again. She might spend the rest of her life limping.

A knock came at the door and Amarli shot her head up, wary as she realized she had nothing to defend herself with. When a bearded man in a checkered shirt and jeans came in, however, her face relaxed with recognition. “Blake,” she said, her voice rasping but working nevertheless. “You’re Blake Abernathy.”

He smiled, wrinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes. “Right on.”

“How… how did I get here?”

He set a tray of food down on the table and turned to examine her. “Your friends caught me as I was riding home the other night from the city. You were in a right state. They convinced me to bring you here so you could recover.”

Amarli cracked a smile. “I think I remember that. You were… reluctant.”

Mr. Abernathy looked awkward. “You were all covered in blood. I thought it might be one of those Raider tricks, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna be kidnapped or killed in the middle of nowhere. But then they said you were the General, and I looked more closely…” He trailed off. “Needless to say, I remember what you did for me and my family. And I owe you a lot.”

“You’re very kind,” Amarli said quietly.

Abernathy shrugged. “All I did was offer a bed. I’m glad to see you’re all right.”

Amarli looked down at her legs again and then noticed her left arm was also bandaged, resting in a makeshift sling. This was surely a new record for broken bones. She winced a little as she wriggled her toes and fingers at the same time. “Must have made the sheets all bloody.”

“Oh, you did.” Abernathy smiled. “But your friend – the one with the weird accent – she had no shortage of info on how to remove blood from fabric. She seems to know a lot. About everything.”

Amarli immediately swelled with happiness. “Curie. Yeah, she does.” She tried to imagine Curie strolling around the farm telling all of them how to do things more efficiently, what tools and substances to use. She smiled. “Where are my friends?”

“The, uh, robot was pretty badly damaged. Curie’s the one with the accent, right? Yeah, she left early this morning to take the robot back ‘home’, and she said she’d return by the afternoon to fetch you. I let her take my cart.”

Amarli blinked, wondering how badly Ada must be broken. “How long was I sleeping for?”

“You arrived here two nights ago,” he responded. “Your friend, Curie, spent the entire next day in here trying to fix you. We decided to give all of you some space.”

Amarli let out a low sigh. “She did it,” she said, more to herself than to him. It was as if Mama Murphy’s premonition was coming true before her very eyes. Would she have died back there if Curie hadn’t been with her? Would she have lost both of her legs? Would she have failed the mission entirely? It was pretty clear now that, without Curie, she was capable of nothing. She needed Curie the way she’d always depended on herself in the past. And now that Curie wasn’t here in the room with her, she itched to be able to run and find her, to wrap her arms around her and thank her a thousand times for everything she’d done.

“My daughter made these for you,” Abernathy said into the silence, pointing to a pair of crutches leaning against the wall. “Figured it’d take a while for you to walk again unaided.”

Amarli bowed her head in gratitude. “Thank you,” she said.

He studied her more closely. "General, if you don't mind... is there something going on? What were you fighting to end up like this?"

"Some very interesting Radiers," Amarli said, knowing she wasn't far from the truth. How much was safe to say? Abernathy was one of the few settlers who'd refused extra security from the Minutemen - surely, if he knew, he'd accept their help? "But I can't deny there's something else happening in the Commonwealth. Something which could become bad. You might need our help at some point, Mr. Abernathy."

He hummed his understanding, but he didn't ask her anymore questions. "I trust I'll hear about it soon," he said. Turning to go, he added, “I’ll leave you to have your breakfast. I’ll send your friend right in as soon as she arrives.”

Amarli nodded and watched as he left the room, turning her eyes to the crutches. She’d only had to use crutches once in her life, when she was fourteen and she broke her leg competing in high jump. Those days of athletics were over. Now, it was all about surviving.

She laid back and stared up through the ceiling again, hearing footsteps up there and wondering what was going on around the farm. She tried to remember what had happened after she dropped the grenade and passed out. How had Curie and a broken Ada managed to carry her all the way out of the satellite array towards a main road? Had Jezebel survived? Abernathy had said nothing about a second robot.

To calm her racing mind, Amarli reached for the tray of food and began to eat. She ate until she couldn’t eat anymore, and then she set the tray aside and tried to sleep again.

When she next woke up, it was slightly darker in the room and she heard hushed voices outside the door. Beyond the walls, she heard the impatient clomping of hooves and water sloshing inside a tub. The Brahmin was being tended to before it was locked back in its pen. There was a brief whistle and a soft female voice, and she imagined Abernathy’s daughter dressed in farmhand clothes standing just on the other side of the wall, completing her final farm chore of the day before she came inside to help with dinner. Amarli had never met the other daughter; Mary had died a while ago at the hands of some Raiders. Raiders Amarli had killed herself. Only Lucy was left, and Blake had given the impression that he’d guard her with his life. He was a family man, and all that mattered to him was his farm and the people he loved. Amarli wished her own life was that simple.

Wanting to know who was speaking outside the door of her room, Amarli sat up in bed and glanced over at the crutches. They were a little far away for her to reach and she’d forgotten to ask Blake Abernathy to bring them over. Grimacing, she lifted her legs off the bed, feeling a dull ache in her bones, and stretched her whole body to reach for them. Her fingertips only just touched the wood, and then they went clattering noisily to the ground.

The sound seemed to hush whoever was outside. With a loud creak, the door opened, and two sets of footsteps entered the room. Amarli glanced up and stared at her visitors blankly, too shocked to react at first.

And then Shaun cried, “Mom!” and ran over to her, throwing his arms around her neck. She automatically smiled and pulled him closer, sighing in relief just at the sight of him. He must have been so worried about her when she didn’t come home that night. If she had died… what then?

Amarli’s eyes drifted past Shaun to Curie, who was standing somewhat awkwardly by the door, her eyes averted. It was thanks to Curie she was still alive and in one piece. She was only able to live long enough to see her son again because Curie had been there to save her life. Amarli felt her whole body soften with emotion. With her voice breaking, she said, “Well? Are you going to keep standing there?”

Shaun pulled back and glanced at the other woman expectantly. With a small sigh, Curie rushed forward and did exactly what he had done, throwing her arms around Amarli in a desperate hug. Amarli hugged her back so tightly that she expected her to complain. But she didn’t. And they stayed like that for a long time, long enough that Amarli could literally feel how fast and hard her heart was beating. She closed her eyes, filled with sentiment and unsure of how to get it out. How could she possibly explain how wonderful it was to see Curie after everything that had happened?

“I was very worried,” Curie said, her voice muffled.

Amarli knew that. It wasn’t something that needed to be said out loud. “You saved my life,” she whispered.

“Because you tried to risk it.” Curie pulled back with tears in her eyes. “For me. And I could not let you.”

Amarli smiled. “I would die again for you, Curie.”

“I do not want you to die for me. I want you to live.” She said it so ferociously that Amarli almost didn’t recognize her. It truly hadn’t occurred to her how much her death might affect her closest friend. She hadn’t thought about how upset Curie might be if she was no longer there. She opened her mouth to reply –

“We have to go,” Shaun interrupted. “It’ll be dark soon. And we told Codsworth we’d be back for dinner.”

“Did we?” Amarli reluctantly let go of Curie and the other woman straightened with a slight blush on her face. With more confidence, she rounded the bed to pick up the crutches Amarli had knocked over and then held them in one hand, offering her arm for Amarli to grasp.

Amarli did, and was surprised that she could actually put some pressure on her left leg – as far as she remembered, it had been previously been twisted out of shape. But it supported her surprisingly well. Her right leg… not so much. Curie helped her settle on the crutches and then lightly pressed against her back. “We have the cart,” she clarified. “You do not have to walk all the way home.”

Amarli smirked. “Aren’t you always going on at me about how healthy exercise is for the body?”

“Non.” Curie frowned, though it was playful. “It is not when your body is so broken, Madame.”

Amarli let both Curie and Shaun lead her out through the front of the house to the cart waiting outside. She waved to the women watching from the porch as they waited for the Brahmin to be tethered, calling out her gratitude. And then, with hardly a moment’s pause, Blake Abernathy climbed onto the front of the cart and spurred the Brahmin into a trot. Time to go home.

Chapter Text

PART IV

Amarli was confined to her bed for a week. She sometimes got out and limped around, but she couldn’t go very far without feeling exhausted. It made sense, considering she’d been on the very brink of death, but she was still impatient to get back to work. The Minutemen needed her – Ada needed her. The robot was in desperate need of proper repairs, and Sturges didn’t entirely know what he was doing. And Jezebel, who was under Ada’s protection currently, still needed that new body. But Curie had reassured her time and time again that she needed rest more than she needed to work. If she didn’t let her body heal properly, she could end up being unable to walk. Curie also emphasized that injecting herself with a thousand stimpacks wasn’t the answer – stimpacks were some of the most powerful medicine the Commonwealth had to offer, and if Amarli became addicted, it would make her even more ill.

So, she did as she was told. She spent most of her day in bed or sitting at her desk and doing what she’d used to do before all of this; meddling with junk and building small machines. There wasn’t really anything else to do. And she was always glad when Curie joined her, doing her own work at the other end of the desk.

There was certainly nothing more wonderful than waking up close to midday and finding that Curie had been waiting for her, sitting on the edge of the mattress. Curie would help her walk up and down the street each morning, assisting her recovery, and would give her all these little pills and medicines she’d tried her hand at making, using pre-war morphine as a base. It almost seemed like her research was going much better now that Amarli was injured. Perhaps, Amarli had joked to her one day, I should start getting hurt more often. Curie had called her foolish and left her alone. In fact, she hadn’t spoken to Amarli for the rest of the day, as if she had taken great offense. She was very sensitive about the idea of Amarli getting hurt after that battle, and Amarli could not make herself apologize. It was true she’d die for Curie – she’d do it again if she had to.

The distance which had existed before their mission had completely disappeared again. Amarli had almost forgotten that night in the bathroom. It seemed like a hundred years ago. But she sometimes caught a look in Curie’s eye; remorse, perhaps, or disappointment. It made her close up. Again, she couldn’t quite deny how important Curie was to her, or how attractive she found her, but that didn’t undermine the fact that she desperately needed Curie as her friend. As her family. She couldn’t allow anything else to happen – perhaps Curie had finally recognized that. It would explain all those odd looks.

Finally, as her left leg healed and her right leg was following suit, Amarli was able to leave her room for longer periods at a time. She no longer needed Curie’s help when she was walking. When she wasn’t sitting with Sturges and giving him instructions on how to make repairs on Ada’s mechanisms, she was spending time down at the creek with Shaun. There had been a few reports of attacks in settlements beyond the city, but it seemed the Mechanist’s robots were no match any longer for the true power of the Minutemen. They were everywhere, and they had such a good connection that they could call in reinforcements within minutes. Not to mention the artillery at the Castle: it had a much longer range now, and the robots knew to avoid Minutemen territory, at least for the time being.

So, they had a rather large window of time to get their act together. For a month, maybe two months, they would be able to hold off the Mechanist’s attacks. But it would be better if they could find him sooner rather than later.

Ada was being repaired and had been processing the Mechanist’s location; materials to build Jezebel’s new body were being brought in from other settlements; extra ammunition and weapons had been shipped in from the Castle. Even if she couldn’t walk properly, Amarli kept on top of her work as General, constantly contacting Preston and the Minutemen in other settlements to make sure everything was in order. As the second week came to a close, she found she rarely had a minute of freedom. Curie seemed to be waiting to speak with her about something, but she often didn’t have the time or the energy to have a lengthy conversation, so she put it off. She was using one crutch now, and that was only because her right leg was still weak and she was trying to teach the muscle to move properly again. Everyone had grown used to the sight of her limping through Sanctuary Hills, Dogmeat or Shaun at her flank, calling out orders like nothing had changed.

Despite everything that had happened, Amarli felt that her situation had improved greatly. Maybe she’d never be able walk again without a limp, but she was alive, and that was most important. Furthermore, for the first time in their fight against the Mechanist, they had an advantage.

She wasn’t going to waste it.

 ---

Curie stared at her reflection in the mirror, brow furrowed. She wasn’t sure she liked how long her hair had gotten. It fell over her forehead and the tops of her cheekbones in inky-black strands, the ends curled slightly so that she constantly looked windblown. Despite all her efforts to look neat and presentable, her hair was always falling into her eyes or sticking up at the back. It gave her away. But it had been met with pleased looks, and she’d sensed the eyes of some of the Minutemen following her in the street. There had been times Amarli had absently touched her hair and said how much she liked it; times where Shaun had said she looked pretty with it longer.

Curie sighed and put the scissors down on the sink. She’d let it grow. Maybe it’d grow long enough that she could tie it back like Amarli always did, and then it wouldn’t constantly be in the way.

She traced her fingers over her bare shoulders and chest, automatically checking for new marks on her skin, be it moles, scars or freckles. The only freckles she’d gotten were on her cheeks, however – she’d never bared enough of her body to the sun to have it marked. And the only scar that had remained was from her first ever fight with Amarli against all those robots; a neat, shiny line just below her ribs on the right side. If she could see though her chest, through her ribcage, she’d probably see plenty of scars on her heart, too. It was a terribly romantic way of thinking, but she couldn’t help herself. One scar for each of the times she had felt rejected by her closest friend. One for when she caught Amarli with Magnolia in Goodneighbor; one for when Amarli touched her and then told her it was a mistake; and one for having professed her love, only to have Amarli forget about it – though that one was still a raw wound. It was as if it had never happened, as if she hadn’t made that part of herself vulnerable against all odds. Had Amarli really forgotten, or had she simply chosen not to dwell on it? Until they spoke at least fleetingly about it, Curie would continue to hurt.

Curie tried to tell herself she was simply glad that the other woman was safe and alive. Truthfully, it wounded her terribly to not even be able to talk about how she truly felt. It hurt when Amarli touched her, because she wanted so much more than a kiss on the cheek or a squeeze of the hand. It hurt when she slept next to Amarli in the same bed, because she wanted to be able to curl up against her body and make herself as close as possible. It definitely hurt when she tried to talk to Amarli, only to have Amarli dismiss her because she was too busy. Each time it happened, Curie only felt more and more disappointed. She didn’t think she would ever get over a love like this. She didn’t think she could live like this.

Hiding the truth had become much easier, however, than simply letting it show. Curie could still joke with Amarli and spend time with her without showing she was depressed, but the moment there were no eyes on her, she would feel as if she had no energy to smile. The moment she was called upon to act happy again, it was an extra ounce of effort. She didn’t think anyone had noticed yet – she didn’t want anyone to. But she also wondered if she was making herself more and more alone. With the Mechanist still out there, anything could happen. There was still a chance they could all die. And Curie was scared she would die without ever hearing from Amarli whether her love had been accepted or not.

“Hey,” Sturges said, catching sight of Curie standing by the back of Mama Murphy’s house. She’d gone for a walk after her shower and had somehow ended up here, staring out over the untamed grass of the garden. Sturges had moved in recently. It was confusing for Curie, because she often walked past expecting the house to be empty, but then she would hear hammering or music coming from inside and she would automatically think, Oh! She is still here! And then she’d remember, and her mood would sour with sadness. 

“Hello, Monsieur,” Curie said shyly. She suddenly felt stupid standing there, like she was trespassing. “I am sorry to interrupt.”

“You’re not interrupting anything.” Sturges gestured for her to come in. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you.” Curie went inside and looked around, seeing that he had been boarding up the walls the same way he’d done previously with his own house. Curiously, she found herself asking, “Why do you still do it?”

Sturges looked at her with confusion. “Do what?”

“You spent so many months building your house, and then it fell.” Curie lowered her head. “And yet here you are, building again. Are you not scared it will happen once more?”

There was a flicker of sadness on Sturges’ face. He stepped forward and touched Curie’s back, guiding her over to the centre of the room. “What do you see?” he asked.

“I see the living room,” Curie said simply, not understanding his question. “And the kitchen. There is mould on the ceiling – perhaps this should be seen to?”

He chuckled. “No, I mean… symbolically.”

“Oh.” She still didn’t understand.

“What I see is a home, Curie. And a home can’t be lived in if the walls and the ceiling are covered with gaping holes.”

“Oh, I see.” And she did see. There was absolutely no security if anyone could simply climb in through the walls. They were also a useless barrier against weather and radiation.

“I grew up fixing things,” he said. “It’s all I’ve known, and it’s all I’ll ever know. It doesn’t matter how many of my projects are destroyed, or how many tragedies happen. Building things is a part of who I am.”

When Curie looked at him with raised eyebrows, he sighed. “Look at it this way: you can’t live your life expecting things to fall down. How are you gonna do anything for the world if you’re just waiting for yourself to fail?”

Curie nodded slowly. “This is a valid point.”

“Sometimes, building something new is the only way to feel whole again. Sometimes, even if you feel like everything’s ruined, there’s a sense of hope in being able to fix something and return it to its former glory.”

She wasn’t sure he was talking about building houses anymore. While her mind struggled to follow him into this so-called ‘symbolic’ realm, she realized she could apply his words directly to what she felt in her heart. She’d counted three times now that Amarli had disappointed her, and she currently felt as if she wanted to give up. But there was a sense of hope in the idea of pushing past that. She didn’t need to lie there and sulk in her ruins; she needed get up and start building again. Board up the walls, fix the furniture, make everything work once more – figuratively, of course.

“Thank you very much, Monsieur,” she said.

Sturges turned to stare at her. “What? But I didn’t-”

She turned and left through the front door, walking with a little bounce in her step as she returned to her lab at home. The moment she was inside, she sat down at her desk and got to working. She was adamant that she heal her disappointment in a different way; by completing her research, she’d fill her heart with the happiness and survival of many people. She’d save lives, the way she had done her best to save Amarli’s life. It wasn’t much, but it was something. While her work hadn’t shaped up to anything in particular before now, she suddenly had inspiration. An image. And she knew the exact tools to use to make that image come to life.

She worked and worked without pause for two days after that and could hardly tear herself away from the desk for each meal. When Shaun asked her to play, she kindly turned him down each time. Even when Amarli came in at night, she refused to let it distract her. She’d sleep when Amarli needed to, because she wanted the other woman to rest and heal well, but she’d be up again early in the morning and sorting through samples. She was an unstoppable force, and for a little while, it almost made her feel whole again, just like Sturges had promised. And then, on the third day, she encountered a block. The wild mutfruit strain she’d been using, which she’d thought would produce the results she’d been looking for, had turned out to be exactly what she didn’t need. With every test she had conducted, the sugar had proved to be toxic – a feature unique to the wild strain as it needed a powerful defence against pests. She threw all the samples away, knowing she would have to start all over again. Knowing she would need to grow her own mutfruit in isolation if she wanted any of this to work. And that would take much longer.

Curie soon reached a point where she was too frustrated to work. She threaded her fingers through her hair, so upset for a minute that she couldn’t think of anything else. She couldn’t get Amarli to love her – fine, that was expected. Her humanity was still new to her, and her emotions were not easy to decipher. To have misread Amarli’s feelings was understandable. But this was a different story. Curie had been created for the sole purpose of improving the lives of all of humanity. She was a scientist, a medic, and yet she was absolutely terrible at her job. After all this time, and after sacrificing the safety of her robot body, she had made no progress. She had spent her time in this body being totally overcome by her emotions at every twist and turn; first, it had been understanding her own humanity. And then it was understanding her body’s attraction to another. And then it was how her heart jumped and beat out of control when Amarli was near…

She had spent little to no time on producing actual, quantifiable results for her research. How had she not realized how selfish it was to focus on herself instead of the safety of humankind?

A hand landed on her shoulder. Curie jumped and turned to look behind her with wide eyes. “Oh,” she said, and tried to erase the tension from her voice. “Hello.”

Amarli tilted her head curiously. “Have you had a breakthrough?”

“Not yet.” Curie half turned away from her, wishing she would leave. She knew her frustration was showing starkly on her face – she was frowning, and she couldn’t wipe it away.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes.” Steeling herself, Curie pointed out, “Madame… I need to work in silence.”

“Oh. Sorry.” With slight surprise, Amarli pulled away and backed towards the corridor. “Uh, I’ll be in the living room. Codsworth can bring you dinner.”

The moment she was gone, Curie instantly felt terrible. She hadn’t meant to be so brusque with Amarli, or even to send her away. In fact, considering how much she yearned to be close to her, it was the absolute opposite of what she’d wanted. But it was frustrating – so frustrating – to never have the peace she wanted. She just wanted an hour or so where she wasn’t thinking about her. She wanted to find something else to fill her mind. It was exhausting, and painful, and terrifying, to be feeling the things she always felt around Amarli. And to have none of it brought to light or requited.

I love you. She’d said it, the way they always said it in books, except in real life Amarli hadn’t been in a position to say it back. Now that she was, she still hadn’t said it. She hadn’t even turned Curie down. Curie felt as if her feelings were being held over her head. She felt as if she was being played with, which made no sense, because she had always thought Amarli was the kindest, most thoughtful woman in the world.

Curie was so plagued by her thoughts of guilt and frustration that she knew she couldn’t sit at that desk any longer. She had tried to follow Sturges and make light of her situation, but she had only grown more unsatisfied. Rather ashamedly, she left the room and walked out to where Codsworth was still cooking dinner. Shaun must still be outside playing, but Dogmeat was here with Amarli in the living room, sitting on the couch with his head in her lap. She glanced up when she heard Curie’s footsteps and smiled her usual all-consuming smile, as if she could think of nothing better than seeing Curie in that very moment.

“I did not mean to dismiss you,” Curie began. “My stress levels have been fluctuating recently...”

“Will you come here?”

Curie walked over and dropped down onto the couch beside Dogmeat, running a hand absently through his fur. He grunted his satisfaction. For the first time in weeks since the battle, Curie drew in her shoulders and decided to be brave.

“I need you to tell me,” she said quietly. “Please.”

She could tell that Amarli was watching her thoughtfully. With a sigh, she put down the comic she’d been flicking through and leaned back against the cushions. “Tell you? About what?”

“About...” Curie pressed a hand to her eyes, feeling the wave of emotions overcome her. “Oh, Madame, I have still not said how scared I was when you left me. And when I saw you fall, and I thought you must have died…”

Amarli’s mouth opened in a silent ‘oh’ and she quickly patted Dogmeat’s flank to get him to jump off the couch. He sighed in annoyance but did as he was told, retreating to a space in front of the television. Amarli scooted over so she was sat directly beside Curie and took one of her hands. “We never really did talk about the battle, did we?”

“You have been so busy. And before that, when you were recovering, you would not speak about it.”

“I didn’t realize you wanted to.” Amarli squeezed her hand, and the look on her face was genuine; Curie believed her. “But we can talk now.”

Curie didn’t know where to start. Suddenly, she had no words to say, none except another of her confessions: I love you. But that was much too hard to say again. The people in the books never had to say it twice to have their love recognized. She didn’t think the real world would be any different.

“You’re literally my hero,” Amarli said, her mouth curving into a smile. She took Curie’s hand and placed it in her lap, stroking her thumb over the knuckles. “And you’ve helped me recover, get back on my feet. I should have told you how grateful I am.”

Grateful. Curie wasn’t sure she liked that. What she wanted was for Amarli to fall at her feet and say she loved her, too. She wanted to no longer feel like her love and her attraction were taboo. But apparently this was too much to ask. If anything, Curie felt even worse than she had a minute ago.

And then Amarli moved towards her in such an unexpected way that Curie automatically leaned back out of reach, panicking. A small lock of hair had tumbled in front of her face, resting just in front of her cheek, but with one swift slide of Amarli’s thumb, it was brushed out of the way. The hand stayed there against her cheek and Curie felt her pulse racing dramatically. She didn’t know what she’d thought Amarli would do, but her reaction had been one of fear, as if she’d imagined Amarli would hit her. She knew the other woman had noticed; there was dawning suspicion in her eyes, just like that night in the bathroom. “What’s wrong?”

“You must know,” she whispered.

“I don’t.” Amarli’s eyes darkened, and Curie felt herself stir inside as she saw something delightfully seductive in them. She wondered if it was the same desire she’d seen before, when Amarli had touched her face and kissed her hands. She wondered if the world was finally shifting, and she would get what she wanted. Very slightly, Curie leaned forwards again, forcing herself to relax. She leaned so far forwards that it became an unquestionable invitation for Amarli to get closer. She closed her eyes and waited.

Amarli moved in once more, so slowly that Curie felt unbearably stimulated by it. Soft lips touched her cheek and time stopped, Curie’s heart coming to a halt. Her breath caught in her throat. Their fingers locked together and Curie found herself swaying into her, wondering if the other woman had changed her mind. As the soft skin of Amarli’s mouth left the side of her face, the exact spot where her lips had come into contact burned and tingled. A hot blazing fire pulsed through Curie’s veins and she let her eyes flutter open, already knowing that her cheeks had painted themselves rose red. Amarli pulled away silently, but their eyes locked, having a private conversation of their own.

“I love you, too,” she said simply.

Curie didn’t know where to look anymore, she was blushing so hard. “Madame, there is so much…” She trailed off helplessly. There is so much I would like to tell you. But she couldn’t say it. She absolutely couldn’t. So, Amarli had heard her that night and remembered since; she just hadn’t tried to bring it up. Curie wished all of a sudden that it had stayed a secret. This hurt so, so much more.

Amarli hadn’t said it like, I love you and I want to touch you and be with you in any way possible. It was, I love you, because you are my greatest friend and you saved my life. And it wasn't enough.

Amarli’s fingers graced her face again, tracing her cheekbones like they had before, her eyes fixed on the movement. Curie was torn between wanting the contact and hating it. She loved Amarli so much that it hurt, but there was nothing she could do about the lack of return for her feelings. Amarli had shown her she was attracted to her, but she had also now made it completely clear that she would not let anything happen between them. She loved Curie, but not in the way Curie wanted her to. Curie was her closest friend and part of her family, not one of her lovers.

“Why do you look so unhappy?” Amarli asked, though there was sympathy in her eyes so she must know. She stroked her cheek and then, when Curie didn’t answer, sighed morosely. “Curie,” she said evenly. “You can’t do this to me.”

Curie was surprised to hear the weariness in her voice. “I have done something wrong?”

She hesitated. “No. But you’re expecting too much of me. I’m not who you want me to be.”

With a sickening amount of hope, Curie looked up and met her eyes. “But you do not know who I want you to be,” she said.

“You want me to love you like... like the characters in the books you read. Like I want to be with you.” Amarli swallowed, her throat bobbing. Her eyes dropped momentarily to Curie’s lips, then away towards the television. “And I do… but I can’t.”

Those words rung throughout Curie’s head like an alarm; she blinked, feeling as if she had just woken up, and blurted, “Why?”

Amarli’s beautiful green eyes were expressive, but they didn’t provide an answer. Curie certainly didn’t have enough data on kissing to be the one to initiate it – she was too self-conscious, and too scared she’d embarrass herself. She moved in closer nevertheless, her hands skating over Amarli’s shoulders and turning so they were tucked against her neck. She closed her eyes as she anticipated some sort of response, wanting desperately for her friend to hold her close and touch her, but there was nothing. Amarli’s breathing had become uneven. To her disappointment, Amarli simply shrugged her hands off and stood.

“I should take a shower,” she said awkwardly, as if none of it had happened. For the first time, she was blushing as well – even with the darkness of her skin, Curie could see how the rushing of blood had made it much darker. She wondered if she was imagining it. Was it possible she could have the ability to fluster this woman, even despite her apparent lack of interest?

Curie nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The moment she opened her mouth, she’d betray all of the disappointment and hurt which had returned with the lack of return for her feelings – scar number four. She didn’t understand how Amarli could do that, get close to her, make her imagine that she might get what she wanted, and then pull away at the last second. Was it all a game to her? Had Magnolia really been right about the sort of person she was?

She wanted people physically, and then she didn’t want them at all. Perhaps that was why she refused to touch Curie. Because she didn’t want there to be more than kissing, or sex; but she also didn’t want to lose Curie for her friendship. It was one or the other. Did she not realize this did not have to be the way?

Curie watched with yet more frustration as Amarli got up and limped off towards the bathroom, disappointed again by the cruelty of her own fate.

 ---

“Madame, where are you going?”

Curie had noticed that Amarli was packing the moment she awoke. It was still dark outside and the crickets were droning loudly. The other woman was kneeling beside the bed, collecting ammunition from her small weapons locker. Clothes were already piled on the floor around her. Curie had managed to save her rucksack during the battle alongside her shotgun and her armour, but all her other weapons had been left behind. She was very low on supplies, so perhaps she was about to make a trip to buy some more – into the city, perhaps?

Still, the idea that Amarli had woken up so early in the morning to pack a bag, as if she’d wanted to leave before Curie was awake, was very suspicious. Curie had no idea where she thought she was going with that limp of hers. She was completely vulnerable out there without someone to watch her back. It didn’t matter that Curie had confessed her love and tried to kiss her, and Amarli had almost given in – none of it mattered when Amarli’s safety was on the line. So Curie sat up immediately, throwing the covers off, and crawled across the bed to see what the other woman was doing.

“Madame…”

Then Curie saw that Amarli was packing two bags, and one of them was her own. She felt two things: a slight flicker of warmth deep in her chest as she realized that Amarli had simply wanted to let her sleep in rather than wake her and make her work; and also a rippling of guilt as she realized she had immediately assumed the worst. Even in the darkness, Curie could see the apologetic look on Amarli’s face.

“Was I making too much noise?”

“No, no… I…” Curie blushed and was glad for the shadows. “I always notice immediately when you are not beside me.”

Amarli paused for a moment, and Curie found herself cringing at the silence, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. But then she saw her friend lower her head and continue to pack as if nothing had happened, collecting some hats from beneath the bed. If she was bringing extra hats, it meant she expected this to be a long journey – where could they possibly be going?

Curie laid down on her stomach, her chin in her hands while she watched Amarli work, deciding it truly must be a trip into the city. Amarli had made the assumption that Curie would come with her to help, just like old times. As if she knew Curie would never let her go anywhere alone.

“You might need some more shirts,” Amarli said after a moment. “Maybe, if you want to work while we’re there, you can bring some of your medical stuff, too.”

Curie stared at her, her curiosity now too overwhelming to ignore. “But where are we going?”

As if she had forgotten they didn’t share the same mind, Amarli blinked at her and then pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh, sorry – the Castle. Preston suggested an idea to me last night over the radio. He thinks I should go as soon as possible.” She frowned, looking at Curie more closely in the darkness. “You do want to come, right?”

“Of course!” Excited, Curie climbed off the bed and went to the dresser to get some more of her own shirts. She went nowhere near the desk, realizing there was no point in bringing any of her apparatus with her. She’d already created isolated conditions and begun growing her own sterile mutfruit, but there was nothing to do now but wait. Perhaps, while they were gone, she could get Shaun to tend to it.

“What is this idea Monsieur Garvey had?” Curie asked, setting her clothes down and kneeling on the floor beside Amarli.

“Well, we’re still having trouble with a few settlements that haven’t accepted the Minutemen’s help. They’re vulnerable, and we can’t have that.”

Curie hummed her agreement.

“The main reason they denied extra soldiers was because they thought it was unnecessary. We’ve tried so hard to keep quiet about the Mechanist that people genuinely don’t realize there’s a threat. So, Preston pointed out that basically all the Commonwealth settlements are tuned into Radio Freedom now…”

“Ah! And so you must give a speech, and tell them they are in danger!” Curie said, catching on.

She caught the flash of a smile in the darkness. “Yeah.”

“I think I like this idea very much,” Curie decided. “Do you think they will accept help if they know?”

“I’d hope so.” She shrugged. “Well… actually, I was thinking a better tactic to strengthen our defences would be to get those more vulnerable settlers to move to the bigger, more fortified settlements temporarily, so we can guarantee their safety.” She looked furtively at Curie. “What do you think?”

Curie was so surprised to find Amarli asking for her opinion about a Minutemen issue that for a few seconds she did nothing but stare. She cleared her throat. “I think it is a reasonable idea,” she said. “To have all the settlers in a well-defended place seems logical.”

“That’s what I thought.” Amarli sounded pleased.

“So, you have written your speech?”

Amarli continued packing in silence for a few seconds, and then leaned back on her heels. “Well, no. I figured I’d wing it.”

Immediately, Curie shook her head. “No, this will not do.”

“Why not?” Amarli asked with amusement.

“This is… not meant to be offensive, but my knowledge dictates many of the settlers in the Commonwealth can be small-minded. They do not see past their land and their assets and they will not believe they are in serious danger if you, as you say, ‘wing it’. They will maybe take out a shotgun, or buy some more bullets, but they will still not move to a safer residence.”

“So I shouldn’t bother with a speech at all, then,” Amarli said.

“This is not what I said,” Curie disagreed. “Madame, you were once a lawyer – you are very capable of convincing them. As a lawyer, you must formulate your argument, predict opposing arguments, and gather evidence. You do not improvise, as you are sure to fail.”

The corner of Amarli’s mouth curled into a smile. “Is there anything in the world that you don’t know a lot about, Curie?”

Curie didn’t need to answer that – she knew next to nothing on how the human body reacted to emotional stimuli, and it had caused plenty of trouble so far.

“Madame, I believe I know what you are capable of,” Curie said seriously. “When I first began traveling with you, I was aware that you were destined for greatness.”

“I didn’t know robots believed in destiny.”

“But we can predict future outcomes. And your future looked so very bright.”

There was silence again, and Curie wondered if she had pushed too far. But then there was a small sigh – of contentment, she decided – and Amarli reached over to squeeze her shoulder. “Thank you, Curie,” she said quietly.

Curie hadn’t been trying to compliment her, but she figured it could be taken that way. She was only being honest.

She artfully pointed out, “So, you will write a speech, yes?”

“Yes.” Amarli chuckled. “And then you can read over it and tell me if it’s any good.”

“Yes.” She paused. “But it will be, regardless.”

“I’ll do my best to impress you.”

Curie wanted to tell her that she was already the most impressive person in the world, but she also realized that she’d be taking it too far again, and she was currently enjoying the friendly banter between them. It had become rare, and Curie missed it. She may be upset with Amarli for not being honest with her and disregarding the intensity of her feelings, but she also still loved Amarli for being her friend.

“How long will we stay in the Castle?”

“For however long the Minutemen need me there.” Amarli furrowed her brow. “Meaning I have no idea. Could be a few days, could be a couple weeks. Are you okay with that?”

“I have never been to the Castle,” Curie said eagerly. “As long as I am with you, I will be happy to stay however long is necessary.”

“Me too,” Amarli said. Curie looked up and met her eyes and smiled, pleased despite how unexpected that was. To think that Amarli would be happy anywhere as long as Curie was with her was flattering. It was good that some things did not change.

Having finished packing her bag, Amarli straightened with some clothes in one hand. “Get dressed. I’ll go wake Shaun and tell him what’s happening.”

“Is he coming also?”

“He’s been to the Castle a couple times before. Found it boring. I normally just assume he wants to stay here.”

Curie thought he’d definitely want to come with them, but she left it for Amarli to decide. She was his mother after all.

As Amarli limped out of the room and crossed the hall to wake her son, Curie sped up with her packing, folding each item neatly before tucking it in its designated space in her bag. She had a very careful order for everything – even in the dresser, her clothes always had a sequence. While her desk often got messy, her tools and equipment remained in their chosen positions. If there was a change, if there was even a slight shift from normal, it confused her and made her upset. Amarli had learned this very quickly, and so had Shaun.

“Ready?” Amarli was already dressed and standing in the doorway. She was so tall and impressive, even without her armour, that Curie had to sit back and admire her.

“I have finished packing,” she said. “But I must get dressed.”

Amarli bent to pick up her own back and collect her armour. “Do you want some cereal?”

“If it is the bran,” Curie allowed.

She knew that Amarli was aware of how little she liked Sugar Bombs – for her, they were just too sweet. Curie was only just beginning to recollect how nice it was to be around people who understood all these little things about her. It made her appreciate Amarli’s reasoning more and more about why they should continue to be nothing more than friends. If something happened, and they did not want to be around each other anymore, then all these little understandings would be lost. Still… it was hard. Very hard.

Curie dressed in jeans and one of her many checkered shirts, this one rather frayed at the hem but still nevertheless a favorite. She went to the bathroom and tried to comb her hair, but it was still too disheveled for her to do much about it. She washed her face, applied deodorant and moisturizer, and then took the rest of her bathroom things to her bag so she could pack them too. When she was finished, she put on her armour, checking it wasn’t too tight, grabbed her rifle off the rack on the wall, and went out to have breakfast with Amarli.

Amarli was already eating her cereal, her armour on and her shotgun laying on the counter. When Curie walked up and shot it a cursory glance, Amarli reluctantly took it off, placing it across her lap instead. “Forgot about your ‘no weapons on the table’ rule.”

It hadn’t be a rule – more of a request. Still, Curie was glad Amarli cared enough to listen to her. She sat down beside her and pulled the bowl of plain bran flakes towards her. “It is unhygienic,” she said. “And dangerous.”

“I know.”

Curie turned to her. “How is your leg?”

“It’s fine.” Amarli stretched it out so Curie could see. “A little stiff this morning, but the walking should loosen it up.”

“Are you sure you would not like to bring the crutches?”

“Curie,” she said dryly, “I am not limping through the entire Commonwealth in crutches. Do you have any idea how easy a target I’ll look like?”

Curie smiled with mirth. “But then, if someone picks on you, you can throw the crutches away and surprise them by running up and fighting them off.” She giggled. “Not so easy a target after all, yes?”

Amarli was looking at her with a barely-contained grin. “Very funny.”

They finished their breakfast in silence, and when they were done, they went out into the yard to say goodbye to Angustia. While Amarli had wanted to bring Dogmeat with them to the Castle, Curie’s dog had little experience with conflict and it seemed safer for her to stay here with Shaun. So it was only the German Shepard who Amarli attached a collar to – he barked excitedly and ran a few circles, as if he couldn’t believe he’d been chosen to accompany them. Amarli took him around the front of the house to have a few words with Codsworth before they left, and Curie went to Shaun’s room to say farewell.

He was sitting up in bed, looking a little fed up. “Oh, hi,” he said.

“Hello.” Curie closed the door and went to sit beside him.

“Mom wouldn’t let me come,” he muttered grumpily.

Curie wasn’t going to undermine Amarli’s choice, so she simply shrugged. “There is no danger for us. We are simply going for Minutemen duties. You do not need to worry.”

“I’m not worried, I’m just bored.”

Curie thought for a moment. “There is something I need you here for, mon loulou. Perhaps, if you can help me, you will not be so bored.”

The little boy turned his head and looked up at her in confusion. “Really?”

“You have seen the little experiment of mine in the garden? I have built it myself.”

“It looks like a baby greenhouse."

“While I am gone, you must ensure the plants survive. It is vital.”

“What are they for?”

“A very powerful medicine,” Curie said. “Like a stimpack, but more efficient. Much more. If the plants survive and there is no contamination, I may be able to manufacture this medicine as soon as I return. It could save many lives in the Commonwealth.”

Shaun seemed energized. “So, you want me to take care of them? I can do that.”

Curie beamed at him. “I know, mon loulou.”

Surprising her, Shaun abruptly turned and wrapped his arms around her in a hug, burying his face in her shoulder. She returned it without question, leaning into him and sighing at the embrace. When she pulled back, she patted at his cheek. “You must smile, little Shaun. We will not be gone very long.”

He nodded. Curie lifted herself off the bed and moved to the door. “Curie?” he called after her, his voice wavering a little.

She stopped, turning back to see him watching her.

“I’ll miss you.”

Curie bowed her head, her chest swelling. “I will miss you, too.”

When she opened the door and left the room, she found Amarli leaning against the wall just outside – from the look on her face, it appeared she’d heard everything. She gazed at Curie with an endearing gentleness and said, “Thanks for that. For comforting him. I can be too harsh sometimes.”

“You are his mother,” Curie said firmly. “A very good mother.”

“I wish I could be... better.”

Instead of answering, Curie reached for her hand and pressed in against her shoulder, resting her forehead there for a moment. It was a very brief second of intimacy; Amarli leaned into it at first, as if she couldn’t help herself, and then she seemed to realize they had something to do. She shifted and nodded towards the front door. “We should get going while it’s still cool. Dogmeat’s already run ahead to the bridge.”

Curie reluctantly let go of her hand, her skin burning where she’d felt Amarli’s weight move into her, and followed her to the door. She was excited to see the Castle, and Preston Garvey, and the sea, but she knew there was several days’ journey ahead of them. She had no doubt every one of them would be both torturous and pleasing when she had only Amarli to distract her.

 ---

The old fort stood on a rugged slope, dirt and sand piled against half-ruined walls, the towers crumbled. Its battlements glistened with moisture from the sea in the cool night air, their ragged outlines blending into the rocks behind them. Even despite how slumped and ruined it was, it was still one of the most majestic pieces of architecture left standing in the Commonwealth. Before the war, it had been known as Fort Independence – before the Minutemen claimed it, it wasn’t much of a castle at all. Now, however, it glowed brightly like a beacon, and Amarli knew that the courtyard was alive with movement right now as people moved in and out of shops. It had all the makings of a fairy-tale castle in her eyes, and she was glad she’d helped the Minutemen claim it back from the Mirelurks. The Castle was now their headquarters, the place where Minutemen were trained to be soldiers, where plans were hatched, and where wars were won. It was here where they had decided how they would infiltrate the Institute, and it was here the Institute had attacked in retaliation. To honour fallen comrades, they had planted trees and flowers along the outskirts, and the children of many of the Minutemen liked to play out next to the sea. The Minutemen had their own farms here, too, the crops and livestock marked off by fences so the children knew to stay away.

More than anything, the Castle had a very strong sense of community. The Minutemen liked to do everything together: they assembled each morning and night in the main courtyard to have their duties recognized; they all ate meals together in the dining hall; and most of them slept in the cluster of dormitories in the southeast bastion. The few who didn’t were the commanders – Preston Garvey and Ronnie Shaw – and a couple of the farmers, who preferred to live on the outside of the Castle’s walls.

Although she had never spent longer than a month in the Castle, Amarli knew it like the back of her hand. When she’d first seen it, the northwest and southwest walls had been all but demolished, and a sizable hole punched in the south wall as well, cutting off the west bastion – which contained the Castle armoury – from access excepting through the Castle tunnels. After almost a year of building, these walls had been repaired using new bricks and cement. The northwest and southwest walls now housed extra rooms, a clinic, private quarters meant for the General, and a large dining room where everyone met for each meal, eating on long tables which stretched from each end. The dining room was so large, in fact, that it could fit every single person in the Castle at once, including any guests. From what Amarli could remember, each meal was a lively encounter. They were like one big family, laughing and drinking, sometimes singing country songs. There were old men and young men, old women and young women. Children and babies had their own table. Settlers had truly come from far and wide in the Commonwealth just to be a part of the heroic Minutemen. There were people from so far west that they had different accents; there were men and women who had been traders or travelled with caravans; there were even progenies of the original Minutemen who had died in the battle of Quincy.

Amarli had sat on the main table with Preston Garvey every time she had stayed here and the Minutemen had seemed to truly enjoy her company. She knew that they respected her very much, especially after the action she brought them in taking down the Institute. To them, she would always be a hero, and they adored her the way citizens might worship their queen. So, this was her castle, really. She didn’t like to think of it that way. The Castle had become a big community without her help, and she always felt like a mere guest when she visited, even though she knew she commanded all of its inhabitants. She was simply proud of what the Minutemen had become, and she would do anything to make them continue growing, to have them spread their power and goodwill across the Commonwealth so everyone else could feel it, too.

Seeing the Castle from where she stood right now, Amarli felt nothing but satisfaction. They had been travelling for days. Neither of them had slept much – on the first night, they happened to camp near a graveyard and were almost overrun by feral ghouls; on the second night it was a lone mongrel which picked a fight with Dogmeat; on the third, they were jumped by some Raiders – due to her limp, Amarli barely got off with a deep wound in her thigh, and it was still healing – while on the fourth they were caught in a radioactive storm out of nowhere and were forced to take cover under an old highway. They’d had terrible luck. While the Castle was so far east that it was known to be less radioactive out here, they were caught several times in the sort of mist that might be seen near the Glowing Sea. Amarli and Curie had been forced to wrap scarves around their faces to avoid breathing in too much of it. Now, however, even despite their wretched journey and all the bruises and scrapes they’d suffered, they had finally reached their destination.

“It is so big,” Curie mused. “But it does not look much like a castle.”

“More of a fort, really,” Amarli said, beginning to walk up past the farms on her left. The meadows here were kept well-tamed, and the grass was thick and dotted with little mutated flowers. Even at night Amarli could appreciate their soft pastel purple colour. The Brahmin in the field were asleep, one of them even snoring as they passed, and Curie giggled at the sound. Instead of the asphalt which had used to lead up to the castle, the Minutemen had dug it all up and replaced it with gravel, so it crunched pleasingly beneath Amarli’s feet as she walked up the hill. A few crows were sitting on telephone poles above them, watching their progress, but they flew away in fright when Dogmeat growled at them. Forgetting herself for a second, Amarli took in just how wonderful it was here, breathing in the crisp air. She’d always prefer her home in Sanctuary Hills, but this place reminded her of a second home. And a second family. There were more people here to talk to, and more things to do. She also couldn’t deny that she liked how much attention she got whenever she was here. Now that Curie was with her, she was rather excited to finally introduce her friend to her followers.

The sea stretched out on either side and the meadows faded to black sand as Curie and Amarli continued up the slope. At the top, three Minutemen were standing at the main archway; two more could be seen on top of the battlements, watching the horizon for danger. The defence here was so strong that no one had dared attack the Castle for a long time. The guards must have seen Amarli approaching and immediately figured she wasn’t a threat; otherwise, she’d have been shot down the moment she exited the city. She caught Curie’s arm to stop her when they reached the barricades, smiling at the guards stationed there.

“Evening.”

“General!” one of them said, sounding genuinely pleased to see her. She recognized his voice – he was Matthews, one of the men who had gone with her into the Institute. He was much buffer than she remembered, and he’d grown a thick beard. When the other men realized he recognized her, they lowered their weapons and nodded their heads respectfully.

“I’m only here to stay for a little while,” she said teasingly. “So don’t get any ideas.”

Matthews grinned. He’d been one of the Minutemen who had helped her improve her shooting back in the day. They’d done all sorts of training which she had truly enjoyed, and it was because of him that she’d become so good with guns. Even though she didn’t need his guidance that much anymore, he still tried his best to convince her to come out and shoot with him every time he saw her. It had been months, but she was certain he’d have the same thought.

“How are you?” she asked more fondly.

“I’m very good.” He raised his hand and removed his glove, and Amarli was surprised to see a thin band of silver on his fourth finger. “Most people in the Commonwealth don’t bother anymore, but… Kate and I got married, see?”

She grinned, properly pleased to see him so happy. “I’m glad to hear it. About time.”

Matthews put his glove back on and then glanced at Curie. “Who’s this?”

Shyly, Curie introduced herself: “I am Curie. A friend of your General's.”

“And my savior, more recently,” Amarli added, winking amiably back in her direction.

“Well, any friend or savior of our General is welcome to stay for as long as she likes,” Matthews told her kindly. He stepped back and gestured behind him through the archway; inside the courtyard, Amarli could see a throng of activity. “Go on.”

“I’ll see you later, Matthews.”

“Hope so.”

Because she was so happy, Amarli found herself grabbing Curie’s hand as they passed, walking close to her as they entered the courtyard of the Castle. Their fingers automatically laced together as they stopped side by side to look around, hanging lights casting a yellow glow over their faces as they took in the scene. Curie looked especially awed.

There were tents and shacks lined up along the walls opposite the radio tower, selling weapons, food, medicine, chems. Amarli had always thrived on interacting with the stall holders, each one almost a caricature of bubbly friendliness. They knew her by name and often had kept something back from the stall that they knew she would buy... and she always did when she was here, because why not? She wanted to show Curie around and introduce her to some people, but she knew her presence would be quickly noted by the Minutemen; it was best she went to greet Preston and Ronnie Shaw first. That would be the dutiful thing to do. This wasn't a vacation.

Amarli tugged on Curie’s hand to make sure she would follow and then began to weave through the crowd in the courtyard, edging through the dense flow of people with a giddy smile on her face. The air was perfumed with produce, the ground was gritty stone, and the air was a perfect coolness that prefaced the night. People didn’t necessarily recognize her, but the Minutemen had always been friendly towards strangers; they smiled when she and Curie passed, and patted Dogmeat on the head if he didn’t growl at them. Amarli pushed past it all until she had reached the entrance to the southwest barracks, still holding Curie’s hand to keep her close. The other woman looked too disoriented to notice. “This is unlike any settlement I have seen,” she said in awe.

Amarli was happy to see she was so impressed by it. “Took a lot of work, and a lot of people, but it’s a pretty incredible result.” She nodded towards the barracks. “Come on – Preston’s quarters are where the commanders normally meet. They’ll be in there now.”

She let go of Curie’s hand as she went inside, but the woman pressed close as she followed, as if she was too overwhelmed to be any further away. The Castle was easy to get lost in, so Amarli was glad for the proximity, at least for now. They passed several stone doorways, each leading to a set of dormitories, and the Minutemen who recognized her bowed their heads respectfully. Finally, they reached the corner of the bastion and entered a large room through wooden doors. Just as Amarli had predicted, Ronnie Shaw and Preston Garvey were in here along with a couple other Minutemen she didn’t recognize. They glanced up when she came in with Curie and Dogmeat and seemed a little surprised to see her.

“Am I too early?” she asked wryly.

Preston pulled out a seat at the big meeting table. “Just on time.”

She went over, but she didn’t sit down, not wanting to leave Curie standing by herself. With a quick glance, she looked over the plans they had been sketching. Amarli had sent them the location Ada had come up with last week, and they were working on how best to defend themselves from the Mechanist’s robots. While they couldn’t enter the factory without Jezebel’s vital knowledge, they could at least plan out a few tactics. Now they knew the origin of all the robots, they could also predict the pattern of attack on their settlements and work on preventing them completely.

“How’s it going?” Amarli asked.

Ronnie Shaw sighed. “How d’you think? We need more information.”

“Ada might have some more soon. I have Sturges watching over her just in case.”

“And that other robot?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “Why hasn’t it told you how to get inside yet?”

Amarli set her palms down on the table. “I was forced to make a deal. Until I hold up my end, Jezebel won’t give me anything.”

Looking displeased, Ronnie folded her arms and looked sharply at Preston, as if expecting him to do something. He only shook his head. “For now, we can deal with the attacks,” he said. “While we’re still waiting on information on how to get to the Mechanist, the defence is good enough in most of the settlements to keep us out of danger for a little while. We just need…”

“We need to spread the message to the more susceptible settlements,” Amarli said quickly. “Which is why I’m here.”

“My point exactly.” He pointed at one of the other Minutemen in the room. “This here is Mason, our new radio controller. And that’s Celia. She’s in charge of gathering intel.”

Amarli nodded her greetings to them.

“You might want to figure out your speech with Celia beforehand,” Preston suggested. “She knows which settlements are more vulnerable, and which ones provide the best defence. Might be useful to mention.”

Amarli twisted her head slightly to meet Curie’s eyes, and the other woman gave her a small nod. So, Celia would give her the evidence, then it was up to her to build the argument, just as she would have in court. Amarli made sure to catch Celia's eye, too, just to make sure that was all right. “When’s a good time to give the speech?”

Preston exchanged glances with Ronnie. “I’d advise you do it on Sunday, around midday. We figured out that’s when most people are tuned into Radio Freedom and will have time to hear what you have to say.”

“So, I’ve only got two days to prepare?”

“It’s just a speech. How long do you need?” Ronnie said gruffly.

Amarli was already accustomed to her brand of attitude; with a huff of resignation, she muttered, “Fine.”

“When you did that speech for the Institute,” Preston said, “you were very convincing. Maybe try something like that.” He looked at her with slight concern, as if he knew he’d made her remember a time that had been hard for her – at that point, she’d already decided she would betray Father and all his work. That speech had been more for the Commonwealth’s benefit than for the Institute.

She refused to let him know that it bothered her. “Sure. I’ll get to it,” she said simply.

Preston stood up and grabbed a set of silver keys off the table. “I had someone prepare your quarters a couple days ago. Everything should be in order.”

Amarli nodded her thanks as she took them from his hands and then turned to Curie with a hint of embarrassment. “I hope, um, you’re… okay with rooming with me? Forgot to ask.”

Looking at her with wide eyes, Curie said, “But where else would I stay?”

That was enough of a confirmation as she was going to get. As Amarli moved towards the door with Dogmeat at her heels, she heard Preston say behind her, “Hello, Curie. Nice to see you again.”

“And you, Monsieur!” she said cheerfully. She looked towards Ronnie Shaw and held out a hand politely. “Madame, I believe we have not met.”

“Uh-huh.” Ronnie eyed her with a smirk. She didn’t shake her hand. “What kinda accent is that?”

Curie seemed taken aback. Very slowly, she took her hand back and held it awkwardly at her side. “It is French, Madame. I... cannot help it. It is just the way I speak.”

“Huh.”

Knowing that Ronnie was very much capable of eating Curie for breakfast, Amarli quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the exit. Curie was frowning, and she looked so adorably fretful that Amarli had to stop and reassure her before they moved on. “She likes you, really,” she said, chuckling.

“That lady is so very rude!”

“It’s just how she is.” Amarli grinned at her. “She’s a good soldier, though, and she knows more about the Minutemen than anyone.”

Curie still looked offended. “How is it so hard to be civil?”

Seeking to make her happy again, Amarli held out her hand. “May I show you to your rooms, Madame?”

Her French accent had been so terrible that Curie at first only looked shocked. And then her lips parted in a wide smile. “Was that an impression of me?”

“Perhaps.”

Curie shook her head as if to be rid of it. “It was not very accurate.”

“No?”

“Non.” Curie smiled wider, though. She took Amarli’s hand, lacing their fingers, and said, “But you may take me to the General’s quarters. I would like to see what they are like.”

As they began walking again, hand in hand, Curie had to move a little faster to keep up with her long stride. “Oh, my room here is much bigger than the one back at home,” Amarli said casually, glancing down at her. “You’ll be impressed.”

“Is this so?”

“Uh-huh. And the bed is huge.”

This seemed to astound her. “I cannot think why the General should need a bigger bed.”

“More space for my ego.”

Curie spluttered with a laugh. “Oh!”

More truthfully, Amarli said, “That’s how it was when we moved into the Castle and started rebuilding. It was already the General’s quarters, so they just gave the room to me.”

They exited the southeast bastion and moved to the east, passing the crowds at the market again. It was now fully dark, making the lights appear that much brighter. Dogmeat bounded ahead to where he could smell meat at the butcher’s stall and then, when he was given hardly a scrap, he growled and came right back in a sulk. Amarli laughed at him and scratched behind his ears. “Alright, boy. You deserve a little treat.”

They stopped by the stall to buy a hunk of Radstag meat. Amarli didn’t give it to Dogmeat until they’d gone inside the east bastion and found her room. She opened the doors with the keys, left them ajar so the room would air, and then dropped the meat on the floor for Dogmeat to feast on. He licked her hand and then settled himself comfortably in the doorway. Amarli walked over to the familiar king-sized bed and put her bag and her shotgun on top of the sheets. When Curie gave her pointed look, she rolled her eyes and leaned the shotgun against the wall instead.

While it should have been annoying, Amarli actually quite liked it when Curie kept everything in order and put rules in place to keep their lives ‘civilised’. It made her imagine that they weren’t in a post-war society, as if they actually had standards to uphold. In truth, Curie was more in tune with the pre-war world than even she was. It was refreshing.

“You were right,” Curie decided, walking over to the window and smiling out at the sea. “This room is very impressive.”

“It gets really cold in winter, but in the summer the wind from the sea makes it perfect. I’ve never slept better than I have in this bed.” Amarli threw herself on top of the mattress and spread her arms out on the clean sheets, reminiscing. After a few seconds, Curie came over and joined her, putting her bag down and sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed. She stroked her fingers over the sheets, feeling the texture of them - until she reached Amarli’s hand and then quickly pulled away at the contact, releasing a quick sigh. Amarli felt a jarring in her chest and pretended not to notice. Things were fine until one of those awkward moments happened; a moment during which one of them made an accidental move and then realized what they were doing and backed away. There had been so many over the past week.

Amarli didn’t know what to say or do to make it right anymore. She’d been too obvious to pretend that she didn’t feel anything for her friend, and she was desperate not to hurt her feelings, so she didn’t want to outright reject her. It would also be a lie to say she didn’t return said feelings. She already knew she loved Curie. She knew the joy that came with every waking moment, and how much she craved to see Curie happy. If it was that – pure, unadulterated love – then she’d be able to give in to it. But Amarli had also dreamed about her. She’d woken up sometimes feeling warm, aroused, and she’d found herself staring at Curie with an odd sort of hunger. She’d found her body reacting in ways that shouldn’t be possible with someone she considered only a good friend, or part of her family. It certainly didn’t help that Curie had confessed her own love and compared it to the romance in classic novels. Curie had never been a romantic; it had surprised Amarli to recognize how powerful her feelings must be. She didn’t think she was at all worthy of a love like that. It also didn’t help that Curie had tried to get Amarli to kiss her almost two weeks ago, and that she gave her lingering, fretful looks constantly. Curie was literally asking for it, and it was absolutely killing her.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…

But she could, and that was the problem. Amarli could quite easily reach over right now and pull Curie on top of her and take her right here in this very bed. Curie wanted her to. She’d requested it so much with those fleeting looks and touches that it would be easy. Amarli could corrupt that innocence she admired so much in her friend and make it so impossible to stay away that she simply wouldn’t, for ever and ever. Perhaps it would become something more than a friendship, but then she would feel guilty and uncertain. She’d remember Shaun, and Nate, and her life before the war, and she’d pull away. And then she’d have broken Curie’s heart. Amarli didn’t just want Curie’s body or her friendship. She sure as hell couldn’t live without her. Curie, with just the right blend of shy and sweet. Curie, who took such good care of her son and was so pure and kind that most people wouldn’t dare hurt her. She was so bright and wonderful that, in one way or another, all the people that met her felt attracted to her. Amarli had seen the way that everyone looked at her, and yet Curie was oblivious to all of it. Even with all the world watching her, she only seemed to want one person. And that person was Amarli. 

Amarli put her hands behind her head and let her eyes rest on Curie’s face, examining her closely. Her emotions were not easily hidden on her innocent face. Her pain was evident in the crease of her lovely brow and the down-curve of her full lips. But her eyes, her eyes showed her soul. They were big, and round, and so expressive that sometimes she didn’t need to speak for Amarli to know what she was feeling. It was time to make a decision; Amarli would have to choose whether she wanted Curie for everything she was, or if she’d rather let her go.

In the distance, they both heard the tolling of a bell. Curie looked towards the door in surprise and then turned back to Amarli with a questioning look in her eyes. Even Dogmeat jumped to his feet and trotted over, stopping just short of hopping onto the bed with them.

“They’re calling for all the Minutemen to assemble in the courtyard,” Amarli explained wearily, stretching her arms above her head. “Then everyone goes together to the dining hall to eat.”

Curie’s eyes had lowered to an indefinite place on her abdomen, and Amarli quickly realized that her stretching had caused her shirt to rise up and reveal a considerable amount of skin above the waistband of her trousers. She sat up quickly and pulled it down, then swung herself out of bed. The more Curie was distracted by her, the more she’d want her. And Amarli didn’t need to be thinking about Curie wanting her. Touching her there, her delicate fingers digging beneath the waistband and towards a place that so desperately wanted release... from someone, anyone. No, she didn’t need to be thinking about that at all. Not when she’d be sleeping in this same bed with her at night, knowing how close that body was. A body so endearingly feminine, warm and soft that it drove Amarli mad just thinking about it.

“Should we go and join them?” Amarli tried for a smirk, but she just couldn’t make herself be playful now. There was too much tension between them. “I dare say word’s gotten around that their General’s back.”

Curie stood up as well, not meeting her eyes. “Yes. I am… hungry.”

I bet you are, Amarli thought sardonically. So am I.

They left their bags and weapons in the room, cleaned up for a meal, and then locked the room’s doors on the way out as they went to join the rest of the Minutemen in the courtyard. Their first night in the Castle, and Amarli already felt closed-off and jaded. She probably should have predicted that without Shaun here to make things less awkward, or the comfort of their work, they would be forced to interact and become more and more tense with one another. The longer they didn't talk about things, the more frustrated they would be. Amarli had no idea what all this pressure would amount to.

One thing was for sure: there was a hard week ahead of them.

Chapter Text

Amarli had hardly noticed that the weather had been changing. It only occurred to her when she woke up very early on Saturday morning and the windows were hanging open, letting icy wind from the sea come rushing into the room. She turned her head groggily and saw that Curie was so buried under the blankets that only her head could be seen. And, even though they were separated by a good foot of space, she could feel her trembling from the cold.

Without hesitation, Amarli climbed quickly out of bed and went to shut the windows tightly, pulling the latch across and letting loose a chattering sigh as she realized the room was still too cold for sleeping. She had only worn a light pair of trousers and a t-shirt, accustomed to the warm weather, but now her feet were beginning to freeze on the cold flagstones. There was a pit in the corner of the room meant for a fire, but no wood had been prepared and she genuinely couldn’t bother going out to request for it. Although autumn was fast approaching, it was technically still summer for the Commonwealth; she could hardly blame her people for holding back preparations just to bask in it for a few days more. It had been a long, hot summer, and now that the temperature was dropping, life was going to become considerably harder for everyone.

Trying to find the Mechanist when it was winter would be an absolute impossibility; just the thought of there being the same radioactive storms and eternal mist as last year made Amarli grind her teeth in frustration. The Minutemen’s defences would crumble and the Mechanist’s robots would begin to attack once more, this time leaving settlers with little ability to fend for themselves. If it came to that, they wouldn’t even be able to find and kill The Mechanist until winter had passed, which meant they’d need to wait months more and end up losing even more innocent lives. No, it couldn’t happen. They needed to be ready to storm his lair before then, ideally before even autumn had the chance to ruin their possibility of success. And ideally before the day in October she’d been dreading for a while now: the same day the bombs fell and she lost everything from her life before.

“Oh mon dieu!” came a small voice from the bed. “Where has the sun gone?”

Amarli glanced back over her shoulder to see that Curie had turned over and was blinking across the room at her. She smiled, but she knew her worry was showing through. “It won't be daylight for another three hours,” she said. And then, with more concern, she added, “Are you cold?”

Curie sat up, still holding the sheets to her shoulders and trying to make herself more awake. “I cannot feel my extremities.”

With a half-laugh, Amarli finally decided to return to bed, hefting herself up on the mattress and grabbing Curie’s hands from beneath the blanket. “I can help with that.” A look that was both grateful and wary was shot her way as she began to rub warmth back into Curie’s fingers, wincing at how cold they were. Eventually, Curie shuffled closer and rested her head on her shoulder, releasing a contented sigh. With the smaller woman leaning against her, Amarli found herself warming up at an unnerving speed. Somehow, even though Curie’s fingers were freezing, the rest of her was very warm. When she figured she wasn’t getting anywhere by massaging Curie with her own cold hands, Amarli simply clasped their fingers together and dropped them into her lap, resting her own head back against the bedpost. “Better?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” Curie agreed. Her hair was soft and still smelled like soap, and Amarli couldn’t help but turn her face to breathe more of it in. It didn’t matter how long they’d gone without a proper shower or a bath; Curie always managed to keep herself clean somehow. There was a toilet and sink just down the hall, and she had gone there last night specifically to bathe even though she’d been tired from their feast. It had been a night filled with more food than they could stomach, freeflow alcohol, and the singing of old country tunes. The Minutemen sure knew how to party, and they’d wanted to celebrate the return of their General. Amarli ended up eating and drinking so much that she could hardly keep her eyes open when they returned to the room; she didn’t bother washing, or even brushing her teeth. She hadn’t even remembered to close the window.

“I’ve got to write the speech today,” Amarli said, remembering.

While she didn’t move off her shoulder, Curie’s fingers tensed a little in her grip. “I can provide assistance, if you would like me to.”

“I would,” she said immediately.

She couldn’t see Curie’s face, but she could tell she was smiling. “Then I must.”

The silence stretched on after that, but it was the sort of easy serenity she had come to enjoy. Sometimes, she and Curie were just awkward; sometimes, they could create moments between them like this. Amarli let her breaths become longer, deeper, and felt Curie doing the same beside her, and soon enough she felt her eyes drooping with tiredness again. She allowed herself to lower her head so it was atop Curie’s, tucking her beneath her chin, and then closed her eyes.

When she next woke up, it was still dark in the room, but she remembered that was because she’d closed the shutters and they effectively kept the light out. She didn’t even know what time it was. Amarli was wonderfully warm, and she could still feel Curie’s head on her shoulder and her hands in her lap. It seemed she hadn’t needed a fire after all.

Before she got out of bed, Amarli tried to sit there and enjoy the moment, realizing how much she preferred to have Curie close to her rather than at a distance. She liked that Curie was so much smaller than her, and that her curves fit so perfectly into her side, and that she cuddled so tightly even though she was asleep. And she’d missed this sort of mindless, comforting contact. There was nothing sexual about it, nothing arousing – it just made Amarli feel warm. Loved. At home.

Amarli let her lips graze gently over Curie’s forehead, light enough that she was sure it wouldn’t wake her, and then did her best to extricate herself from the tight hold. Once she was out of bed, she quickly changed into jeans, a shirt, and a washed-out green sweater she’d been keeping for the colder months, holstered only her pistol and her knife, and then went to greet Dogmeat by the door. He looked rather cold himself; he needed a long walk. As silently as she could, she opened the doors, ushered Dogmeat out, and then left the room.

It was still rather early morning in the Castle, and many of the Minutemen would not be waking up until they heard the first tolling of the bell that called them to assemble in the courtyard. When Amarli passed the dormitories, they were still dark and she could hear snoring inside. There were a few Minutemen patrolling, and she nodded at them as she passed, seeing that they were reacting to the unexpected cold the same as she was. Every one of them was wearing a long coat, and they had gloves on, too. If they thought this was cold, she had no idea how they would fare in the winter.

Amarli and Dogmeat entered the courtyard, seeing that all the shops were closed with the exception of a small stall selling food which had remained open throughout the night. There were Minutemen out here, too, though they weren’t patrolling. Most of them were smoking, chatting, or standing by the radio tower to provide assistance to Mason, the new controller. Amarli was pleased to spot Preston there, too, in his same tan-coloured colonial duster and militia hat. After all the time she’d known him, he had not changed a bit. She knew a little about his history, but their friendship had never been based on either of their pasts; they were friends because the Minutemen had drawn them together. Although Amarli was the General, even Preston knew that she couldn’t lead the Minutemen without him. Truthfully, he was just as much a front-runner as she was. They had a deep respect for each other, unmarred by any of the disagreements they’d had in the past.

“Good morning, General,” he said amiably, watching as she approached. Dogmeat sniffed at his outstretched hand to give him a friendly hello and then trotted off to greet some of the other Minutemen.

“Morning,” Amarli replied easily. She dug her hands into her pockets. “I suppose it gets colder here faster than anywhere else?”

“We’ve had some off days.” He turned in the direction they both knew the sea to be. “But I think this weather’s caught all of us by surprise.”

“Think it’ll last?”

Preston shrugged. “Lord help us if it does. Bad weather is exactly what we don’t need right now.”

“A little bit of wind and rain won’t stop us from getting in there and killing the Mechanist,” Amarli said seriously. “I’ll get that bastard if it’s the last thing I do.”

“I know you will.”

She tried to think optimistically. “And I’ll be out of here soon, anyway, so I can speed things up a little. I’ll do the speech, maybe stay for the rest of the week to help you with the planning, and then I’ll go back to Sanctuary Hills and get that information from Jezebel.”

“The Mechanist’s robot?” Preston inquired warily.

“The Robobrain, yes. I trust that she’ll give us what we need. Robots can’t lie – hence, she can’t go back on a promise.”

Preston Garvey searched her face circumspectly. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am.” Amarli said it without a sliver of doubt. She knew that being wrong would mean they’d have lost all the advantage they had in their war against the Mechanist – she’d have damaged her legs and risked her life for nothing. And she would not allow that.

As if he knew what she’d been thinking, Preston nodded down at her stiff right leg. “How’s it doing? I heard about what happened.”

Amarli tested it, but the muscles were still weak and it still felt awkward to stand fully on both feet. The bones had healed, but they had not healed to be exactly like they were before. She grimaced. “I’ll probably never walk the same again,” she said. “But I can still move, and I can still shoot.” Before Preston could reply, she shot him a glare. “And I can still go after the Mechanist. However broken my leg is, it’s not going to stop me from shoving it up his ass.”

The man laughed, eyes bright. “Wasn’t about to question that,” he said smartly. “After what he did to Sanctuary Hills, and to… to Mama Murphy, he deserves everything we’re gonna give to him.”

Amarli nodded her agreement, knowing that Preston was just as upset as she was about their old friend’s loss. Preston had known Mama Murphy even longer than she had. Amarli was certain that together they would avenge her life, the lives of the Minutemen, and the lives of all those innocent settlers. And they would avenge Ada’s friends as well. It was her caravan’s distress signal which had given Amarli the opportunities she’d had so far. Amarli would like to make the Mechanist suffer the way she’d seen her friends suffer.

She felt Dogmeat’s nose touch her hand and glanced down to see him looking up at her imploringly. She chuckled. “I promised him a walk on the top of the wall,” she said, scratching beneath his muzzle. She glanced up at Preston. “See you later?”

“At breakfast,” Preston settled. “And I hope you’ll bring Curie with you. We enjoyed her company last night.”

Amarli visibly cringed. Curie had sat with the rest of the commanders and had gotten a little too tipsy to remember that there were some things that shouldn’t be said out loud – that she’d spent two hundred years in a vault, for example, same as Amarli. And that she’d spent those two hundred years developing a broad-spectrum cure that had saved a little boy’s life. The Minutemen listening had been puzzled over how she had survived that long. Curie had been so close to telling them everything that Amarli had needed to literally clamp a hand over her mouth to stop her from talking. The Minutemen were gracious to everyone, be they human, ghoul, or synth, but there was still an unspoken abhorrence for the Institute that had lasted long after their destruction. People didn’t talk about synths, and if they did, it was only to express how much they hated or feared them. Amarli had been trying her best to change minds, especially considering it was common knowledge that she’d rescued synth Shaun from the Institute, but it still hadn’t properly caught on. She was the symbol of revolution, of power, but even setting an example didn’t necessarily mean everyone shared her frame of mind.

As soon as Amarli started gaining the reputation of a synth-lover, she’d start losing the large following she had – at this point, she was meant to be completely neutral towards any race. If they thought she’d suddenly started favouring synths, whom they still believed were their enemies, she feared they might not even want her to lead the Minutemen anymore. And while it was terrible to make her own son and her closest friend hide what they really were, she still felt it was for the best. At least until the Commonwealth’s xenophobia had been ironed out a little.

“We’ll both be there at breakfast,” Amarli said firmly. She tried not to imagine the Minutemen putting two and two together and figuring out that Curie was a synth – and then possibly trying to discern her relationship to Amarli. Things were different here to how they were in Sanctuary Hills. Here, gossip spread quickly.

Perhaps she’d need to have a talk with Curie about how open she was, just in case. There needed to be rules.

Amarli left Preston Garvey with Dogmeat by her side, heading for a set of iron-railed steps that led up onto the wall. Once they were on the top of the wall, the wind was so much stronger and Amarli immediately regretted not having brought a coat from home. All she’d bothered to pack were trousers, shirts, and a sweater or two. Hopefully it would be sunnier tomorrow.

Still, the freezing wind was worth the view of the sea in two directions, and Amarli rather enjoyed how her nose and fingers went numb; it gave her an excuse to do some exercise. Even though she could barely keep the pace, she set off on a jog around the battlements with Dogmeat, passing a few patrollers as they did a full round. The wind had showed no signs of calming down when she came to a stop and bent with her hands on her knees, trying to get her breath back. Dogmeat had galloped ahead but he came back to sit at her feet, panting up at her.

“Good boy,” she said, rubbing his head.

She straightened and looked out in the opposite direction of the sea: out at the cityscape. It was normally pretty empty, but now she could see a trading caravan making its way down the roads towards the gravel path that led up to the Castle. She could see three people leading it, and while they were merely dots in the distance, it was rather easy to tell that they weren’t a threat. Still, they’d probably be stopped at the entrance to be questioned and to have their supplies checked before they were allowed into the courtyard.

Amarli was distracted by the rumbling of her stomach. She pressed a hand over it and then grinned down at Dogmeat, who had heard and cocked his head at her. “Well, I’m ready for some breakfast. You?”

He leaped to his feet and panted excitedly as if he’d understood exactly what she’d said. “Come on then,” she said fondly.

They passed back down the steps into the courtyard, relieved at how the walls made the wind gentler, and then returned into the east bastion to find Amarli’s room. When Amarli went inside, shivering a little, she saw that Curie was already awake and dressed, sitting at the desk near the window to write some notes. Amarli wasn’t sure what she could be writing about – it certainly wasn’t to do with the research she’d left at home.

“Morning!” she called to announce her presence.

Curie turned around to look at her and beamed. “Hello, Madame!”

Before Amarli could say anything else, they both heard the now-familiar bells tolling outside, calling for everyone to wake and begin to assemble. Without even hesitating, Curie put her notes away in her bag and jumped to her feet. “I am very hungry,” she said.

“I can see that.” Amarli peered at her in amusement. “Before we go, though, I wanted to… ask something.”

Curie walked over and tilted her head back to look up at her questioningly.

“The Minutemen are my people, and you should feel safe to be open with them, but I’d still prefer if you maintained a level of secrecy.”

“Secrecy?” Curie repeated, her eyes wide.

“Yeah.” Amarli hesitated. More dryly, she clarified, “As in, please don’t go around telling people you’re a two-hundred-year-old robot in a synth body who was created to heal the world.”

While she didn’t seem to understand, Curie slowly nodded her head. “I am sorry, I did not realize. Will the Minutemen be a danger to me if they are aware?”

It was a simple question, but Amarli didn’t quite know how to answer it. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “But not everyone’s as friendly and open-minded as I am, or as Preston is. It’s always best not to let on.”

“I shall be more careful,” Curie said dutifully.

It had only just hit Amarli that, with the exception of her time spent in Goodneighbor, Curie had never really been exposed to the threats of society. Having Raiders or monsters try to kill her was one thing, but being the subject of people’s hatred was another. She had no control over being a synth, but that didn’t matter to most people. The moment they figured it out, they would either want her out of the way or killed. Or, if they didn’t find out, they preferred to remain ignorant and never know it at all. Even though it had been months since the Institute had fallen, there was still a stigma about synths, and it was still dangerous for them to live openly.

As a woman who had been both part black and gay in pre-war society, Amarli knew exactly how that sort of discrimination felt. It had followed her all her life, and it had made her scared of many things. While she never talked or even thought much about it, it still haunted her. She had been excluded, detested, disowned and ill-treated for what she was, and the only happiness she really found was with Nate. More than anything, Amarli had been left with lasting trauma which was still with her today. Perhaps that was why she worried so much about Curie. Not only would it put her close friend in danger, but if people linked Curie to her, it would put her in a sort of danger as well. And she didn’t want that to happen again.

“So,” she said, hoping to break the silence. “Breakfast?”

Curie nodded eagerly.

“Put on something else, first. I don’t want you freezing to death.”

“It is still cold?” Curie pouted, looking profoundly disappointed. She went over to her bag and rifled through it, then glanced back over her shoulder with an expression of defeat. “I do not have anything suitable for this weather.”

Amarli sighed. “We’ll see if the Minutemen can spare a coat.”

The other woman stood up again and walked over, her eyes suddenly dropping to Amarli’s sweater. She smiled so brightly that it seemed there was a sun after all. “I like this very much,” she said, reaching out to rub the sleeve of the green material between two fingers. “The colour is beautiful and the same as your eyes.”

Although she smiled, Amarli felt uneasy as she felt the burst of warmth in her chest at the compliment. She dipped her head in what she hoped was a grateful nod and then pulled her hand away from Curie’s fingers. “Let’s go.”

They walked out together to join the assembly in the courtyard – already, about fifty Minutemen were gathered there with their families, waiting for the announcements to start. Preston was at the front with Ronnie Shaw. Taking her cue, Amarli led Curie over to them, knowing she’d be expected to speak as well. The bell rang again one last time and the rest of the Minutemen finally stumbled half-dressed from the dormitories to join the crowd. By the time the bell had stopped ringing, more than a hundred soldiers stood there waiting. Preston stepped forward.

“Good morning. I’d like to make it quick today.” He rubbed his hands together, perhaps to banish the cold. “While you may all have already heard this on the radio, we’ve had exactly three weeks now of complete peace amongst most of our larger settlements. The robots have tried to harm us, but we have stopped them effortlessly. Our defences have increased tenfold, we’ve improved our tactics, and we know exactly where all the robots are coming from. Not only is this thanks to the General – who I’m sure you know by now has stationed herself for a week-long visit here – but it’s also thanks to all of you.” He smiled. “Please, take a moment to congratulate yourselves.”

There was a loud murmuring of assent as many of the men and women lifted their fists to their chests.

“However, starting tomorrow, there will be a new issue to take care of. We’ll be expecting some volunteers.” He glanced back towards Amarli, catching her off-guard. “I’ll allow the General to explain.”

Amarli quickly took his place in front of the crowd, clearing her throat to prepare to project. The sea of expectant faces was a little nerve-wracking, but this wasn’t the first time she’d spoken in front of so many people, even if she was underprepared.

“Preston is right about the success of protecting our larger settlements,” she began. “But there are still settlements out there which have refused our help or are simply too far away for us to provide much protection. They’re still in danger, and it’s not long at all until the Mechanist realizes that and starts using them to weaken us.”

A few of the Minutemen nodded their agreement.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to give a speech over the radio explaining exactly the sort of threat he poses on the Commonwealth. I will also recommend that those living in smaller settlements should move to locations which are more fortified.” She paused for effect. “I’m not going to rely on just my words alone – so I’m going to need help from some of you. I need Minutemen who are willing to travel to the furthest settlements to convince and then accompany settlers to a safer place. It’s only temporary, and it’s for their own good. You can’t take no for an answer.”

A few people nodded; others looked unconvinced.

“It won’t be easy, and it’ll be a long way to go, but it must be done quickly,” Amarli emphasized. “Time is important. The longer we wait, the more danger there will be.”

Behind her, both Preston Garvey and Ronnie Shaw nodded their agreement.

“Protect the people at a minute’s notice,” Preston said loudly.

In unison, the courtyard exploded into a hundred repetitions of that same phrase: “Protect the people at a minute’s notice!”

Pleased, Amarli added, “If you’re willing to help, come and see me after breakfast. And bear in mind the risk.” She glanced back over her shoulder at Preston. “That’s all.”

As she stepped back and he took her place to list off duties for the day, Amarli returned to Curie’s side and smiled down at her. The other woman looked decidedly nervous to be standing in front of so many people. She was also hugging her arms around herself, goosebumps visible where her sleeves had ridden up her arms. “You okay?” Amarli asked.

“You are a very good public speaker, Madame.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice.”

There was a slight smile at that, which Amarli took as an achievement. She wanted to wrap her arms around Curie and make her less cold, but she was wary of doing such a thing in front of a crowd of people.

Finally, Preston finished with his commands for the day and the bell rang once more to dismiss everyone for breakfast. The crowd hummed with conversation and laughter as they dispelled from the courtyard, most of them heading towards the dining hall. Amarli tapped Preston on the shoulder. “Any chance the Minutemen have some extra uniforms lying around?”

He blinked his confusion but replied, “Yes, of course. We keep all the uniforms in the armoury.”

“We didn’t prepare for cold weather,” Amarli explained. “Curie needs a coat or something.”

“Oh, sure.” He glanced at Curie, taking in her small stature and how she was standing wrapped up in herself, and then began walking, gesturing for the both of them to follow. “I’m sure we’ve got something that should fit.”

 ---

The rest of the day was spent doing work. In fact, Amarli had so many jobs to do around the Castle that she’d had to leave Curie alone. She didn’t really know where the other woman had gone – back to their room, perhaps – and she didn’t have the time to wonder about it. She was either speaking with volunteers and telling them where to set off to, planning out tactics with Preston in his room, or checking on the rest of the Minutemen as they carried out their duties. Whenever she did have free time between meetings, she used it to write her speech for the next day. She met up with Matthews in the late afternoon to go to the shooting range with him which had been set up near the city and after two hours spent honing her skills, she finally returned to the Castle. It was getting dark by now and the weather was even more frigid. Her cheeks were warmed from exertion but the rest of her was cold; nevertheless, she was in high spirits as she let herself into her room. Her heart sank a little when she realized Curie wasn’t there, and she felt instantly concerned. She hadn’t thought that Curie would go anywhere else. Curie didn’t really know anyone here, and Amarli didn’t want her getting lost. After cleaning herself up, she left the room to find her.

“…Curie?” Amarli couldn’t quite believe her eyes. She’d just entered the medical wing of the Castle on a whim and was shocked to find her friend sitting on one of the hospital beds and completely surrounded by a group of Minutemen.

At the sound of her voice, Curie immediately stiffened and glanced over. And then, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong, she smiled and waved. “Hello!”

“What are you doing?” Amarli approached them suspiciously. She didn’t enjoy the idea of anyone intimidating Curie, and these were some of the burliest men she’d seen.

“Evenin’, General,” one of the men said. The other men chorused it much quieter, looking nervous under her sharp gaze.

“I was telling them of our adventures!” Curie said excitedly. When she saw Amarli’s expression, she quickly added, “But, of course, nothing which may be considered private.”

Amarli was lost for words.

“She’s quite the storyteller, this one,” the more outspoken soldier said. He looked at Amarli curiously. “Didn’t realize we’d almost lost our General in the heart of another battle.”

“I survived. End of story.” Amarli knew she was being impolite, but she still had her hackles raised after finding Curie here with all these men. It unsettled her. She certainly didn’t like how most of them were looking at her.

“Why are you here?” Amarli demanded.

Curie’s expression faltered. “Oh, I came to look for a doctor, thinking we must exchange notes and advice. She seemed so very busy so I offered to help her with her patients.”

After a quick glance at all the men, Amarli finally recognized that most of them weren’t wearing their uniforms and a few had bandages and scrapes on them. They were being healed here and Curie had only been friendly – there was no reason for alarm. Amarli tried to calm herself, but she was still disconcerted. “Where’s the doctor now?”

“I told her she must rest,” Curie explained. “I am very much capable of watching over her patients.”

This was such a Curie thing to do that it almost made Amarli smile. She liked that Curie had immediately found a purpose and was trying to make friends; she just couldn’t help worrying about how much people knew about her. Now more than ever she felt like she needed to protect her friend.

“When’s she coming back?” she asked more softly.

“Oh.” Curie shrugged. “I do not know.”

Amarli glanced at the injured Minutemen, noticing they were all watching her with slight surprise as they took in how wound-up she was. No doubt they’d heard their General was a rather easy-going woman. Right now, she was proving to be quite the opposite.

“Well… I was going to ask if you wanted to get ready for dinner,” Amarli said. “I suppose I’ll just see you there.”

“Of course, Madame!”

Curie was so clearly fine without her that it kind of stung. It had only happened once before, when she’d been in Goodneighbor and she’d had Big Al and Angustia to keep her company. Amarli had felt so out of place that she’d worried Curie would never come back to her. She doubted the same thing was happening now, but Curie’s independence was still a hard pill to swallow.

She bowed her head. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said to the men, much more kindly than before. “I hope I’ll be seeing most of you at dinner.”

They replied jovially, and she left them as quick as she could, feeling stupid for having worried herself over something that wasn’t even an issue. She realized now that this was Curie’s way. As oblivious and lacking in social skills as she may be, she had this way of charming people to the point where they’d hang onto every word she said. And she was probably the most cheerful woman any of them had met in a long time – a welcome comfort on a cold, grey day such as today.

As she was leaving through the clinic’s door, Amarli heard one of the men ask, “So, what’s the deal with you and the General?”

Amarli escaped before she could hear Curie’s reply.

 ---

She was pleased when she saw Curie enter the dining hall that night. Dinner was already being served and she was sitting across from Ronnie Shaw, barely picking at her food. After glancing for the fifth time back at the entrance, she finally saw Curie and about four of the clinic’s patients come walking in. The other woman had hardly cleaned herself up for dinner, but she’d put on the coat Preston had given her earlier – a navy blue colonial duster with a golden trim which fit her perfectly around the waist and hips but was long enough to fall past her hands. Surprisingly, it made her look older. She could easily be one of the Minutemen, and Amarli almost saw her here in the future, taking her own trips to the Castle in order to carry out medical duties. A travelling scientist and medic, carrying a wealth of information inside that pretty head of hers.

Amarli instantly lifted her hand to grab Curie’s attention, not wanting her to sit with her new friends. The woman sought her out immediately, however, and her greeting smile was so wonderful that it made Amarli’s heart leap with a reflection of her joy.

She didn’t know what it was exactly, but suddenly her attraction to Curie was so much more intense. It was like the Castle’s setting had made Curie even more irresistible, which was bad news. Every smile made her feel joyful; every touch warmed her completely; even just the sound of her voice made Amarli feel calm. It worried her. But it also intrigued her. 

As Curie came to sit down beside her, Amarli found herself reaching an arm around her waist and pulling her into a brief hug. She couldn’t help it, even with all the other people in the hall. It had been a whole day of hardly seeing Curie, and she’d needed to touch her in some way to make sure she was real.

“I’ll get you a plate,” Amarli said, already standing up before Curie could reject her offer. She went to the serving tables and collected some food before returning to sit opposite Ronnie Shaw again. As she passed the plate to Curie and got a smile in return, she caught Ronnie looking at her with the creep of a smirk.

“What?” Amarli demanded.

“Oh, nothing.” Ronnie smiled wider. “None of my business.”

Amarli focused on her dinner and Curie, trying to ignore the older woman’s amusement. When Preston sat down beside her, she finally had a good enough reason to dive into conversation, even if it was only about work. She could sense that Curie was listening to their debate curiously, but she doubted she had much of an idea about what they were talking about.

Finally, as everyone finished dinner in the dining hall, an old man climbed onto the end of one of the tables with a beaten guitar and began to play. He had come with the most recent trading caravan, eager to earn caps by entertaining the Minutemen, and they had let him in with open arms. One thing the Minutemen loved with their dinner was entertainment.

As he played, there was a raucous show of off-tune singing and a few drunk men and women dancing with each other. Most of the songs were country songs and Amarli didn’t know them, but she did her best to sing along anyway. It wasn’t every day that she got to feel so happy in a community such as this one.

Soon enough, one of the Minutemen had begun drumming on the table, and a few more people got up to dance. Amarli turned to see Curie laughing and smiled to see her so happy. She’d have given anything for that happiness to last, but she knew they would have to leave the Castle after a week. And then, soon after that, it would be time to face the Mechanist. None of them knew what would happen. Anyone could die. They could fail completely. Maybe the Mechanist even had more tricks hidden up his sleeve. The more Amarli thought about it, the more she remembered Mama Murphy’s last premonition for her, and how it had involved a big sacrifice. She didn’t want to sacrifice anything from her life. Even if things between her and Curie hadn’t been perfect, she couldn’t imagine a better friendship. And she was on good terms with her son, and with the people in Sanctuary Hills. The Minutemen respected and revered her.

Would she really have to sacrifice something dear to her?

As the night grew late, people stayed in the dining hall even though there was nothing left to eat. Just like the first night, they drank and chatted and enjoyed the music. The Castle had an almost endless supply of wine in its tunnels, and they had alcohol shipped in from almost every trader. It was just as free-flowing as the water. While the Minutemen could therefore very easily get drunk, there had never been any brawls. They knew they’d be kicked out if they were to lay a hand on any of their comrades – Amarli had created the rule herself. She had wanted the Castle to be a safe, non-violent space for people of all walks of life. It still surprised her sometimes when she realized the Minutemen had given her literally everything she wanted.

Amarli talked a little more with Preston and Ronnie about the future awaiting the Minutemen, and then watched as one of Curie’s new friends invited her over to their table. The moment she left, Amarli was disappointed, but as she drank more wine her spirits lifted again.

Just enjoy yourself, she thought. There’s nothing wrong.

But she still watched Curie out of the corner of her eye, unable to look away in case something happened and she missed it. It was pointless, really; Curie was only telling them another story. Or perhaps she was peppering them with endless facts like she always did. Either way, they were eating it up. Amarli itched to go over to them and join in the conversation, but as soon as she began to stand, Celia came over to speak to her about her speech. She’d already written it but she was in desperate need of some proper facts, so she was forced to sit back down and go over the information Celia had for her. And then it was too late to join any conversation – most of the Minutemen had left the dining hall for their dormitories.

Amarli said goodnight to Preston Garvey and Ronnie Shaw before lifting herself from the table and grabbing a bottle of wine. She didn’t want the buzz to wear off before she slept – she felt happy, and she wanted it to stay that way. Curie had returned to her side once her friends left for the clinic, and she peered up at her with round eyes. “Madame, I think I have not ever seen you smile so much.”

Amarli was surprised. “Really?”

Curie reached for her hand and held it gently. “Yes.”

Normally, Amarli would have let go or found some reason to put distance between them. Tonight was not a normal night.

“So, your new friends,” Amarli said. “Tell me about them.”

As they began to leave the dining hall, Curie began to speak to her about Jared, Yarun, Wen and Boyle. All four of them had been escorting a caravan back to the Castle when they’d been attacked by Raiders. While they had won the fight, none of them got off without injuries, so they’d ended up in the clinic as soon as they got here.

“So, they’re heroes,” Amarli muttered. She didn’t know why she was so bitter today. All she wanted to do was dislike those men, but she was meant to be their General. And she was meant to be Curie’s friend. What was wrong with her?

“Like you!” Curie said happily.

“I’m no hero.” Amarli took a sip of wine from the bottle she’d brought and then offered it to Curie. She declined.

“A hero is a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities,” Curie said, as if reading from a dictionary. “I think you fit this, Madame. Even Jared, Yarun, Wen and Boyle would not stop speaking of your heroics. You are very well-respected.”

“Huh.” Amarli didn’t want to have to respond. She was pleased, though. Curie thinking she was a well-respected hero would always be pleasing.

“Perhaps you should stop drinking,” Curie said, concerned. “Your intoxication levels appear to be quite high.”

Amarli rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m not that much of a light-weight. I’m fine. The wine just makes me… happy.” To prove her point, she let go of Curie’s hand and walked in a perfect straight line, bad leg and all.

“I see,” Curie said, and she was smiling again. She hurried to reach Amarli’s side and then took her hand once more. They resumed walking. “I think I like the Castle very much,” she decided.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

They reached the doors to the room and opened them. Dogmeat was already inside, but he was too busy relaxing to come and greet them when they walked in. Instead, he just grunted and went back to sleep. Amarli shut the doors behind them and went to sit on the edge of the mattress.

“But the people in the Castle… they confuse me.”

Amarli leaned back as if in surprise. “Really? Why?”

“They are very forward.” Curie looked abruptly at Amarli. “The way you are, sometimes. But it is not just you. Sometimes a simple compliment, ‘nice hair’, and I am flustered. Confused. Other times, people suggest the strangest and most lurid things, and I am even more confused.”

Amarli wondered if the men had been complimenting her earlier in the clinic, or at dinner. She forced down her instinctive pang of protectiveness and smirked at Curie instead. “You’re cute when you’re confused,” she said. She took another sip of wine, pleased when she saw how round Curie’s eyes went.

“Ah.” Curie dropped her head as she blushed the way she always did at surprising compliments. “See, you make me so very nervous. I cannot stand it.”

In a split second, Amarli was torn between the urge to press on and to hold back like she normally did. She put the wine bottle down on the floor and her eyes dropped to Curie’s lips. “I make you nervous?”

“Of course.” Curie nodded. “Sometimes I wonder if you have noticed but only wish to torment me.” She averted her eyes bashfully. After wetting her lips with her tongue, she angled her body towards the window and said, “I told you I loved you. And you said you loved me also. But now… this, between us, it is very uncomfortable. And I would like it to stop.”

Amarli widened her eyes. She was still reeling from Curie’s sudden bout of honesty, and she had shocked herself with her inability to come up with a genuine answer to comfort her. Now that Curie had mentioned it, she realized how it must look – as if she was playing a cruel game.

“Curie, I’d never torment you like that,” she said earnestly.

“Truly?”

Truly. It was truer than anything else. Curie was so wonderful that Amarli couldn’t possibly keep her mind off her. In her dreams, she couldn’t keep her hands off her. She was thinking about her constantly, and she couldn’t stop, no matter how hard she tried. To think that this woman loved her so much was both unsettling and gratifying. Never in a million years would she make fun of the way Curie felt.

At Amarli’s silence, Curie looked extremely uncomfortable. “You see, I have only made things worse,” she said miserably. “As I did the last time. I am not good at this… expressing my feelings. It always seems to be at the wrong time. Or I say the wrong thing--”

“Let me help you.” And, without even realizing she was doing it, Amarli stood up and reached for her hands to pull her away from the window. Maybe it was the alcohol removing her inhibitions, but she felt like it was something she genuinely wanted to do. She wanted Curie. She wanted her so bad that it seemed impossible there was anything wrong with it. “You haven’t made anything worse,” Amarli said softly. “We’ve needed to talk properly for a while, so it’s good you’ve brought it up. The thing is, I haven’t any idea how to start this conversation.”

“But… you love me, yes?” Curie looked at her with worry.

Amarli hesitated. “I’m of two minds about it.”

As if she had expected that response, Curie sighed, but the look of pain on her face was something else entirely. “So, you do not feel the same way as I do.” She removed her hands from Amarli’s grip and backed up, beginning to turn – perhaps to leave the room, or perhaps to go to bed – but Amarli was suddenly frantic with the need to make her stay by any means necessary. She didn’t want things to be like this. She was tired of the gap between them and the barely suppressed feelings inside of her, and how she went to sleep and woke up always thinking of Curie. Amarli felt herself open suddenly, so suddenly that it was overwhelming. She felt her chest swell with need, and she couldn’t fight it. The alcohol made it even more impossible than it already was.

So Amarli bent towards her, pressing close to her warmth, and trapped her back against the frame of the window. Even as Curie’s eyes widened with shock at her sudden advance, Amarli still leaned and grazed her lips gently over her cheek. And then she stayed there, unable to pull away even as her mind warned her to. Curie stiffened, but she didn’t push Amarli off or tell her to stop. She was definitely trembling, however – her hands were still hanging tightly by her sides, as if she didn’t know what to do with them.

“It’s okay,” Amarli mumbled against her skin.

She felt Curie’s lips move, as if she was trying to answer her, but no words came out. Sighing, she reached for Curie’s hands instead, hoping to reassure her. “Here,” she said. She stroked her fingers over the soft skin of Curie’s palms and interlinked their fingers. Curie was staring at her face, as if caught under some kind of spell. She said nothing, did nothing, only stood there as frozen as a statue. Was it so much of a surprise that Amarli wanted her? There were so many reasons she’d decided this could not happen, but a lack of desire was not one of them. Perhaps it was because of the alcohol, but Amarli made a rapid decision: this time, for the first time, she would indulge. She would see what it was that she was avoiding and just how worth it her resistance was.

Amarli brought both their hands up in between them, simultaneously bending again, but this time as she cautiously pressed closer, she nuzzled Curie’s lips with her own. It was hardly a graze, hardly even a touch, but she could feel the warmth of Curie’s breath and there was a faint sigh, the sort of sigh that betrayed everything Curie was feeling in a single moment, as if the tension had been building and building and she’d finally found release. The acceleration of Amarli’s heart-rate had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with what her body really wanted. She simply couldn’t relent. The little taste she’d had of Curie’s lips was far more than she had bargained for.

With firmness, Amarli now let go of Curie’s hands and cupped the back of her delicate neck in a fierce hold, fitting them together much more decisively. Even though she had predicted it and imagined it several times, she was still surprised by the incredible softness of Curie’s mouth. And what made it all the better was her reaction: her whole body seemed to tense up completely so that she was stiff in Amarli’s arms. It was… adorable, really. She really had no idea what to do.

But Amarli didn’t stop. Even after the first tempting press of their lips together, she knew she wanted more. It was so strange finding her fantasies brought to life that it set her heart racing frantically, and she couldn’t quite get her thoughts in order. The more she stayed there and let it happen, let her body take control, the more her restraint weakened. And then there was no point whatsoever in pulling away and pretending it was a mistake – she had already gone too far. When Amarli finally decided to go for it and pressed forward to kiss her again, Curie let out an approving hum, a sound as soft and sweet as any noise she made, and while her mouth did not move at all, her hands reached up to clutch at Amarli’s sides and pull her closer. This was all the permission she needed; moulding her lips to Curie’s, she kissed her gently, possessively, getting more drunk off the taste of her. And then – all at once, beyond what Amarli could possibly understand – she felt Curie begin to respond to the kiss, melting into her body. It was clumsy and unsure at first, but the desire ignited like a flame, or a firework, inside of Amarli’s chest. Every time she swayed forward to kiss her deeper, Curie would match each movement and parting of her lips with growing skill. She met the gentle caress of Amarli’s tongue immediately, learning fast, her hands running up the sides of her ribs and back down, worshipping the shape of her body as if she’d done it many times before. Amarli pushed her back against the window frame so tightly that there was nowhere for her to go and in the next moment noticed with pleasure that Curie had no intention of going anywhere. In fact, if she were to pull Curie’s clothes off right now and make love to her, there would be no resistance whatsoever. And Amarli wanted to – oh, how she wanted to.

But then, despite the lazy admittance that she had wanted this all along, Amarli began to panic. Curie’s hands had curled around her hips to her lower back and then dropped to the plump flesh beneath it, grabbing to bring that part of Amarli closer to her, and it immediately made her feel almost faint with need. Her head whirled as she realized how seductive this was – she could feel it in her heart, her stomach, and throbbing between her legs. For sure, she had meant to indulge and see what would happen, but had she really expected this? Had this gone too far already?

Before Amarli could lose her nerve, she quickly shied away and stepped back beyond Curie’s reach. She wiped her sleeve over her mouth to remove the taste of Curie from her lips; it was far too tempting.

The confused and somewhat hurt look on the other woman’s face instantly made her feel guilty. What was worse, Amarli had no idea how to explain herself. Again, her own body’s magnetism towards Curie’s was at a complete contrast to how wrong she felt it was. She looked helplessly at her friend, not wanting to leave the room but knowing she would have to if she didn’t want to be tempted again. Feebly, she said, “Curie, I don’t know what to do.”

Curie looked dismayed. “This body responds to you. There cannot be anyone else. I think this cannot possibly be wrong.”

“But you’re…ugh, I don’t know how to say this.” She hadn’t desired someone more than she desired Curie, perhaps because their odd little romance had been going on for so long. Her attraction had been building and building, and she knew that if she gave into it now it would be the best feeling in the world. She didn’t want to sleep with Magnolia, or Irma, or Polly. No one else’s touch would amount to enough. So, what was the problem here? If there really was no other person, and no other way, why was she still fighting against herself?

“You did not seem to mind,” Curie said quietly. Her fingertips were at her lips, as if she was trying to remember the pressure of their kiss, her eyes somewhat distant. “It felt… right.”

Amarli took another step back, no longer able to look at the other woman. She'd wanted to repair the gap between them, but now it gaped even wider. “Well, I did mind.”

A slight crease appeared between Curie’s eyebrows and she looked even more hurt and confused. Her hand dropped from her mouth.

“It can’t happen again.” Amarli searched frantically for a way to protect herself. “It’s not even that you’re my friend, Curie, and I need you to stay that way,” she said. “You’re a synth.” She’d never met with anything more frustrating. There had to be a line somewhere – she could not be in this deep with such a woman. Still, she had to admit it… the only thing she wanted to do was cross that line.

“I thought I was more than a synth,” Curie whispered unhappily. She blinked a few times, and Amarli realized she was trying not to cry. The next few moments between them were so tense that she was worried one of them was about to snap. And then Curie’s expression seemed to harden in a way it never had before. She looked angry, almost righteous.

“Madame, I know what I am,” she declared. “I am aware that all synths were created with the use of Shaun’s original DNA – your son has given me this life. In a way, you have given me life.” She took a couple strides towards the door, passing Amarli and turning around. “But I am more than a clone. I am genetically unique, and I should not need to prove that to you.” Her eyes shone with tears, and her lips trembled. With her voice lowering slightly, she added, “However, since my genome is evidently more important to you than who I am, I suppose I must give you the evidence, yes?”

“Curie…”

“Non!” she snapped. Even though she was angry, her accent only made her sound distressed – Amarli felt her throat seize up with sympathy. She had not meant to hurt the other woman in this way, and there was no time now to tell her she’d read those words all wrong. Curie’s voice became frantic: “No, I will not listen to anything else you have to say!” She swallowed and turned her head away, so dejected that Amarli could see it in the slump of her shoulders. “For you, I will never be human enough. That is the truth.”

“No, it isn’t."

Curie wouldn’t look at her. “I cannot even bear to be near you, because my body reacts so intensely to your presence. Do you not understand?” She sighed, and it was so miserable that it broke Amarli’s heart. “And you continue to tease me as if it means nothing. You touch me, you tell me there is nothing wrong with me, and then you simply cast my feelings aside. It hurts me very much.”

Amarli could see things from Curie’s point of view – she saw what a villain she had made herself, and how unkind she’d been. Why would she lead her on constantly when she knew nothing would become of it? This was no way to treat a friend, let alone family. Amarli had never treated anyone this way. She felt sickened by herself, and her heart broke for Curie immediately in a way it had never broken for anyone else before. She didn’t know what to say, or do, and she most of all had no idea how to explain the truth about it all. There was no place to start in this mess.

“You are terrible,” Curie whispered. She angrily wiped a tear from her cheek. “I believed you were my closest friend, but that cannot be true. You are so cruel to me.”

Amarli stung at that. She reached for the other woman’s arm, feeling close to tears herself now. She could not lose Curie’s friendship; she would not stand for it. If Curie ran away and disappeared again into the Commonwealth, Amarli would not know how to live without her – she could already see it in her mind’s eye. She’d be miserable without her. Before Amarli could touch her and calm her down, Curie yanked herself away and cried, “Do not!”

She yanked open the doors and disappeared outside, her footsteps fading quickly. Amarli was left feeling as if she had made a terrible, terrible mistake, one hand pressed to her chest as she felt her heart beating rapid and hard against her ribs. She did not go after her. In fact, she could hardly move at all.

Five minutes later, she was still reeling – she’d never seen the other woman that angry about anything. What Curie had said had been true: she was much more than a faceless clone. Curie was a beautiful, sweet, intelligent woman, with a heart larger than the wasteland itself. She looked nothing like Shaun, and she genetically had little to do Amarli. In fact, she was the polar opposite of both of them. Amarli had constantly justified herself by remembering that Curie was a synth, but it was probably the smallest part of the problem.

If Curie really did present her with evidence showing that she was genetically unique, would it change anything? She could. She had the tools and the apparatus necessary to test her own blood alongside Amarli’s, just to prove her point. But would it matter?

No, it wouldn’t.

Amarli knew without question that Curie was right. It had not felt wrong kissing Curie, or dreaming about sleeping with her, but she had gotten it into her head that it simply was. Why? She hated to admit it, but the real truth was much darker and scarier than the fact that Curie was a synth. It was a monster that had been there since Amarli was a little girl, and it had fed on her fear ever since. After all this time, even since she’d woken up in Vault 111 and become this brave and righteous hero, it seemed she was still frightened.

Amarli sat down heavily by the window, her head in her hands. She felt something furry touch her arm and turned to see Dogmeat had sat down beside her, looking at her imploringly as if asking if she would like to confide in him. “I don’t know why I couldn’t just keep my mouth shut and my hands to myself,” she muttered to him. “It’s like I’m trying to make a mess of things.”

Dogmeat cocked his head. As if he’d realized she needed comfort, he leaned to rest his head in her lap. He looked just as troubled as she did; surely he had wondered whether he should follow Curie out of the room or stay in here with her. The fact he had stayed almost brought tears to Amarli’s eyes, because it had been a while since she had noticed the sort of devoted, unquestioning love that came from an animal. He had always been uniquely tuned into her pain; now was no different. If Curie was upset, Amarli was ten times more upset. And Dogmeat knew – he always knew.

With a sigh, Amarli stroked her fingertips over the coarse fur on top of his head and tried to sort through her thoughts. She calmed herself to the point where she could see it. Reality. 

She’d been in the Institute, so she’d known how the synths were manufactured. She’d read through files and terminal entries specifying just how their biology worked. Father himself had told her what the Institute had done with his DNA to create the first successful synthetic humans. All this time, she’d known how little in common synths had with her biologically. Their base was founded on Shaun’s genetic makeup, but the Institute had not simply copied it; each synth, true to what Curie had said, was completely genetically unique. The only way the synths were related to each other was the way that all humans were inevitably related to one another: through common, distant ancestors. Amarli had known this, she’d always known this, but she’d managed to convince herself that anything she felt towards Curie was some twisted form of incest. She’d wanted that to be the case, in fact, so that she could force herself to somehow lose that physical attraction; condition herself to be sickened by it, to hate it. But it hadn’t worked at all, because it wasn’t true.

It wasn’t Curie’s genetics that were the problem here. The issue was how much synths were despised by the Commonwealth.

Amarli was scared, but not because she wanted to be alone, or because she thought she’d lose her friend, or even because Curie was a synthetic human being. It was because she commanded a whole community of people who knew everything it was possible to know about her and spread rumours like wildfire. It was because she’d only just gotten her son back, and her life, and because after months and months, she still didn’t entirely understand how the Commonwealth society worked. She still didn’t feel stable enough for something like this. And on top of all of that – that lack of ease in maintaining privacy – she had Curie living with her in her house. She had Curie taking care of her son and helping her in the fight against the Mechanist. Curie was completely embedded in her life, and therefore Amarli was hesitant to enter into any sort of open affiliation with her. One thing she absolutely would not allow was for the public to draw some sort of connection between them. Curie was a woman and a synth. While they might not know what she was, if they ever so much as found out, there could be hell to pay. Being in relationship with a synth was one thing; being in a gay relationship with a synth was really pushing it. It didn’t matter what Amarli’s personal views were, not when she had such a huge responsibility as General of the Minutemen. And she’d had enough punishment in the past for being open with her sexuality to know exactly how society reacted to things that they perceived as different.

Amarli glanced down at Dogmeat, looking deep into his brown eyes, and saw a sort of expectation in them, as if she had been thinking out loud and now he was curious to know more.

“I’ll tell you, boy,” she said softly. “But it’s a long, long story.”

 ---

When she was young, Amarli’s parents had noticed immediately that she was different. She’d wanted to wear trousers instead of dresses, go out and climb trees instead of play with dolls in her room. In response, her mother had torn up all her ‘boy’ clothes, bought her a load of new dresses she couldn’t climb trees in, and locked the door every afternoon so she wouldn’t be tempted to go out. They already represented a mixed-race family, after all – her mother, while only half black, was dark enough that she sometimes got glares or angry catcalls in the street. Their high class was a gift and mostly thanks to Amarli’s white father, who had a managing job at a high-paid tech company. If not for him, Amarli would have grown up in a poorer neighbourhood with the other blacks and foreigners. Her parents were convinced, therefore, that by making her more like the other sophisticated little girls in conservative high-class families, they were actually protecting their image. In truth, all they had done was make Amarli terribly unhappy. She’d lost all the friends she used to climb trees with and she couldn’t make any new ones. She had nothing in common with the girls who wanted to have tea parties and dress up like princesses. Besides, they all had fair skin and she was darker. They already thought they were better than her.

Her parents bred in her, from a young age, this need to defy their standards at all odds. At school, she refused to relate to the other children. Other girls learned to write with pretty handwriting and sew up clothes; Amarli wanted to know how to fix a car or build a robot. Her dad, who had always been tech-savvy, seemed to like that she took after him. He taught her to hack a radio, gave her things to fix, but he told her never to practice outside of the house. Ladies were not meant to be engineers. Amarli figured that maybe she couldn’t wear trousers or climb trees, but at least she’d be allowed to repair her own alarm clock, so she accepted it like she’d accepted everything else. There were many other girls like her, for sure, who saw the benefits of doing things that for some reason only boys were supposed to do – but Amarli was never exposed to them. She went to a school for rich, proper children, and there were very specific rules on how she was supposed to live her life.

Then came her sexual awakening when she was sixteen, when she kissed a girl for the first time. She’d grown into her more feminine side once she reached high school and discovered she had a taste for athletics as well as engineering. She spent time with the other sporty students – cheerleaders and jocks – and thought they were good friends. But when she made the mistake of telling them she thought she might be gay, they were her friends no longer. Anyone who discovered this new part of her, a part she could not change even if she wanted to, suddenly seemed to want nothing to do with her, like she’d been infected and she’d pass her disease on to them if they let her get too close. No matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, people just didn't like who she truly was. She was an enema, and she hated it. Soon enough, she grew accustomed to being alone save for a couple friends. She got used to the guys who suggested they ‘turn’ her and make her normal again, even though it disgusted her. She was miserable, perhaps just as miserable as she’d been when she was a child.

When she was an adult and she’d left school behind, Amarli felt as if she could stretch her wings and finally be comfortable with who she was. While her parents wouldn’t let her do engineering like she’d always dreamed, the thought of doing law and being able to argue with people for the rest of her life certainly appealed to her. She went to university with the hope that her adulthood wouldn’t turn out the same as her childhood, and she’d find a small society who would accept all these little things that made her different. She was almost successful; after all, she found Nate. But then it was her university who threatened her comfort and stability. She should have been more careful about her sexuality, and more private, but her openness during those days had put her whole life in danger. If she chose to be proud of her love for women, they would disregard her diploma. She’d graduate, but no law firm would ever want to hire her. This was the last straw for her parents; she spent many nights back at home, arguing with them about her future. It was horrible to finally come out and tell them who she really was and have them only be angry with her. Her mother was fueled these fights while her father would be silent. Perhaps it was because she had suffered more from being different than he had and she saw herself in Amarli’s struggle; as a black woman in a world that was accepting of other races but still straining to tolerate those who didn’t fit, she had grown up as a victim of discrimination. She’d thought, as usual, that by forcing Amarli to be ‘normal’, she was protecting her.

Amarli was furious. Despite their best efforts to stifle her love for engineering and the outdoors, and despite everything they took away from her when she was a child, she had not changed a single bit. She was different to them, but to herself she was still the same. So, she was a lesbian – so what? She was proud of it. Amarli had kissed boys and she hadn’t liked it. That was just how it was. And she had a knack for building and inventing things – so what? There had been mechanics and professors who were awed by her work even though she was a woman and her skin was a few shades darker.

Nevertheless, Amarli found herself at the point of no return: if she didn’t settle down with a man and agree to have his children before her final year of university, she would have no family, no job, and no life. There was absolutely no one and nowhere to turn except towards Nate.

At least she’d had him back then.

 ---

She didn’t have Nate now. He was buried up on the hill near Vault 111. If she was as proud as she’d been back then and something happened, this time so close to home that it could endanger her whole life all over again, she would lose everything. She didn’t have parents or an education to lose anymore, but she did have her son and her closest friend. Nate wasn’t even here to save her. And her life now was much more important than the life she’d had before. She’d chosen this life, and if it was taken away from her, she would have nothing left to live for. Even in this much more humane society where no one really cared what she did, Amarli still feared something could go wrong. It didn’t have to be the fact she was gay, either, or the fact that Curie was a synth – she was aware of the things which could spoil between close friends if they entered a relationship. She knew the sorts of damage it could bring. She especially knew how that damage could destroy a home and even a life if she let it.

Here was the real problem: if she told Curie any of this, would she understand? Amarli had made it seem like Curie had created the difficulty, but that wasn’t the entire truth. Curie already knew it had been hard for her growing up in a conservative society as someone who didn’t fit, but Amarli had told the story like her struggles hadn’t been so bad at all. Curie thought she had been strong and independent and had continued to be who she was against all odds. She had no idea that Amarli had actually spent her entire youth hiding. And that she was still hiding, just to protect her job as General, and to make sure people still liked her, and that they left her alone.

Amarli didn’t know what to do next. She had no idea whether she should take the risk and accept that she’d fallen in love with Curie and she wanted her more than she feared the consequences, or if she should continue to hide and be alone. More frustrating than the barriers which other people had thrown in her way were the walls she had put up herself to prevent any possibility of happiness. She could not tell anymore if there was a real threat from the people of this society, of if she was just imagining there would be because she was scared.

I’ve been alone for this long and I’ve been fine with it.

But she’d felt lonely more times than she could count. And there was something about how she felt for Curie that made her wonder if maybe they were meant to be more than friends. Maybe, just maybe, they would strengthen if they were together, and nothing would ever stand in their way. It could make Shaun happier, and it could make the house in Sanctuary Hills more like home, and it could make Amarli feel like she didn’t have so much responsibility anymore. Allowing herself to feel like that could take a long time, especially after the damage she’d suffered at the hands of her parents, but… if it was what she wanted, it might be worth the risk.

Carefully, Amarli lifted her eyes and stared out of the window. She felt drained, but she still found herself enjoying the serenity of the waves outside. The room’s interior was completely hushed and sombre, but out there was a clamor of noise. The contrast was momentous. Amarli wanted to be out there, with Curie. She yearned to stop this self-infliction of discontent and find someone to live the rest of her life with.

It seemed Amarli would need to spend some time considering whether Curie was worth the risk to find that person, or whether she was willing to let her go to save herself from a threat that might not even be real.

Chapter Text

Curie knew that being tired could be a wearing of the emotions, that it could come together with a tired body and become an ingrained part of a life that isn’t lived, but survived, endured. Her body needed to rest yet her mind needed it to move, to burn the anxiety right out. While her eyes burned with wanting to close, and her shoulders slumped from lack of energy, Curie determinedly kept herself awake. She stood for a long time on top of the wall, ignoring the patrolmen and simply staring out at the sea as the wind burned her cheeks. She thought about all the life she had lived and how much life there was left. An eternity. It made her current problems seem so small, even though they felt so big.

Amarli refusing to love her was but a blip in her existence. Logically, Curie knew that someday it would not hurt her so much; she would perhaps be standing here a hundred years into the future, looking exactly the same, and Amarli would be long gone. Curie’s chest clenched with a petrifying agony just at the thought. She could not bear the idea of Amarli being gone. Ever. She refused to entertain it. Curie thought she would rather not exist at all than exist without Amarli there beside her.

But what could she do about Amarli not wanting her? Nothing. Curie could do nothing.

Curie turned back the other way, this time staring across at the city, and her eyes filled with tears even despite the wind. It looked so large and terrifying, an endless world of corruption and darkness. She could not even begin to wonder what it would be like without a place like Sanctuary Hills to go back to. The Commonwealth made her feel so small, and so unwanted – only Amarli had ever really made her feel wanted. In the beginning, it had been Amarli who had chosen to save her from the vault and give her the gift of this body. But now Amarli didn’t want her anymore, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Amarli was the only home she had, and without her there was nothing and nowhere to go back to.

She began to cry. Before now, she hadn’t realized how important it was to her for Amarli to need her in return. It was a crushing realization to find that her creator did not love her as fully and deeply as she had hoped. Curie could not fault her; she knew that the human connection was not always reciprocated, and she should not have expected so much from Amarli. But to be rejected for something over which she had no control seemed cruel. Curie had felt so human, but she had forgotten that her flesh was too smooth and unmarked to belong to a being which had been born from a womb; she had forgotten that the essence of her was contained in a small piece of metal hardware embedded in her brain; she had also forgotten that her body was incapable of bearing a child of her own, that it could never put on weight, or get sick. She was human, but without all the vulnerabilities. And this made her replaceable. She was not so valuable when it was known that she was essentially immortal. Why should her life be as precious as any other human’s life?

Amarli should have told her this long ago, instead of telling her she was a human in every way that counted. Curie felt cheated. She felt as if she had been lied to. Perhaps, if she had known that being a synth gave her limitations over what she deserved, she would never have fallen in love with Amarli in the first place.

Curie cried until she didn’t think she could cry anymore, silently and steadily, continuing to stare at the darkness of the city. Her body and her mind were so exhausted, but she didn’t want to sleep. If she returned to the room, she would see Amarli, and she didn’t even want to look at her right now. She didn’t want to have to hear the other woman try and apologize, to find her own heart softening and automatically forgiving her. Curie knew she was too capable of forgiveness, she was too merciful, and she wanted to be angry for a while longer. She wanted to hate Amarli so it wouldn’t hurt so much. But Curie had never truly been capable of hatred. Right now, she thought it was one of her biggest flaws.

She stayed on top of the wall, crying silently and feeling the tears freeze on her cheeks. She stayed there so long that the night didn’t seem so dark anymore when she left it. By the time she was returning to the courtyard, she was shivering and her tears were dry. The sky was as grey as yesterday.

Curie stood in the courtyard and watched as carts with Brahmin were set up near the entranceway. She saw a dozen Minutemen packing away bags of belongings and saying goodbye to their families. They would be leaving this morning to settlements on the furthest edges of the Commonwealth, aiming to lead the most vulnerable of their people to safety. Curie felt almost envious of them; she wanted to leave the Castle and lend her life to something just as heroic. She could, if she wanted to, but then she remembered how Amarli and Shaun had reacted to her escape the last time. She remembered how worried they had been about her, and how happy they were to see her return. Perhaps she felt broken and dejected, but that didn’t mean she was about to abandon her family – or her work. Whatever happened, she would return to Sanctuary Hills and finish her experiments, even if she had to leave Amarli here and go back on her own. Once she had that cure, she would have a reason to journey around the Commonwealth alone. And Amarli would never be able to fault her for running away.

“Hello, Curie.”

The voice made her flinch, but it was only Preston Garvey. He tipped his hat at her and she tried to make herself look less pitiful – from the look on his face, she knew she must have failed.

“One of the men said he’d seen you up on the wall all night,” Preston said softly. He leaned against the wall beside her, his eyes full of nothing but concern. Curie had always liked him; he was a kind man. “Is everything all right?”

It was such a complicated question to answer that Curie almost thought she would cry again. All at once, her dreadful anger and agony drained away into an ache – she was just tired, so tired. She was tired of always feeling this way and never having a reason to stop. Amarli had put her through the worst kind of mental torture.

“I think I must leave very soon,” Curie said quietly.

“Leave?” Preston was watching her curiously. “You just arrived a couple days ago.”

“I cannot stay.” Curie would have said more, so much more, but she remembered Amarli telling her yesterday that secrecy was key. A flash of anger returned, and she curled her lip. Amarli didn’t want anyone to know that she was synth. Because she was ashamed of it. Curie was something for her to be ashamed of.

“Curie?”

Curie shook her head, tight-lipped.

“Well, if you do decide to leave,” Preston said thoughtfully, “I’d get someone to go with you. The moment the Commonwealth hears what the General says on the radio today, it’ll be much harder for you to stay safe out there. I have no doubt the Mechanist will be listening in as well.”

Another instalment to her rollercoaster of emotions – Curie felt a slight pang of guilt. She had promised Amarli yesterday that she would help her with her speech, but she had been too busy. And now she didn’t want to see her. Curie had not wanted it to get this bad; so bad that she would throw away their friendship and her sense of duty. Even if she was upset, she should have helped Amarli. She should not have run away, or thought about going home without her. What happened to that sense of responsibility towards her partner?

“What time will the speech be?” Curie asked.

“Midday.” Preston gazed at her, almost as if he knew what was going on. “Will you stay until then?”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “I… I have a duty.”

“Good.” He smiled perceptively, and then pushed off the wall, tipping his hat to her once again. “I’ll see you at midday.”

“Goodbye, Monsieur.”

Curie watched him saunter off, biting her lip. She felt terribly cold and upset, but there was at least something to think about for a while: the speech. She didn’t have to forgive Amarli, or look at her, or be her friend, but she could still be her partner. It was a formality which Curie would accept.

For a moment, she remembered how warm she had felt the night before when she had been in the circle of Amarli’s arms. She recalled the heat of Amarli’s mouth against her own, and the gentle hands on her face and in her hair. How blissfully enticing it had been, how Curie had wanted it to last forever and ever, thinking for a moment that perhaps Amarli really did love her and want her all at once. But Amarli still had not told her what she truly wanted; she seemed both physically and emotionally attracted, but there was something more Curie was missing. 

The pain returned, and it was such a sweet, burning agony that Curie felt almost nauseous from it. She had never felt something quite like it in all her months of being alive. Amarli could make love, but she couldn’t make promises. Curie had thought she wanted to take anything she could get, but now she wasn’t so sure. If something more had happened last night before Amarli had stopped it, Curie may have felt very happy for a little while – but it would only have been temporary. And then she would have known exactly what it was like to have Amarli, only to never have her again. Amarli would move on, and Curie would be stuck loving her completely for an eternity.

So, in truth, even if Curie had hated the reason why, she knew that Amarli had only rejected her so many times because she didn’t want to hurt her. Otherwise she would have just given in. Even if there had never been a straightforward answer to Curie’s question on whether the other woman’s love existed, at least she could safely say that her heart had not been properly broken. Amarli loved Curie because Curie was the anomaly in all her friendships; her closest female friend. As Magnolia had said, she’d never before been able to be good friends with a woman without wanting her. Curie should not take that away from her, not because of her self-centered human feelings. If Amarli had cared enough to protect her heart, then perhaps their friendship was worth saving after all. 

She left the courtyard then, feeling slightly better than before, and went straight to the clinic. Her friends would be discharged today, but perhaps they would provide her with the distraction she so desperately needed before she had to see Amarli again.

 ---

When Curie saw Wen, the most outspoken of her new Minuteman friends, she almost burst into tears again. He looked at the sadness on her face with an expression of surprise and then immediately ushered her into a hug. He was big and muscular, but with a soft centre – he reminded her very much of Big Al, a gentle giant. Curie missed that man, and she had no idea where he had gone. Perhaps it was the memory of him which had drawn her to Wen and his friends in the first place and want to make them her friends. She wanted to see Big Al again, to confide in him everything that had happened and have him comfort her. While he may not be the most lawful man, he had always been a good listener. And he had never cared that she was a synth.

“What’s wrong?” Wen asked, drawing back to look down at her.

Curie pressed her fists to her eyes, still struggling not to cry. The other men were staring across the clinic at her from their beds; Jared and Boyle had stood up and come over, looking stricken by her pain. She could remember meeting them all yesterday, and being happy to find such kind, polite men to talk to. None of them had jobs to do, so they had nothing but time for her. They listened to her talk about her journeys, and her experiments, and told her stories of their own.

She could remember Jared asking yesterday: “So, what’s the deal with you and the General?” And Curie had replied that Amarli was her greatest friend, a friend whom she loved dearly. Now, she wasn’t so sure if that was even true anymore. She felt dismayed to think that maybe these men would change their minds about her if they knew she was a synth. Would they refuse to be her friends if they knew? If Amarli – a woman so kind, understanding and accepting – could be scared of her, then anyone could.

With her heart beating erratically, Curie pulled back out of Wen’s arms and forced her tears to stop. “I am well,” she said quickly. “It is only that I am tired.”

None of her new friends believed her. Still, Wen gently touched her shoulder and pointed at one of the beds. “You can sleep here,” he said. “The doctor isn’t coming in until much later, anyway. She doesn’t have any patients anymore.”

Curie was about to protest and say that the last thing she wanted was sleep, but she knew that would be a lie. Part of her still detested the idea of lying. And she didn’t think she’d last very long if she didn’t rest for at least an hour. Giving in, she ducked her head and climbed onto the bed, curling up on her side so small that she only took up half of the mattress. She heard muttering behind her; her friends were wondering what was wrong, but they were too polite to ask her. Curie firmly closed her eyes and hugged her hands to her chest, trying to clear her mind so she could sleep.

After what seemed like only moments, there was a hand gently shaking her arm to wake her up. Imagining she was back in her room, and forgetting how upset she was with her friend, Curie opened her eyes with a hopeful smile. And then she saw Yarun gazing down at her, realized she was surrounded by beds, and remembered where she was. And she remembered what had happened to make her chest ache with such a passion.

You’re a synth, Amarli had said. And she had said it with frustration, with misery, and with a frantic anxiety. Curie would never forget the way she had said those words.

Curie’s hopeful smile became a look of impassivity – she knew she was normally terrible at hiding her facial expressions, but for once she could master it. For once, she felt like it would save her time explaining how she felt. She drew her lips into a straight line and sat up, blinking in the morning light. All of her new friends were standing around her bed, much like they had yesterday, but being enclosed by so many burly men didn’t scare her. She trusted they were all kind.

“Do you still not wanna talk about it?” Yarun asked, his dark eyes blinking at her.

Curie decisively shook her head.

“We’re good listeners – the lot of us.”

She lowered her eyes to her hands, still trying to look nonchalant. “Please, what is the time?” she asked.

“Twelve.”

So, half an hour until Amarli would be speaking on the radio for all of the Commonwealth to hear. And then all the major settlements – Diamond City, Goodneighbor – would be going on lockdown. Settlers would be leaving their homes for safety. The Minutemen would begin to patrol the city vigilantly. And plans would be made to take down the Mechanist. Would Curie still be a part of that?

Wen sighed, turning to his friends. “Let me speak to her alone for a minute or two.”

With furtive glances at her, they nodded and left. Curie knew they had already been discharged and were meant to return to their duties today; perhaps she wouldn’t see them again because they would be so busy. She regretted being too upset to give them a proper goodbye.

Wen sat down beside her bed, folding his hands in his lap. “I have a son, you know,” he said calmly. “He’s twenty-three, and he takes care of the farm back home.”

Curie blinked at him in surprise. She hadn’t thought him old enough to have an adult son, and she hadn’t thought that he owned a settlement. It made sense, of course – what else would drive him to join the Minutemen other than protecting his assets?

“He was always a sweet boy when he was growing up. Something that put him in plenty of trouble but I always loved about him was how bad he was at lying.” Wen grinned. “He could hide nothing from me.”

“Honesty is a favorable trait,” Curie said.

“You remind me of him,” Wen decided. “I think it might be because you’ve got the same tendency to look exactly how you feel. It’s… unique, to say the least. You’re exceptionally open, and honest.”

“Monsieur, you have only met me yesterday.”

“I know.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “But I’m good at recognizing the sorts of people I can trust. And I think maybe you are, too. You can trust me, Curie.”

Although this warmed her, Curie simply stared at him.

“There was something you were very upset about when you came in earlier,” he said. “Yesterday, you were cheerful as anything. Now, you’re sad.”

“My friend has let me down,” Curie said without thinking. It was more than that – much more – but Wen didn’t need to know the true extent of her feelings for Amarli.

“Your friend,” he repeated. His dark eyes grew understanding. “The General? She let you down?”

Curie knew her answer was already showing on her face. Reluctantly, she nodded.

“May I ask how? It must have been pretty bad if you’re this upset.”

Curie sighed, knowing she could not answer without giving too much away. She didn’t want Wen to hate her, or for the Minutemen to find out what she was and banish her. Amarli wouldn’t stop them; with bitterness, Curie realized she knew that now. Still, she wanted nothing more than to be able to talk to someone with honesty. If Wen thought he could trust her, she should perhaps put in some effort to trust him in return. And if he decided she was repugnant and he told all the Minutemen, she would be leaving soon anyway, so it wouldn’t affect her so badly.

“She has hurt me,” Curie said unhappily. “She has made me feel as if I can never be… good enough.” She frowned, frustrated tears filling her eyes. “But she is a very good woman, Monsieur, and I will forever be indebted to her. She is kind, and accepting, and understanding… but now she will not accept… she will not…” Curie’s shoulders shook, and she realized she was almost crying again. Weakly, she tried to continue, “It is what I am – she will not…”

Wen’s voice was so low when he spoke that she almost didn’t hear him:

“You’re a synth,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

Curie stared with round, disbelieving eyes, afraid to answer.

“When you were talking yesterday, there were a few things which I thought didn’t make sense if you'd been a human all along,” he explained quickly, seeing her face. More softly, he added, “I only know 'cause there's a synth who's close to me. I know how they work, the ways in which they're different. I promise you have nothing to fear from me.”

She couldn’t believe it. Tentatively, she asked, “You do not… it does not make you afraid?”

“Not all of us are like that,” he said, eyes narrowing. “But it’s good you’ve tried to keep it quiet. There are plenty of people still who think the synths are evil incarnate – and they will continue to think so, even when they know it isn't logical.”

Curie wiped away some tears. “M-Madame Amarli told me i-it was important. To hide.”

He smiled. “Well, she obviously knows best about it, eh? She’s the General. She knows her people better than anyone. I mean, I don't listen to the radio that much, but I like my General, and I like what she stands for. So, if she told me I had to hide, I would hide.”

Hearing this from a man she had only just met was jolting. It made Curie wonder whether she had overreacted, and if maybe she should have given Amarli more of a chance to explain herself. She had taken personal offense, but she had also known that Amarli only wanted to protect her - ironic, considering this had ended up hurting Curie after all. 

“When you talked about her yesterday you made it sound as if you’d known her for a long time,” Wen said.

“Months,” Curie sighed, her sadness rising again. “For me, it has felt like a lifetime. And she has always accepted me, always made me feel human, real – but now…”

“Hmm.” Wen scratched the beard at his chin. “Does seem a little odd for her to worry now, I suppose. But being in the Castle is different to being anywhere else – even I know that. This is the cradle of all Minutemen life. If the people learn of something here, you might as well accept that it’s gonna be spread through the whole Commonwealth like wildfire. Everyone will hear about it.”

“And the consequences?”

“I don’t know. There are plenty of people out there, especially in the more rural settlements, who would hate you just on principle. The General has tried preaching love and harmony to the people of the Commonwealth, but people can be... stubborn. Strangers might recognize you and try to kill you. There might be enough anger combined to put your life in serious danger. There's never been a high status synth before, especially not one so close to the Commonwealth hero.” He sighed. "I know a few people myself who'd protest it. As much as they love the General, they would not stand for a known synth affiliating with everything they hold dear. She could be forced to step down."

Curie’s stomach clenched in fear. She didn’t believe Amarli would ever allow her people to treat others as such. But what if it was happening behind her back? What if this was the real reason she was so scared to love Curie? Did she think that, if people found out she loved a synth, they would both be the subjects of anger? As the General of the Minutemen, she could be in even more danger. Curie had plenty of information in her archives about how leaders were overthrown – assassinated, usurped, betrayed. Perhaps she had completely misread Amarli’s fear after all. Perhaps, even though it was terrible for her to disregard Curie’s feelings just because of what she was, she was… justified?

Wen leaned forwards to grab her attention. “Curie, my son… he’s like you. He's the synth I was talking about, the one I'm close to.”

“Your son is a synth?”

“He was replaced… god knows when.” His eyes became a little watery, and he paused for a moment. “All I know is he was sick, very sick. And then, one day, he wasn’t. And my lady and I knew it wasn’t just a coincidence. Even the doctor knew. Most people get angry when they find out their loved one has been replaced, and they want to kill the imposter. But I…” He huffed. “All I saw was my son, alive and healthy. He thought he was my son, and he called me ‘Dad’, and he was exactly like he’d always been. Even though I mourned the loss of my real son, the one they took from me, I just couldn’t be angry with the innocent creature they had given me. I couldn’t.”

“So, he still does not know he is a synth?”

“It’s better that way. At least for now.” Wen reached forwards and took her hand. “Humans can be cruel, and ignorant. Even though I have no doubt that the Institute created people like you and my son to destroy us, now that the Institute’s gone, I refuse to believe that you’re a threat.” He smiled warmly. “I mean, look at you – you’re wonderful. A ray of sunshine. Can’t imagine you hurting anyone.”

Curie, surprising herself, managed a small smile in return. “You are very wonderful as well, Monsieur.”

He let go of her hand and leaned back again. “If I can still love my son as if he was never taken from me, there’s hope in the world for synths like you. You could be the future of humanity. Don’t be upset about the strangers who hate the idea of you. Just be proud that you exist at all, and that you can live with us peacefully, even with that chip in your head. You’re real flesh and blood, Curie. You are real.”

“I am real,” she repeated under her breath. Curie could hardly wrap her head around the fact that this man – a relative stranger – could give her such strength. He was comforting her, and building her up, like a real friend. A comrade. She almost felt tears pricking at her eyes again, but this time with appreciation for his words.

“And your friend…” he trailed off. “Well, like I said, she’s the General. And from what I’ve heard, she’s kind. If she’s let you down, I’m sure it’s not for the reason you think. Some of us can find it hard to detach ourselves from our society – leaders especially. If the people want something from you, you have to give it to them.”

Curie smiled. “You are very knowledgeable, Monsieur.”

“I’ve opened a book or two in my time,” Wen said, grinning.

With uncertainty, she decided, “Perhaps I misread the situation.”

“My guess?” Wen shrugged. “I think she’s scared.”

Curie frowned. “Madame Amarli does not really get scared.”

“If she’s made the decision to let you down for the sake of her title and her people, then she is scared,” he insisted.

Taking a deep breath, Curie decided to expose the rest of the truth, feeling she could trust this man. “Would the Minutemen hurt their General if she chose to... to love a synth?” Curie asked quietly.

Wen’s eyebrows rose and he looked at her in silence for a few seconds. And then he stammered, “You-you mean…? Well, I suppose they’d be shocked if they found out. Regardless… it’s not the Minutemen’s business who our General chooses to love, is it?”

Curie shook her head.

“Perhaps you should tell her that, then.” A smile tugged at his lips. “Is that really why you looked so upset earlier? The General let you down… because she loves you?”

Shifting uncomfortably, Curie quickly said, “I do not know if she loves me, Monsieur. All I know is that she is scared to. But before I talked to you – before you made me understand – I had thought she hated me for what I am.”

“Her son is a synth, isn’t he?” Wen asked curiously.

“Yes.” With a frown, Curie asked, “If the Minutemen know, do they not hate her for having a synth son?”

“They can tolerate it,” Wen said. “Most people think of it only as a rumor. No one's ever actually seen the boy before, and if they have, they don't try to gossip about it.”

Curie hummed her understanding.

“So, if her son is a synth, do you really think she would hate you for being a synth?” Wen chuckled a little. “Seems pretty unlikely, doesn’t it?”

Shoulders slumping, Curie reluctantly gave in. “I suppose so.”

“Like I said, she’s just scared.” Wen stood up. “You need to make her remember she’s the boss of this society, Curie. She shouldn’t be caring what the Minutemen or the settlers think when it comes to her personal life. Hell, she’s given us this life to live – without her, the Institute would probably still be here. Most of us wouldn’t exist anymore.”

Curie thought about that for a long moment. Earlier, she had felt so angry at Amarli for pushing her away. Now she wasn’t sure what to think. The things that Wen had told her made sense, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether this synth problem was much larger than she had first thought. She was sobered by it. As angry as she was with Amarli, her friend had only been trying to protect her, just like always. Amarli had never tried to hurt her. She’d been careless, but Curie’s pain now was not intentional.

“I think I may stay,” Curie said finally, looking up at Wen. “As an alternative to leaving as I had planned.”

He smiled. “Good idea.”

“Do you think I should forgive her?”

“I think forgiveness is the only way to peace,” he said wisely. “She’s been ill-advised, and it can be hard to overcome the fear of rejection – especially by your own people.”

Then she should not have rejected me, Curie thought, her frustration returning. I am her people. But she chose to push me away. She chose the Minutemen instead of me, even though I would never turn on her, or hurt her, or make her pay for loving me.

Curie still did not know whether Amarli loved her or simply desired her, but she knew that the wound in her heart was already closing. As she’d predicted, she was forgiving Amarli. And she knew she would forgive her forever, whatever she did, because she did not think the other woman was capable of true maliciousness. And because she loved her so much; she loved her more than some silly brand against synths, and more than the possibility of being killed for what she was, or locked up, or exiled.

“She is blind,” Curie sighed. “To me, it seems logical to choose those people who would not reject or endanger you. If I were the General of the Minutemen, I would choose to love the people who would love me unconditionally in return.”

“But you’re not,” Wen said carefully.

That quietened her. She had no idea what it was like to be the General of the Minutemen – she had almost forgotten what it took for Amarli to be their leader. All the pain, and the loss that she had suffered in order to find her son and destroy the Institute. All the agreements she had made, and risks she had undertaken, and hearts she had won. Curie had never thought about how much the Minutemen might mean to her.

Still, she could not understand why Amarli would let them get in the way of her own happiness.

“We must go,” she said suddenly, standing up as well. “The speech is now, yes?”

“Yeah.” Wen looked at her worriedly. “Will you be okay?”

“I am better, Monsieur, thanks to you.” Curie smiled a genuine smile.

“Let me take you down, then.” He held out his arm like a gentleman and she took it. Together, they walked out of the clinic and headed for the courtyard down below, Curie already hardening with determination as she realized what must be done: one way or another, she would convince Amarli that she had the freedom to make a decision of her own. Curie would not let this go on for a day longer. Amarli must know that after everything she had done for the Commonwealth and her people she deserved to be happy. Even if that wasn’t with Curie. Her happiness was worth more than any other valuable thing on the planet – more valuable than Curie’s reason for living, her research. More valuable than her own selfish love, and her need for a home and people who wanted her. 

Amarli's happiness was her job now.

 ---

Every one of the Minutemen in the Castle had come to stand in the courtyard, even though they weren’t needed. When Curie and Wen walked out, they almost ran into a wall of people clad in old colonial coats and carrying laser muskets. All of them were dressed in full uniform and stood with a straight-backed respect for their General, who was waiting with Preston and Ronnie at the radio tower. The second Curie saw her, she felt a humming energy race through her and gather in her chest, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away. She looked on with mixed frustration, worry and determination, only wanting to pull her friend aside and speak to her. But there was no chance of that now. Amarli had a job to do, and Curie had no right to stop her from doing it.

She was wearing clothes Curie had never seen before. It seemed the General had her own uniform and it was kept in the Castle for such occasions as this. Her boots were knee-high and a scuffed brown; she wore dark trousers that looked like old-fashioned breeches; and, beneath her navy blue Minuteman coat, a white shirt with a collar buttoned up to her throat. Even the tan leather gloves and tricorn hat gave her a particularly old-fashioned allure. She looked like an old war general from the 1700s – which, as Curie knew, was when the original Minutemen had lived. She was a striking sight in the middle of the courtyard, especially surrounded by so many men and women dressed in the same colonial style. And she showed no sign of being as broken as Curie was. Even from here, Curie could see her eyes were hard and her face was impassive; her duty was more powerful than her emotions, apparently. Or perhaps she didn’t feel anything at all.

Wen squeezed Curie’s arm and glanced down at her. “Don’t look so troubled.”

Curie didn’t feel that troubled. She felt nervous mostly, and a little bit angry now that she’d found Amarli didn’t even appear upset. If she had left that morning without saying goodbye, would Amarli still have gone ahead with this like nothing had happened? Did her duty really come before anything else? Curie knew that she had little data or experience in her systems about leadership, but this still stung.

The man – Mason – sitting by the microphone waved Amarli over and she straightened her shoulders. There was a shuffling of feet around the courtyard as the Minutemen watched their General sit in front of the radio and place a piece of paper before her. They knew that this speech would officially start their war against the Mechanist. Before she switched on the microphone and began to speak, there was a sudden silence, as if everyone had taken a deep breath in.

“People of the Commonwealth, I am speaking to you on account of a new danger you should be aware of,” Amarli began, her voice amplified throughout the courtyard. “We’ve had months of peace after the fall of the Institute, and that’s all thanks to the Minutemen – we solved the Commonwealth’s biggest mystery, fought the beast, and won. Since then, we have strived to be there for you at a minute’s notice and protect you from the things which ail you. But we’ve come to a point where there is a limited amount of help which we can give.

“Some of you will listen to this message and think only that you’re far enough from civilization to be safe from danger. That is not true. The further away you are from us and the city, the less we can help you. If you refuse our protection and ignore this message, I’m afraid you’re on your own, and our newest enemy – a man who calls himself ‘the Mechanist’ – is who you’ll answer to. In that case, I’m very sorry, because he attacks with no mercy and leaves no survivors.” She took a deep breath, and Curie heard it shake. “I know this because I have spent months trying to find him and put a stop to his cruelty, and because he attacked my own home and has killed more of my people than I can count. He is merciless, and he seems to have no agenda other than to wipe the Commonwealth of life.”

Amarli paused, and the silence was just long enough for everyone in the courtyard to process her words. She spoke with such charisma, and such undeniable persuasion, that it was impossible not to believe her. Curie admired her skill.

When she next spoke, her voice was hardened: “If you believe you’re safe from that, you’ve got another think coming. I’ll tell you what we know of this Mechanist: he commands an army of robots which are programmed to kill everything in their sight. Every robot we kill can be replaced by ten more. Every one of us that he kills cannot be replaced – ever. So, I’m sure you can understand the pure magnitude of the threat facing us. We know where he is, and we are putting together a plan to stop him, but there is no telling what he could do to retaliate. His aims are so unpredictable, in fact, that he could send out an army of millions tomorrow to kill every last one of us. In that case, the only places where you will be safe are the largest settlements where we have the most defense.” She paused again, bending over the table. “I’m sorry to say this, but if you are not in one of those settlements and the Mechanist chooses to wage a war on the Commonwealth, you will be facing almost certain death. We can’t be there to defend you, and you will be unable to defend yourself against these machines. They are more dangerous than you can imagine.”

She turned to the raven-haired woman – Celia – behind her as if for direction, and then flipped over the piece of paper to see the back. “The Minutemen have received word of six settlements which are too far away for us to manage; if you have recently refused protection or have decided to stay in your homes despite our numerous warnings, you know exactly who you are. And I’m going to give you one last warning: leave, now. We have sent Minutemen soldiers to help you get somewhere safe, and it would be unwise to refuse again. All we’re trying to do is protect you, just like we did our best to protect you from the Institute. We won then. And we can win now. All the Minutemen need is your simple cooperation.

“There’s no telling what our future holds, but the Minutemen will do our best to ensure that we have a future. We will find the Mechanist, and we will hold him guilty for all the damage he’s already inflicted. He will be punished as charged. If you’ve already lost family and friends to his machines, my heart is with you. Know that we will avenge them for you. I can’t make any promises, but you have my word that as long as I’m still alive, I will put all my effort into stopping him.”

She took in a deep breath, her shoulders rising, and then finished: “Your safety comes first, people of the Commonwealth. Keep your eyes out and your weapons handy. This is the General of the Minutemen speaking, and I hope that I will find myself speaking with you again, be it weeks or months from now. Out.”

Amarli stepped quickly up from the desk, almost as if the radio had burned her, and then glanced around the courtyard at all the Minutemen watching her. Curie herself felt awed; she had never heard such an intense silence in a crowd full of people. Not like this. She had never quite understood the true power of Amarli's presence and her words. Now she knew why the Minutemen respected her so much.

Amarli collected herself, straightening the lapels of her coat, and walked to stand before them, tall and commanding with her eyes leveled unwaveringly on their faces. “Protect the people at a minute’s notice!” she called.

Curie felt chills run through her as the entire crowd of Minutemen echoed her words back at her, shouting, roaring, raising their fists in the air. Even Wen repeated it under his breath and turned to smile down at her. The full power of the Minutemen was like a current of energy in the air, and Curie didn’t believe for one second that the Mechanist could truly wipe them out. There were too many of them, and they had too good a leader.

If Curie were the Mechanist, hiding away in his dark lair with all his robots and listening to this speech on the radio… she would be scared. She would be scared to face the wrath of the legendary General of the Minutemen. And that fear – that terror – which Amarli was capable of inflicting into the hearts of her enemies would be exactly what brought his life to an end. She was as mercilessly powerful as he was, except she was good. She was a hero, like the heroes in the comics and the movies. People loved the heroes, and the heroes always won. As Curie watched the Minutemen pumping their fists in the air and calling out for their General, she couldn’t help but shake her head grimly. Yes, the people loved their hero. And Amarli loved them in return. But she had never met them, and some of them would turn on her if they found out she had joined forces with a synth. So, what was the point? No facts or figures could ever help Curie understand why Amarli put herself through so much for these people. It seemed unnecessarily selfless and horribly illogical. Amarli had sold her soul and pledged her life to be a symbol of revolution and power, and Curie was worried that she didn’t know what it really meant.

Was it worth it being alone and unhappy for the rest of her life if it meant she could lead the Minutemen?

Curie was determined to find out.

Chapter Text

Amarli hadn’t smoked for a long time, but as Mason fixed her speech so it would replay for the entire day and she chatted with Preston about their future, she couldn’t help but light a cigarette and draw it to her lips, needing some way to calm her nerves. Smoking seemed to have lost its narcotic effect on her. She wasn’t sure if that was because Curie was always telling her it was bad for her, or if she simply didn’t need chemicals to make herself feel calm anymore. Now her desperation was back again. She was exhausted and upset, and it had taken so much effort not to let it show in front of all of her people.

Amarli had spent the entire night without sleep, simply wondering what to do about Curie. No matter how much she thought about her life before and how miserable it had been, and how scared she was to love someone only to have everything ripped away from her, all her thinking had finally boiled down to one fact: she simply couldn’t live without her. And it was obvious by now that just being Curie’s friend would never be enough. She needed more – she’d always needed more – and her body would continue to fight for it even if her mind refused. So yes, Curie was worth the possible risk. And if Amarli was going to make a huge sacrifice like Mama Murphy said, perhaps die fighting the Mechanist, she at least wanted to tell the full truth about herself for once in her life and be loved for it. She had never had someone so wonderful, so pure, so devoted in their love to her. She had taken advantage of the unconditional feelings Curie had for her, and her remorse was crippling. Now, she wanted nothing more than to find Curie and tell her the truth.

When she left the room in the morning to search for her, she couldn’t find Curie anywhere. She hadn’t returned to sleep, and she wasn’t out in the courtyard. When Amarli asked Preston if he’d seen her, he’d answered in the negative, though she’d had a feeling he was lying. She searched the top of the wall and all of the bastions. When she went to the clinic, she’d been turned away immediately by one of Curie’s injured friends insisting that there were people sleeping and she had no right to barge in and ask questions. Meekly, she’d turned away and went back to her room. She’d sat there in bed for hours, restless and hopeless, wondering what to do next. For a while she’d imagined that Curie had left the Castle already and was on her way back to Sanctuary Hills without her, or had gone on to Goodneighbor or Diamond City. She thought of never seeing Curie again and it hurt like a broken bone – more than any bone she had ever broken, and both her leg injuries combined – because she realized how much she missed her. She loved her. She loved her more than she had loved any woman, and all she wanted now was to tell her. But she couldn’t. Because it seemed Curie was already gone.

Amarli had no choice but to continue with her duty. After all, she had chosen to protect her job over Curie, so what could she do but go along with it? She dressed in her Minuteman General uniform, leaving the armour and her rifle behind, and left the room almost in a daze. She was about to give a speech to all of the Commonwealth without any sleep and with her nerves buzzing with worry and regret. 

The moment Amarli had strode into the courtyard and seen all the Minutemen assembled in straight lines, dressed in full uniform, she had felt the tension rise inside her. Whether she liked it or not, she had a job to do. She forced herself to keep it together. When she did the speech, she did it with all of the passion inside of her, hoping that Curie was listening, wherever she was, and that she was impressed regardless of how upset she was. She tried her best to channel the old lawyer inside of her and to do the Minutemen proud, too. When it was over and all of the Minutemen had been dismissed, she didn’t feel the sense of determination and relief she’d expected to feel. All she could think was the war had properly begun and she couldn’t find Curie. Would she ever find Curie? What if she was in danger, or she’d gone missing?

Amarli would have left straight after the speech to start looking for her again, but Preston and Ronnie had called her back to talk some more. The formalities frustrated her, but she stayed anyway. She’d had to watch Mason’s work while he set up her speech for repetition, and although she had itched to leave, she had not moved. Amarli did her duty, planted herself there next to the radio tower, went through the pretense of listening and looking and being the leader. No one could have known the chaos behind the confident smile on her face.

And so she smoked. She smoked the cigarette to her fingertips, breathing the smoke deep into her lungs, and watched all of the Minutemen filter out from the courtyard to return to their daily tasks. Most of them nodded at her respectfully; others averted their eyes as if they were too nervous to look at her. Even though she felt tired and worried, she was pleased they all seemed to think the speech had gone well. Hopefully, it would make those stubborn settlers think more seriously about their own safety. Maybe the Mechanist would have heard it, too, and realized the Minutemen were a force to be reckoned with. Amarli would love to have made him even a little bit scared.

I’m coming for you, she thought, staring up at the sky. And I’m going to make you regret the day you first set foot in the Commonwealth.

She dropped the cigarette butt on the cobbles beneath her feet and ground out the glow with the heel of her boot. Suddenly, the taste of ash in her mouth disgusted her; she pulled her lips down into a grimace and turned away from her conversation with Preston and Ronnie, regretting having embraced one of her old vices. She needed to brush her teeth and get the taste of it off her tongue, out of her throat. As she was about to walk away, however, she froze exactly where she was, staring with wide eyes at the petite woman who had approached her.

She was here. Oh, thank god – she was here. She hadn’t left.

Amarli’s eyes moved so rapidly over her face, taking in every little detail, that she grew dizzy. She could think of nothing but how relieved she was, how glad she was that Curie had not only stayed, but she had even come close enough to talk to her. Curie, this wonderful little woman who could never stay angry for long, who could not find it in her to hate, who forgave everything no matter how bad. 

Curie stood almost defensively, stopping a few feet away, arms wrapped around herself and her eyes looking anywhere but at Amarli’s face. She looked so uncomfortable and uncertain that Amarli just wanted to reach forward and pull her into her arms. But she couldn’t. Not after last night. Not after all this time playing with Curie’s feelings. But she wanted to show her relief somehow, or make Curie understand what had really happened last night.

“Curie,” she said, unable to keep the hope out of her voice. “You… came to listen to the speech?”

“Yes.” Curie rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, finally unfolding her arms and raising her eyes to Amarli’s face. Her expression still looked rigid, closed-off, and Amarli felt her chest ache as she realized she’d never seen the other woman look like that before. In that moment, she didn’t know Curie. She hardly recognized her. And it hurt all the more because she realized it was her own fault.

Amarli didn’t know what to say. She stood there, silent, just staring at Curie and taking her in, worried that she was about to hear her say goodbye. Worried this would be the last time she saw her for a long time – and then her heart would hurt from the distance between them. 

Unexpectedly, Curie said, “I am sorry, I said I would help with the writing of the speech.”

Amarli cleared her throat, rushing to reply: “That’s… that doesn’t matter. It seems it went fine.”

“It was very good. Very persuasive.” A smile rose to Curie’s face, but it faded almost immediately and she looked uncertain again. Her eyes, big and hazel-blue, met Amarli’s eyes for the first time. Amarli could read so many emotions in them – uncertainty, worry, frustration, sadness – but for the first time they didn’t extend to her face. Her face was still, her eyebrows set. The only sign that she was anything but nonchalant was the slight turning down of the corners of her lips. Curie glanced at the radio tower and the other commanders behind her, as if checking they were not listening. “Madame, we must speak with one another,” she said finally.

Amarli felt a jolt of fear. This was it. Curie would take her aside and tell her she was done with all of this – done with feeling tricked, with being put aside, with being looked down upon by her closest friend. She would say she was proud of being a synth, and she was going to find someone to love who was proud of it, too. And then she would walk away and Amarli would never see her again. The thought made her feel nauseous. Her weak leg would buckle and she would fall to her knees; a better position from which to grovel and beg Curie’s forgiveness.

“Yeah,” she said instead, her voice so quiet against the noises of the wind and voices in the courtyard. Curie nodded once, curtly, and then turned away and began walking towards the east wing of the Castle, back to their room. She was business-like all of a sudden, and Amarli was again struck by how little Curie was acting like herself. 

Amarli waited a couple minutes to say goodbye to Preston and Ronnie Shaw, and then followed Curie to the room. She stopped momentarily at the sink and used a spare toothbrush and toothpaste to brush her teeth, not wanting Curie to smell the cigarettes on her, not wanting to disappoint her even more than she already had. She’d cared little about what her close friends thought of her before she met Curie. Now, she cared too much.

When Amarli let herself into the bedroom, she saw that Curie was sitting on the end of the bed. She closed the doors quietly behind her and took off her coat, her hat, her gloves, her boots. She took as long as possible so she could delay the conversation which would ultimately end with breaking both of their hearts. Well… Curie’s heart was already broken. It was time for Amarli to get what she deserved in return.

Finally, she walked to stand before Curie. Her mouth opened and she meant to just say it – to spurt the truth out in one long stream with no space for Curie to interject. Instead, it was Curie who spoke first.

“I had not thought someone like you was capable of fear,” Curie said thoughtfully. “But I think… I think you are scared. Is this true?”

Amarli’s mouth hung open. Of all the things she had expected from this moment alone, she had not thought Curie would be understanding. 

“I...” Amarli sighed. “Yes, maybe.” Once the words were spoken, she felt a relief spread through her like warmth from a stimpack. She had never admitted to it so easily before, but she was on the edge of desperation now, and her confidence was bolstered. “I’m a coward – the worst kind – because I’ve never known how to stand up for myself. When I was a kid, I was insulted because of the colour of my skin. As a teenager, I was made lonely because I admitted to my sexuality. When I was an adult, I was refused a future if I didn’t marry a man. And now… there’s no one to hurt me anymore. But I’m still here, still scared, because I can remember so clearly what it’s like to lose everything because of the choices I make. I am scared, and it’s stupid, but that’s the truth.”

With a tutting sound, as if surprised she had been right, Curie looked down at her hands in her lap. Her face didn’t look so hardened anymore, but she didn’t look like she pitied Amarli, either. Curie mumbled, “You have not told me. All these times I have asked you why you must keep distance, and you have never answered me. Instead of telling me the truth, you prefer to lie.”

“Curie-”

“Lying is a form of deception. You have deceived me. Instead of telling me the truth, you told me instead it was because of what I am. That it was a fault of my own.”

Amarli bit her lip. “I did,” she whispered. “I was an idiot. And I’m so, so sorry, Curie. I said the first thing that came into my head. It was easier that way. But-but you know that wasn’t true, don’t you?”

Restless, Curie stood up from the bed and paced to the window. She glanced out once and then paced right back, wrapping her arms around herself again. She looked doubtful, thoughtful - not as hurt and broken as Amarli had expected her to be. Apparently, Curie would never cease to surprise her.

“Madame, I am worried about you.”

Amarli stared at her. “You’re what?”

“You care very much what the people of the Commonwealth think. You have led them to salvation, you gave them peace, but you still let them have power over you. Does it not matter what you want?” Curie had stopped pacing and was just staring at her now, her eyes firm. She took a careful step forward. With trepidation, she asked, “Please, Madame, be honest… do you want me?”

“Curie.” Amarli sighed again. “Of course I want you.”

Curie seemed almost astounded. She paused for a few seconds, as if she was taking that in, and then her eyebrows diverged in an expression of confusion. “Then why must you turn me away every time? Madame, forgive me, but that makes no logical sense.”

Amarli could have laughed. But she knew that this was her moment – this was the way she would make Curie understand. This was how she would tell the whole truth, finally, without holding back.

“I know what wanting something feels like,” Amarli said softly, passionately. “Ever since I left my vault, I wanted revenge. More than that, I wanted to find my son. And then there were days where I almost starved to death because I’d found no food, or I lay bleeding because I had no medicine, and I wanted only to survive. But all of that want, as powerful as it was, is absolutely nothing compared to the want I feel now… for you.” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “It’s been going on for god knows how long. Weeks – months, maybe. I want you so much that I can hardly bear thinking about it. When I look at you, all I want is to have you, but I’ve been telling myself that I can’t.”

Curie shook her head in frustration. “Why?”

Amarli opened her eyes again. “You said it yourself. Because I’m scared,” she said quietly. “I’d say my fear is founded from something real, something that closed me off, even if that’s a terrible excuse. I’ve been made to care about what people think, and to live my life according to them. Facing my fear was never an option because I thought I would lose everything. But, because I didn’t face it then, it became my limit now.” More gravely, she added, “You seem to think I’m very brave, Curie. But that’s not true at all. If I was brave, I would’ve found a way through this a long time ago.”

Curie’s face had changed completely while she spoke into one of sympathy. Her own heart beat quickly with the relief of it all, of having been able to be honest and not ruin things even more. If only she’d done this a long time ago, she wouldn’t have had to see Curie get so upset first. Curie's eyes, beautiful and round, looked up at Amarli with an incredible softness. “But you can face it now,” she implored.

“Maybe.” Amarli met her eyes. “I’m not scared of what you are, Curie. Using that as an excuse was a terrible thing, and I’m sorry. What you are is something to be celebrated. I helped you become this way, and I would never regret it – not in a million years. You’re… perfect.”

There was so much more she could say, that she wanted to say, but Curie simply shook her head to stop her. She stepped forward again so she was close enough for Amarli to reach out and touch her if she wanted. “I am happy, at least, that you have told me the truth.” She smiled kindly.

“You’ve been so understanding. I’d thought you were going to tell me you were about to leave, or that you were completely done with me.” With a slight smile, she admitted, “It would have killed me.”

Curie considered her for a long while, peering up through her long eyelashes. She looked forgiving. It didn’t seem she cared anymore about what had happened last night, or before then. She looked free, the same way Amarli felt now she’d admitted properly to her feelings and the reasons she hadn’t followed them. They were liberated, but... what next? Did this mean everything was okay between them? Were they friends? Or had it been mutely decided that it was worth being more than friends? She felt a stirring in her chest as she glanced at Curie’s lips, remembering kissing them, remembering the feel of those delicate hands on her body. She had desired Curie for so long that it seemed almost impossible to completely have her. She knew she would be gentle with her; she would take her time to make her feel good. She’d dreamed about it, yet she knew it would be much better than her fantasies. Never before had she really tried so hard to hold herself back from sleeping with a woman. Perhaps it would make the experience so much better. She ached for it. Needed it.

Curie walked past her so suddenly that it make her flinch a little in surprise, unsure of where she could possibly be going. She spun to watch as Curie reached the doors and then, with a surprising dexterity, pulled the latch across. Amarli’s mind slowly caught up, and her body heated in response as she realized what this meant.

“I do not know ‘wanting’ the way you do,” Curie said bashfully, turning to face her. “But I think… I think it must be the same. I have already said I love you, but I do not believe those words do my feelings justice.” Amarli looked at her and saw an incredible tenderness in her eyes, and she could scarcely believe it. She watched in awe as the other woman stepped forwards and took her hands, pulling her closer with a startling self-assurance. “As you know, I have read many romance novels. They use big declarations of love, and I... would like to try my own."

Amarli grinned, tilting her head with interest. "Go ahead."

"You have made the Commonwealth my home,” Curie said shyly. She paused, as if getting her words in order. “But, in truth, you make me feel more at home than any house. Or city. Or country.” She let out a sigh of resignation and smiled. “Madame - Amarli, I love you deeply. With all of my heart.”

That hit Amarli so hard that for a moment she could hardly breathe. She had known it, but it was something else entirely to hear Curie actually say it. For her to say it and not show a hint of uncertainty. Curie was confident about some things, but she had never looked so sure about her emotions before. Amarli’s lack of breath lead to a lack of thought, and for what seemed like too long, she could do nothing but stand and stare at her. There was an incredible swelling in her chest, and she didn’t know if it was happiness, or love, or both of them combined.

Curie peered up at her, losing some of her poise. “Have I… said it wrong?”

Amarli suddenly surged forward, pushing her back against the wall with a swiftness that surprised both of them. And then Amarli was pressing herself against Curie and kissing her deeply, exactly like she’d so desperately wanted to. Unlike the first time, there wasn’t a single part of her that was hesitating. There was nothing in her screaming for her to stop. When Curie’s arms wrapped around her neck so she could pull herself up and closer to her, Amarli’s own hands snaked tightly around her waist. She pulled Curie’s body flush up against hers and then tightened her arms even more because she loved the curve of Curie’s breasts against her ribs. She loved the pressure of Curie’s hips against her own. And she especially loved that Curie wasn’t so awkward or clumsy anymore. She really did learn fast – even when her tongue slid past Amarli’s lips, it was no reason for pause. It was incentive. Amarli enjoyed the taste of her, and she wanted to taste the rest of her. She was willing to take this slow for the other woman’s sake, but it would be hard not to let her passion take control.

The feel of Curie’s tongue made her reach for the lapels of her coat, hurriedly unbuttoning it so she could slip it from her slender shoulders. While her fingers worked the buttons, her mouth lowered to the soft, warm flesh below the other woman’s jaw. Her lips pressed to the side of her neck and she was so overcome with raw desire that she had no capacity to be tame. She sucked, hard, and Curie’s hands shot to her hair, wrapping tightly in her curls to pull her closer. The abrupt intensity of it seemed to stun her, but in a good way, so Amarli didn’t stop. The stinging suction drew a sharp hum from Curie’s lips and she urgently ground her hips forward. Although this reaction excited her, Amarli realized she was no longer able to reach her neck quite as well. Firmly, she guided Curie’s body back against the wall so she could nurse the forming bruise with her tongue. There was a soft whimper at that, and Curie’s fingers tightened in her hair.

“Okay?” Amarli asked breathlessly against her skin, remembering that she was supposed to be gentle.

Curie nodded so vigorously that it made Amarli nod too, and she chuckled her amusement. Finally, she managed to slide the coat from Curie’s shoulders and started with her shirt. As she worked her way up, she felt the push of Curie’s ribs against her hands. Her breathing was so fast and hard that her chest strained against the material; Amarli desperately wanted to free her from it. Her mouth moved from Curie’s neck to her collarbone, and then her shoulder, kissing her with less force but still wanting very much to taste every inch of her. She would have just torn the shirt apart if she could, but she didn’t want to have to repair it after, and she knew it was one of Curie’s favourites. But god this was this taking much longer than it should.

After a few more seconds of trying to unbutton her shirt and kiss her and keep her pressed against the wall, Amarli realized their height difference was too large for her to continue with ease. She turned Curie and backed her up until she reached the desk. The moment her thighs hit it, Amarli lifted her by the waist and sat her at the edge while she tucked her body between her legs. Curie immediately searched for her mouth and drew her back in for a kiss, and – yes, it was much better now, because Amarli didn’t have to lean in so far. She pulled back just enough that she could look down and focus on the last few buttons. Curie seemed to take the opportunity to do some exploring of her own. With a little hum of satisfaction, she leaned to kiss Amarli’s neck, her lips gentle. Then she seemed to lose control; they quickly became open-mouthed kisses, warm and wet, and Amarli’s head spun just at the feel of it. Curie kissed up under her jaw and sucked lightly at the skin, and when Amarli moved as if to pull away, Curie cupped her face to hold her still so she could do it more firmly. Amarli jumped a little at the sensation, and also at the tightness of the other woman’s hold. The speed at which Curie learned what she liked was stunning; she wondered how quickly she’d catch on with everything else.

“This is good, yes?” Curie asked – there was a note of speculation in her voice.

“Oh, yes.” Amarli’s fingers had begun tugging lazily at her shirt again, but she was too distracted by Curie’s mouth to do anything else. One of her hands squeezed Curie’s hip and tugged her a little closer to the edge of the dresser. She fitted herself between Curie’s legs so she could press her hips closer, almost grinding herself on her. With an increased eagerness, Curie skimmed her tongue alone Amarli’s jawline, using a delicate hand to pull her face closer. Amarli sighed at the feeling. She suddenly remembered, in her distraction, what she hadn’t even done yet.

“I love you, too, by the way.” It sounded casual, but her voice broke when she said it, betraying exactly how much love she felt. She knew that Curie had heard it.

She felt the curve of Curie’s eager smile against her neck, and then a warm kiss pressed to it. “Will you… say it once more?” Curie turned her head, panting a little, her breath hot against Amarli’s cheek, and Amarli felt herself shudder. This was so much more than she’d anticipated. Even her dreams had done none of it any justice. Her hand jerked up from Curie’s hip to tightly grip her back. After a few moments, she managed to steel herself. “I love you, Curie,” she murmured, forcing every ounce of her desire and love into those four words.

Curie tilted her face sideways, her fingers moving from Amarli’s hair to her neck, and there was a short pause of stillness during which she seemed to take it in. The tension between them was multiplying by the second, but Amarli waited with as much patience as she could, not touching her, just waiting for her to respond. And then her shoulders shook with laughter, and Amarli drew away slightly to peer at her face. She quirked up a corner of her mouth. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh. Nothing.” Curie’s eyes sparkled, and she grabbed Amarli’s face with both hands to bring her back in so their foreheads touched. “I am… so very happy.”

Amarli had almost forgotten that this was new to her – and yet she had almost been fooled by the way Curie had been responding to her. She was mimicking, Amarli knew, but she still learned so fast it was stunning. Curie may still be a little clumsy, but she was quickly beginning to understand exactly what Amarli liked.

In a split second, Amarli had caught her lips again. Each kiss was open, deep, so long that they were both panting for air when they pulled apart, and Amarli’s fingers began to finish unbuttoning the rest of her shirt with trembling anticipation. The last button got stuck on a string; she groaned her frustration into Curie’s mouth. After a little giggle, it was Curie who finally lifted her hands from her shoulders and ripped the button herself, pulling the shirt off frantically. Her whole torso was now exposed except for her breasts, and Amarli felt herself fall into a familiar rhythm. Becoming gentler, she kissed the length of Curie’s neck and collarbone, feeling her squirm, and then retreated down to her chest. As her hands came up and palmed the shape of Curie’s breasts through her bra, the woman drew in a sharp breath. Another squeeze, and Curie’s legs came inelegantly around her hips, wrapping tightly, pulling her so close that she felt winded. Curie clung on, breathing erratically as Amarli kissed between her breasts and finally slid one hand beneath her bra. There was a faint hum; with slight curiosity, Amarli lifted her head to watch Curie’s face as she brushed her fingers experimentally, intrigued to see her eyebrows crease and a look akin to agony appear on her face. She was painfully aroused, it seemed, and Amarli could almost imagine the ache between her legs. With her thumb, she flicked again, and squeezed her breast at the same time, and Curie let out a shuddering breath, her eyelids flickering. How odd it must be to feel all these things for the first time – Amarli could hardly remember it herself.

“That feels…” Curie trembled again. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes shone with an intensity Amarli had never seen before. She smiled so wide that it dimpled her cheeks. “I did not realize it would feel that way. It is… curious.”

“Sensitive, huh?” Feeling as if she needed more – much more – Amarli reached her hands around Curie’s back, feeling for the hooks of her bra. When Curie’s legs reflexively tightened around her hips, she took that as enough of an incentive to continue. One-handed, she unclasped it and gently pulled it from Curie’s shoulders. Almost at once, she bent to kiss between her breasts again, but this time she let her mouth move towards unchartered territory, sucking lightly as she felt Curie’s breathing get heavier. When she used her tongue, Curie arched towards her, halted only by the pressure of Amarli’s hands against her belly that pressed her back. Without pausing a beat, Amarli moved to her other breast and did the same thing, and was pleased with the broken whimper she received. Oh, she was going to have so much fun with this. She was going to show Curie just how sensitive she really was.

Eagerly, Amarli reached to trail her fingers over her exposed tummy, noticing how she seemed to become more roused the closer she got to the waistband of her jeans. Amarli could already feel a powerful warmth between her own thighs, and being pressed up against Curie with those slender legs wrapped around her hips wasn’t helping. She certainly wasn’t going to be able to do much on top of this desk.

Amarli craned her neck up to kiss Curie’s mouth again, at the same time reaching back to find her calves, starting there and stroking her fingers up her legs until she reached the tops of her thighs. The material of her jeans prevented Amarli from feeling the warmth of her skin; rather decisively, she unbuttoned them. Curie squirmed beneath her, and again her hips bucked slightly – Amarli knew in a moment how much Curie wanted her. "To the bed," she managed to say, letting urgency slide into her voice. The other woman nodded.

Amarli wound her arms around Curie’s hips and she clung tighter with her legs so she was lifted easily from the top of the dresser. Amarli carried the soft, nimble weight of her over to the bed and set her down gently on the edge of the mattress. She used her fingers to brush dark locks of hair out of Curie’s face and then smiled, her eyes heated as she glanced down at her bare chest. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered. She leaned back and traced her index finger from between her breasts down the faint line of muscle to her bellybutton, smiling wider when she saw how Curie shivered at her touch.

“And you.” Curie blushed, and her fingers curled around the hem of Amarli’s t-shirt. “I would like to see you.”

Amarli paused, straining against her own desire, wanting to make sure that she was doing the right thing. “Are you sure about this? You really want this?”

Curie looked at her with a confused frown. “I have been kissing you, and I have let you touch me. Does this not imply that I want you? Have I missed some important communication?”

Amarli smirked and pressed her lips briefly and affectionately to Curie’s mouth. “Okay, okay…” Swiftly, she unbuttoned her collared shirt and yanked it over her head before unclasping her own bra, sighing at the release. Curie stared up at her, her cheeks pink. Amarli knew exactly what she wanted. Still smirking, she climbed on top of her so she was straddling her hips. “Here,” she said, in as seductive a voice as she could muster. “Just touch me.” She took Curie’s trembling hands in her own and brought them to her chest so the palms were open, free to explore. There was a slight squeeze, and Amarli closed her eyes with a smile as she felt Curie’s fingers part and stroke her with the most delicate touch. It became firmer, more deliberate, and Amarli let out the breath she’d been holding in a delighted sigh. Those delicate fingers, that deliciously soft skin, the way Curie blushed, the way her mouth tasted… suddenly, it was all too much. If Amarli didn’t have her now, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. There was a throbbing heat between her legs, but what she wanted more than her own release was to make Curie feel good. 

Amarli clambered off the bed and gestured for Curie to raise her hips. She did as she was told, and Amarli grabbed the waistband of her jeans and began to quickly pull them down, revealing the ivory-pale skin of her thighs. As soon as she’d yanked them from her ankles, Curie shuffled backwards on the bed to make more room, her legs parted slightly. The look on her face was priceless – a mixture of helplessness and agonizing excitement. She wet her lips with her tongue, looking at Amarli eagerly.

Before climbing back onto the bed with her, Amarli took off her own trousers and stood back to gaze appreciatively at the image of Curie mostly naked in her bed. She’d never thought she’d get this far, and it made her heart leap with joy in her chest. Her eyes lazily drifted from Curie’s face, to her chest, to the dampness she could see at the apex of her thighs, her underwear darkened with it. The throbbing intensified between her own legs, and she licked her lips. When Curie noticed where she was looking, her face flared with a blush even worse than before and she made to close her legs. Amarli was there in an instant, her hands parting Curie’s thighs so she could settle between them, smirking again. “Are you embarrassed, little Curie?”

Curie was breathing rapidly again, her eyes darting over Amarli’s face and then down to her half-naked form. Hoping to relax her, Amarli delicately stroked the backs of her hands from the tops of Curie’s knees to her inner thighs, pausing just as she felt the heat from her centre. It was a deep warmth that emanated outwards and made Amarli tingle yet again with arousal, wanting to taste and touch. She let her eyes drop to Curie’s damp underwear again, impressed by the woman’s full and overflowing response to her. “Don’t be embarrassed,” she said softly. And then, with a slight laugh, she added, “You have no idea how much this turns me on.”

With round eyes, Curie finally relaxed her legs, letting Amarli properly settle between them. She had registered Amarli’s words immediately, and Amarli could literally see that logical head of hers filing it away for later perusal. Gently, Amarli gripped her fingers around Curie’s thighs, feeling the muscles clench. “I’d never hurt you – you know that, right? I just want to make you feel good.”

Curie’s gaze softened. “Of course.”

Amarli bent her head, still maintaining eye contact, and softly kissed Curie’s belly. She dragged her lips upwards, settling her hands on either side of Curie’s body, and kissed her chest and neck again, this time taking her time to taste and feel her properly. When she reached Curie’s lips, she was caught in a forceful kiss as hands grabbed her face and pulled her down. She was surprised enough that she fell into Curie’s body and, as a result, one of her knees pressed up against the dampness between Curie’s thighs. There was a hot gasp against her mouth, and Amarli liked the way it sounded – so she did it again. She pressed firmly up against Curie and this time heard her whimper. But then, even that wasn’t enough. Amarli wanted to touch and taste more of her; she didn’t want Curie finishing like this. She hadn’t done enough exploring yet.

So Amarli left her lips again and began to kiss her neck, her chest, her belly, every exposed part of her. And she savoured the taste of her, and the scent of her, and how soft and smooth her skin was. Curie had always been neat and rather obsessed with cleanliness; her body was still just as well-maintained as it had been when it wasn’t hers at all. But Amarli was glad the body was Curie’s because, without that brain, she would not have fallen in love with it. And, even more, it allowed her to be doing this, kissing her, stroking her, making her squirm and gasp. Months ago, she would not have been able to guess that she would end up here.

Amarli slipped Curie’s underwear from her hips, too, and tossed them aside, pausing only to gauge the look on her face. The other woman stared down at her in alarm, as if only just realizing what she was about to do and finding herself unable to believe it. But Amarli could also see how desperate she was for blissful release, and how incapable she was therefore of stopping her. So, without wasting anymore time teasing her, Amarli wrapped her arms around her legs and lowered her mouth straight between them.

“Oh!” Curie sounded so shocked and aroused that it made Amarli even more eager, pressing herself closer. She kept the movement of her tongue and lips slow at first, noticing how sensitive she was, and then – when Curie moved her hips as if to encourage her – Amarli lost all restraint. But soon enough it was clear that she hardly needed to move her mouth at all. After only a few seconds, Curie’s hips began moving impulsively, a hand burying itself in Amarli’s hair. Her gasping became hums and moans of pleasure; she approached the edge faster than any woman Amarli had ever been with. But as Amarli saw the muscles in her stomach tensing and saw her squeeze her eyes shut as if in preparation, she pulled back so hard and fast that she felt instantly cold. She wiped her mouth and settled on her elbows, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart and the twinge of frustration between her own legs.

Curie let out a whimper of pained disappointment. Amarli almost felt sorry for her. When she had collected herself, she glanced down at Amarli with wide eyes. Her chest was rising and falling with heavy breaths and her cheeks were bright pink. “But… but why did you stop?”

“Not yet,” Amarli said breathlessly, unable to keep herself from smiling smugly. To subdue her, she ran her fingers over her belly, but she only seemed to make it worse – Curie shifted towards her as if she couldn’t help herself, and then slumped against the bed in frustration.

“Please,” she said weakly. She opened one eye. “I do not think I have yet experienced this level of unfulfillment.” Her eyebrows lowered slightly, and she looked worried. “Please, I think I need you to… to let me. I need it very much. Please.”

Amarli gazed at her, seeing the lust on her face, and reached to gently touch her inner thighs again – immediately, the muscles jumped beneath her hands and Curie surged towards her. Firmly, smiling again, Amarli pressed her back against the bed. The way Curie was reacting to her almost seemed exaggerated, but she knew it wasn’t. How could she blame her? It was rather stimulating to imagine how sensitive she must be, and how new the pleasure must feel. If Amarli were in the same position, she’d be out of her mind, too. Besides… she’d spent much too long torturing Curie to keep this from her.

“Okay,” she said simply.

And then she grabbed Curie much more tightly and lowered herself once more. As she began to continue, this time with every intention to send her over the edge, she had a split-second idea. Very carefully, she put her hand beneath her chin and pushed one finger gently into the warmth of her – she doubted at first that Curie could feel it, and prepared to push deeper, but apparently it had been just enough. The combination made Curie cry out and clutch the sheets with both hands. Her whole body stiffened. She seemed caught suddenly between the decision to push closer to Amarli or to pull herself away. In the end, it didn’t matter; Amarli grabbed ahold of her and kept her close, refusing to stop even as Curie shuddered. She continued until she was certain that the glorious orgasm was over, and then had to force back her urge to try for another one. Reluctantly, Amarli pulled away. She chanced a glance up at Curie’s face and couldn’t keep herself from chuckling her amusement.

Curie looked to be a mixture of exhausted and content – just like everything else, the emotions showed on her face as plain as day. She also looked very surprised.

Amarli lifted herself to settle across Curie’s stomach with her elbows on either side of her hips. Smugly, she splayed her fingers and said, “So, how was it?”

It was so casual that Curie seemed to have emotional whiplash. She blinked at her, seeming winded. “I… I…”

“It’s okay,” she joked. “You don’t have to admit that I just rocked your world.”

Curie stared at her again, this time for so long that Amarli began to wonder if there was truly something wrong. And then there was the barest smile stretching her lips, and her cheeks went pink all over again. “I did not expect you to…” She glanced at Amarli’s mouth and seemed too embarrassed to say anything else.

Amarli was overcome with how adorable she was. She laughed and kissed her stomach and her chest, crawling up her body until she could lay beside her, taking her hand and pressing it to her lips. Softly, she said, “There are a lot of unexpected things I’d like to do to you.”

Curie smiled wider, though there was still some trepidation in her expression. “Really?”

“Only if you’re comfortable. But I have a feeling you would be.”

Curie’s hands immediately came around her waist, hugging her closer, and Amarli settled comfortably against her body. Her heart was still beating erratically, but the excitement was slowly beginning to fade into satisfaction. She didn’t expect Curie to reciprocate – not for a while – and she was perfectly okay with it. Just making Curie feel that good was exhilarating.

“Did it really feel all right?” she asked tentatively.

Curie nodded emphatically. “I have, of course, explored myself before. But it has never been quite as overwhelming.”

All of a sudden, Amarli was torturously aroused again, thinking of Curie touching herself. Since when had she been doing it? Had it been while they were sharing the same bed? Had Curie always been thinking of her? Firmly, she forced all of the questions down and tried to calm herself.

“I still feel it,” Curie hummed quietly. “Similar to a sensation from a stimpack. A… warmth traveling through my whole body.” She turned her face and smiled. “It was magnifique.”

“I’d make you feel like that all the time if I could.”

Curie tilted her head so she could look up into Amarli’s eyes. “Does this mean you have not grown tired of me?”

“What?” Amarli stared at her.

The other woman blushed again. There was concern etched on her face that was impossible for her to hide. “You are a very skilled lover. I had thought that… that if this happened, it might all be over.”

“No,” Amarli said forcefully. “Curie, I would never have slept with you if it would only be the one time.”

Curie still looked doubtful. With a sigh, Amarli lifted herself up on one elbow and cradled Curie’s face in one hand. “I love you,” she said seriously. “I love you, and I promise I’ll never hurt you again if I can help it.”

“So…” Curie thought for a moment. “I am yours, yes? And you are mine?”

“Yes.” Amarli smiled and bent to kiss her face, once, twice, three times. And then she kissed her lips, feeling her heart skip a beat just at the feel of them. This beautiful creature which had changed everything, which she loved deeply and without care for the consequences, was all hers. And would be forever, if she could help it. “I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to accept it,” she said, pulling away. “But I’ve wanted you for a long time.”

Curie smiled a little self-consciously and then kissed her again, not seeming to care whether she could taste herself on Amarli’s lips. “I am very happy,” she whispered. "I cannot believe it."

“You'd better believe it.” Amarli settled beside her again, pulling Curie so her head rested against her chest. “I'm happy too. And, you know, we’ll only get happier.”

“Is this so?”

“Of course.” Amarli huffed with laughter. “This is only the first time I’ve gotten you off.” She arched an eyebrow suggestively. “Maybe after a hundred more times you can tell me how happy you feel.”

Curie shuddered a little at that, but she was beaming. “I would like that very much.”

“You can think of it like you’re conducting experiments,” Amarli mused.

Curie didn’t say anything in reply, but from the way she snuggled in even further, Amarli knew how content she must be. And it made her chest swell with elation, because happy Curie was the Curie she loved. The one she’d give her life for. All at once, Amarli realized that she wasn’t nervous about the future; she had made love with Curie without thinking once about what people might think if they found out. She’d spent so much time fretting over her past life, and now she was here, she realized it was all for nothing. Curie loved her, and she loved Curie – it was as simple as that. Nothing that happened now could change it.

“Are you sleeping?” Amarli asked, when she noticed Curie had been silent for a while.

There was an indiscernible murmur.

Amarli sighed, wrapping both arms around her and burying her face in her hair. Both of them were long due a good night's rest. “Goodnight, Curie.”

Chapter Text

3 DAYS LATER…

Curie knew the human body was capable of sex long before the mind was mature enough to handle the emotions that go with it. As a species, humans were happiest with life-long mates. That was why older adults often cautioned young people not to run in too fast, to take time and be sure. But Curie did not want to take her time. She had never wanted anything more than she wanted Amarli, and she didn’t care if it was going to ruin her, or if the world was going to end, or if her love was only going to cause trouble. Every one of the past days had been filled with bliss. Curie had been drunk off the need for Amarli, for her fingers or her mouth, for her warm kisses. They had hardly left the room, keeping the doors locked so the outside world couldn’t bother them. Nothing mattered to Curie other than the ability to convey through touch exactly how she felt for her General. Her best friend. Her partner. And Amarli touched her even more, much more, so much that Curie woke up and went to sleep thinking about nothing else.

Even now, Amarli stroked her reverently, mouth tracing her shoulder blades, fingers wrapped around her waist from behind. Curie woke as if from a dream, only to find herself in another, and hummed her happiness. She tried to turn over, but Amarli kept her locked there, arms tightening around her.

“Good morning,” she murmured, breath warm against Curie’s shoulder.

Curie shivered a little. And then she felt the hand leave her waist and touch her thigh, already sliding beneath it, and she gasped her surprise and pleasure at the suddenness of the contact. Amarli never seemed to want to stop touching her. And Curie didn’t want her to stop, either. She thought she might be hooked to the feel of orgasms, especially when it was Amarli who was giving them to her. Automatically, she parted her legs to give Amarli more room, and then angled her hips towards her hand. Those long, slender fingers quickly sought out a rhythm, well-practiced, and Curie almost immediately found herself approaching the edge. There was nothing more overwhelming than having Amarli wrapped around her, trying to tease her, and she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t yet lasted longer than ten minutes.

After a very short time, Curie shut her eyes tightly, recognizing the pure ecstasy, and relaxed into the explosion of sensation. Very distantly, she heard her own sounds of bliss and could hear Amarli’s heavy breathing against her back, but she could hardly focus on anything besides the pleasure. When it was finally over, and she felt exhausted from it, Amarli released her and allowed her to roll over.

She was grinning, her green eyes bright. “How many is that now?” she asked teasingly.

“Fifteen,” Curie said routinely. Fifteen times in three days. It didn’t seem like much, but considering Amarli had needed to leave the room to carry out her duties for several hours each day, it was an impressive feat. Curie hadn’t felt so fulfilled ever. She wondered how Amarli always seemed to have the energy for it. With a slight pang of guilt, she realized she had yet to touch Amarli in the same way and reciprocate. But it was daunting. She didn’t want to be bad at it. She didn’t know how.

Amarli chuckled and bent forward to kiss her face. Snuggling up to her, Curie relished in the feel of their naked bodies pressed together, trying to imagine that there was nothing else in the world but them. She would like to be in a room on an island with no civilization around. And then she and Amarli could do as they pleased for however long as they wanted.

There was a hard knock on the door.

Both of them jumped in shock. Curie’s blissful post-orgasmic reverie was interrupted by the unexpectedness of a person being just on the other side of those doors, hardly fifteen feet from them. She panicked for a second, unsure what to do, but Amarli simply kissed her forehead and rolled out of bed.

Curie had expected her to hurry to get dressed and make it seem as if they had been doing nothing all morning – instead, she calmly pulled on her Minuteman coat and wrapped it around her naked body in a way that did little to hide the fact she wore nothing beneath. She walked leisurely towards the door, yawning, and Curie pulled the sheets up to her chest, wondering if she should pretend to be sleeping. Then she recalled she was terrible at lying. Whoever it was would catch her out straight away. Stricken, she simply sat there and looked guilty and concerned, hoping that their visitor wouldn’t see her.

When Amarli opened the door, she carelessly opened it wide enough for whoever was on the other side to see into the room. Nervously, Curie pulled the sheets even further up to her chin, worried about what they would think.

It was Ronnie Shaw. An expression of thinly-veiled surprise appeared on her face when she saw Curie hiding in bed, and then she smirked. “Having a nice morning, are we?” she teased Amarli.

Amarli shrugged nonchalantly. “Am I needed for something?”

“There’s a meeting in the command room.” She glanced at Curie again, lips curling at the corners, and then she gave a slight shake of her head, as if she was amused. “… Take your time.”

When Amarli closed the door, she turned to Curie and looked as if she were trying not to laugh. She took off the coat and returned immediately to bed, wrapping her arms around Curie again. Warm and soft, she pressed her face into her hair, and Curie closed her eyes at the feel of it. She was still surprised to have Amarli so attached to her, the way she herself had been attached. But Amarli loved her. This would be their life from now on, and the realization filled Curie with glee.

“You are not worried anymore?” Curie asked interestedly, thinking about the casual way in which the other woman had opened the door.

“No.” Amarli pulled back to look at her. “I said I’d face my fear, didn’t I?” Her mouth curled at the corners, her smile faintly rising as if she were proud of herself. “Also, there’s no way Ronnie Shaw would even think of spreading rumors about me.”

Curie thought for a moment. “If they ever know I am a synth…?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Amarli said firmly, kissing her hair. “The whole world can know it now.”

Beaming, Curie stroked her face. She felt they truly understood each other completely for the first time. It was real. Curie wasn’t sure she could fathom what Shaun’s reaction would be when they returned home – would he be pleased?

“Madame Shaw has said you have a meeting,” Curie pointed out.

Amarli sighed deeply. “Yeah, but I’m always late. They’re used to it.”

“But they will know it is my fault.”

She grinned. “Now you’re the scared one, huh?”

Curie, sobered by her own nervousness, looked away. “I have been thinking.”

“Oh no.” Amarli sighed dramatically.

“I did not think so much about it before, about how the Commonwealth is conditioned to hate synths. It is good for you to overcome your fear, but if anyone did find out about me, I would not want to make you choose between your role as General and… me.” She shook her head quickly, turning to look at the other woman with worry. “No, I could never do that. This is very important to you, yes?”

“You’re very important to me.” Amarli looked at her seriously. “And if that ever did happen, we would get through it. I’m pretty sure there’s plenty of Minutemen who would be on my side and think I set a good example of non-discrimination. I wouldn’t give up on anything without a fight.”

“Will you ever retire?” Curie asked quietly, curling back into her.

Amarli was silent for a long while, long enough that Curie realized she had struck a nerve. They had never really discussed this; the issue of Curie being immortal and Amarli being mortal. While Amarli aged and became an old woman, Curie would be young and fresh-faced forever. It was unfathomable. But, at the same time, inevitable.

“I suppose,” Amarli said finally. “Once I’m unable to carry out my duties.”

Curie regretted having brought it up – Amarli’s voice sounded sad now. She didn’t want her to be sad. “I am sorry,” she mumbled, wishing there was some way to repair the raw silence between them. She twisted her fingers in Amarli’s hair, examining the softness and the deep brown colour.

“Oh, come on.” Amarli kissed her, lips soft against the side of her face. “I’m not sorry. Not like my own mortality is a shock to me. I was born knowing I would die someday.”

“But I do not want you to die someday,” Curie said morosely. She sat up, looking down at Amarli, wanting her to understand. “I will never allow it.”

Amarli smiled up at her. “Unless you’re magical, I don’t think it’s possible for you to control how my body expires. Even with that crazy smart head of yours… you can’t cheat death.”

With a humph of disagreement, Curie replied, “We will see.”

Amarli laughed, tugging at her arm to pull her down onto the bed again. “Let’s not think about all this dark stuff. I’m a young woman of twenty-seven and I won’t be getting old anytime soon.”

Curie decided not to mention the Mechanist and how he could change things. The more she thought about him, the more scared she was that Amarli would get hurt or die. It was true – none of this bore thinking about.

Curie rested her head against Amarli’s chest, closing her eyes as she tried to pick out the low, thrumming sound of her heartbeat. The miracle of life. The miracle of her somehow having been brought into this world so that Curie could love her in this way. If Amarli hadn’t been exploring all those months ago, if she hadn’t stumbled across the vault, if she hadn’t chosen to save little Austin Engill’s life, this current moment would not exist. If Amarli had made any other choices over the course of time, Curie would still be locked in that jail of hers. Perhaps forever. Stuck in the darkness several miles below ground, tortured by the deaths of her scientific peers and knowing that the cure she had spent two hundred years making had amounted to nothing. It was a terribly grave thought, but Curie knew she had plenty of reason to be thankful. That hadn’t happened. Instead, she was lucky enough to have met Amarli Lorenzen, the Commonwealth’s charming, gracious, gifted hero, who had a knack for being there at the right time. Always.

If Curie had any evidence in her scientific records that proved the existence of fate, she would even believe that she and Amarli’s lives had been intertwined from the very beginning, and all of this had been meant to happen. This seemed like something Mama Murphy would have said.

Amarli sighed after a few minutes, sounding tired. “Guess I should go to that meeting,” she said.

“Yes,” Curie replied immediately. “You must give a good impression to your peers.”

Amarli raised her eyebrows, looking amused. “They’ve already got an impression of me, Curie. I’ve been working with the Minutemen for almost a year now.”

Realizing there was no point in answering, Curie simply raised one shoulder in a shrug and smiled at her. Amarli stared for a long second, eyebrows still raised as her gaze travelled over Curie’s face. She looked as if she’d seen something which fascinated her. Her expression softened then, and she began smiling too.

“Is there something wrong?” Curie asked.

“No.” With a gentle hand, Amarli cupped her cheek and pulled her closer so their noses touched. “I just like staring at you, I guess. And I like having you in my bed. And I definitely like it when you smile.”

“And you, you are not so bad yourself.” Curie paused, then giggled. “See? I made a joke.”

Amarli’s smiled blossomed into a grin and she shook her head as if she couldn’t quite believe it. When she leaned in to kiss her, Curie felt the vibrations of her laughter, hardly repressed. Then she pulled back and said, “You’re ridiculous. But the best kind of ridiculous.”

“You are the best,” Curie replied brightly.

With a mock smugness, she agreed, “Yeah, yeah, I’m the best.”

Curie let the silence return, and then lifted herself up on one elbow once more. Shyly, she said, “My mind keeps replaying the words you have said to me over and over. It is maddening.”

“Which words?”

They hadn’t been said, not really since that first time spent in this bed. Curie wasn’t beginning to doubt them, but she did feel uncertain about what she was supposed to do about them now. Rather awkwardly, she said, “Well… that you love me. It is such a relief to know exactly where we stand. Which is a very good place.”  

“Agreed.”

“With the danger approaching, I cannot help but wonder if it all will change. Do you think you will still love me?”

“All I know is I want to be with you,” Amarli said simply, but Curie noted that this wasn’t exactly an answer to her question. She stroked her fingers through Curie’s hair. “When this is all over – if this ever over – maybe I can take you out to dinner. See a movie. Or whatever people do these days. A real date.”

Curie felt immediately flustered. “I may be getting this out of order. But, I love you. And I would like this very, very much.”

“Good.” Amarli reached up to kiss her once more and then slid out of bed, padding over to collect her clothes. Watching her naked body from the bed, Curie found herself smiling, unable to tear her eyes away. Amarli wasn’t particularly slender like most people in the Commonwealth – she hadn’t lost the weight from her hips and chest; rather, she’d turned it into muscle. Her stomach was lean, her long legs were still toned, and she had the shoulders of an athlete. Curie had never wanted to touch a human body more. Even the stretch marks around her belly made absolutely no difference to how magnificently beautiful she was. Nor did the scars, the marks from battles she had won and lost. Curie was seeing a part of Amarli she had never seen before they came to the Castle, and she hoped she’d be able to gaze upon it every day from now on.

“If you keep on looking at me like that, I’ll never get to the meeting,” Amarli grumbled.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re hungry, and you want to devour me.” Amarli flashed a grin over her shoulder. “Yeah, I see you.”

Blushing, Curie laid back down and rolled to stare at the ceiling instead. “Maybe when you return…?” she asked hopefully. She was terrible at flirting, and even worse at making suggestive comments, but it sometimes worked with Amarli.

With her jeans and a bra on, Amarli walked over to the bed and reached to trail her fingers over Curie’s thigh; the touch immediately made her twitch, her eyes snapping to Amarli’s face. She didn’t know how the woman did it. She had read so many medical textbooks, but none of them covered anything like this. The arousal was always rapid, instant, and it could arise from nothing more than a touch, even an innocent one. Curie had a feeling her constant hunger wasn’t entirely normal, but she also had a feeling that Amarli loved it.

But Amarli had a meeting. And Curie didn’t want to be laying here, desperate, until she came back. With a squirm, Curie moved out of her reach and pulled the sheets up to cover her body.

Amarli smirked at her reaction. “Don’t bother getting dressed,” she said, turning back to her clothes.

“Why?”

The other woman shot her a pointed look, somehow managing to look almost dangerous, predatory. She smiled and it sent a shiver through Curie’s body. “We both know the clothes wouldn’t be staying on for long.”

Now Curie felt warm, unbearably warm, and even with the sheets covering her, she knew Amarli was aware of the effect she’d had. Pleadingly, Curie looked up at her and said, “Perhaps, before you go…”

And then, without waiting for her to finish her request, Amarli had jumped back on the bed and was climbing on top of her, so startlingly there that Curie had little time to react to the eager mouth pressing against her own. She whimpered into the kiss without meaning to, her surprise mixing with yet more arousal, feeling hands curl around her hips and jerk her closer. She surrendered herself to it immediately, already accustomed to Amarli’s dominating hurricane of stroking and kissing. It didn’t matter that she’d already had her release about ten minutes ago; when Amarli touched her like this, she was instantly ready again, no matter how tired she was. She eagerly pulled Amarli down on top of her, let the knee push between her legs, welcomed the hands on her chest –

Amarli stopped. She sat back, ran a hand through the curls of her hair, and smiled down at her. There was a light in her eyes that Curie knew would be doused by nothing. It would stay there until she’d gotten exactly what she wanted. But Curie could also see that she was willing to wait for that, especially if it would create frustration.

“Well, I’ve got a meeting,” Amarli said casually, as if just remembering. She vaulted herself out of bed and grabbed her coat, shrugging it on. When she glanced back, Curie tried her best to glower, but she’d never been great at displaying anger. She knew it wasn’t very convincing.

“I’ll only be about an hour,” Amarli promised, taking momentary pity on her as she approached the doors. She paused. “Do you trust me?”

Sighing away her irritation, Curie admitted, “Yes.”

“Then wait. Wait for me, and I’ll make number sixteen the best one yet.” Amarli winked, opened the doors, and then closed them behind her. The sound of her fading footsteps only made Curie want to roll over and bury her face in the pillow, in the smell of her that had been left behind. She found herself laughing a little, giddy even though she was frustrated, knowing that Amarli would be back later to touch her. Their game of counting orgasms was rather amusing, and Curie knew it was only because Amarli was aware of how her mind worked. She liked there to be an order, for everything to be filed away, for everything to be quantifiable. In this case it didn’t really matter. But it was still wonderful that Amarli cared enough to make her feel more comfortable.

That woman was so kind, so fair, so honest, but there was also a streak of wickedness which Curie had not expected at all. She liked it, but it was unpredictable. Everything about this life, and about humanity, was unpredictable. 

 ---

“We’ve lost Greentop Nursery,” Preston said gravely.

Amarli, who had only just sat herself down at the head of the table, glanced up at him in shock. Only three days since her speech over the radio, and already there was a settlement lost. She’d sent one of the Castle Minutemen to take those settlers to safety, but they must never have arrived in time. Was this the Mechanist trying to prove himself? Had he heard her speech and was now trying to retaliate? Amarli pursed her lips, tapping her fingertips on the table.

“They were all killed?” she asked quietly.

“The soldier we sent got there a day before it happened,” Ronnie clarified. “Seems they were already on their way to safety, but the Mechanist actually had his robots track ‘em down. Just for the hell of it, I suppose. They died on the side of the road.”

“Do you think it’s a message?” Preston looked right at Amarli as he asked it.

“Maybe.” She pressed a hand to her forehead, now wishing she’d slept properly last night, even though staying up with Curie had been incredibly fun. “But I think the robots are meant to be targeting settlers, anyway. They’re not stupid. They can follow tracks, and they’ll do whatever they can to ensure they follow their master’s instructions. This might not have been him trying to warn us.”

The other Minutemen in the room humphed, and a dull silence descended in the meeting room. Amarli rubbed circles on her temples, wondering how long they would have if this really was the Mechanist showing them his power. If he’d truly heard her on the radio and now knew exactly which settlements were vulnerable, there was no reason he shouldn’t go after them. Although her intention had been to save their lives, Amarli may have just doomed all of those poor countryside dwellers. The thought made her heart clench with sadness.

“There’s nothing we can do about that now apart from send more men to help, which would only take more time and mean more sacrifice,” Ronnie Shaw said suddenly. “I think our focus should be on getting to the bastard himself. We need the information your robot has. The sooner The Mechanist’s dead, the less soldiers and settlers we lose.”

“If I’m no longer needed in the Castle, I can get back to Sanctuary Hills as soon as possible and finish off building Jezebel’s body,” Amarli said. “Sturges has already built the frame, as far as I know. He just has no idea about the little mechanics. He needs my help.”

Ronnie Shaw’s eyes narrowed. “And if this robot, say, changes it’s mind once you’ve gone through the effort of building it a new body and decides not to tell you how to get in… what then?”

“Jezebel won’t change her mind,” Amarli said firmly.

“But if she does? If she turns on you?”

Amarli eyed her warningly. “Shaw. I know what I’m doing.”

Her face reddened slightly, but she decided to back down. Amarli had never really let them down before, and Ronnie knew it, but she’d always played devil's advocate. With a sigh, Amarli turned to the rest of the table and said, “So, that’s it then. I can set off tomorrow for Sanctuary Hills. If I travel without sleeping, I’ll be able to get there in two days’ time instead of four. And I’ll begin working on collecting that information immediately.”

“General, your wellbeing is just as important as getting that information,” Preston said gently. “Maybe we don’t have much time, but we still need you to be in good shape when we finally face him.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said stubbornly.

The rest of the table were all nodding their heads in agreement with her decision. They’d have to buckle down and wait once more, this time for a week or two, and then it would be time to prepare for war. All of them knew how dire the situation was, perhaps almost as serious as their battle against the Institute.

“Whatever happens, we’re getting in there, and we’ll disable all the robots somehow,” Amarli said confidently. “And I’m going to be the one to put a bullet through his head.”

She glanced around at the faces, daring one of them to object. There was only silence.

She nodded her satisfaction and stood, deciding she’d leave early from the meeting even though she’d arrived so late. Only Ronnie Shaw knew why she’d been so bad with her timing, anyway – the rest of the Minutemen probably just thought she was absurdly busy. In truth, she wanted to be able to spend the rest of her free time with Curie. She had no idea when she’d next be able to sleep in without any particular worries on her mind. It seemed their little honeymoon-like period was over.

“I’ll speak to you all tomorrow morning before I leave. Get back to work.”

She straightened her shoulders and left the room, wrapping her General's coat back around her (thank god Preston had managed to find her old uniform before her speech, or she'd have frozen to death already) as she strode out towards the courtyard, already feeling the chill from the sea. Dogmeat jumped to his feet outside Preston’s door and followed her, panting little clouds of mist.

“We’re back at it again, Dogmeat,” she drawled. “I wonder if the Commonwealth will ever run out of enemies to fight.”

Dogmeat looked up at her.

“Yeah, I know. It’s my fault I’ve made it my responsibility.” She rolled her eyes. “But I sort of wish there was more time. Time to… get used to things. D’you think I’d be happier if I weren’t the General?”

Dogmeat barked at her and she took it to be a negative reply. All she’d known since her first month in the Commonwealth was what it was like to lead the Minutemen. She’d feel as if she had no real purpose if she left her post. Most likely, she’d miss it the way she’d been missing danger and excitement all those months ago when she left home. But, now more than ever, she found herself thinking about Curie’s words, about needing to choose between being the General of the Minutemen and her love for her synth partner. Would she ever have to choose? Would life be that cruel?

Now that she had Curie, she couldn’t possibly lose her. She couldn’t not choose her. But Mama Murphy had told her about a sacrifice, and Amarli was wondering if maybe this was what she’d been talking about; would she sacrifice her devotion to her work, or her devotion to her heart? If she somehow ended up having to choose during the battle against the Mechanist, would she make the right decision?

Would dying ironically be an easier option, so she wouldn’t have to choose at all?

Her mind was so caught up in these questions that she entered the room without noticing Curie sitting by the window. Removing her coat, Amarli finally snapped out of it and glanced over, her gaze sharpening as she saw the familiar smooth planes and curves of Curie’s body, and the tousled dark hair, and the hazel-blue eyes that watched her with curiosity. True to her word, she hadn’t gotten dressed, and sat by the desk in her usual unselfconscious way, as if she didn’t even realize that she was naked. Curie had no reason not to be proud of that body – but she wasn’t proud. She simply didn’t think of it as any different to wearing clothes. To her, nakedness was just the purer human form, and there was nothing wrong with it.

Amarli was frozen, just staring across the room at her, wondering if Curie would react if she moved. She felt as if she had kissed and touched every inch of Curie’s body, but that didn’t make her feel any less like exploring.

“Hey,” she said simply.

“Hello.” Curie turned around completely, folding one leg over the other and resting an arm over the back of the chair. She had been writing in her notes again. Perhaps she’d gotten bored of waiting, or perhaps she’d just wanted to distract herself from her own frustration. Amarli hoped it was the latter.

“You look… really good.” Amarli hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but there was no pretending she hadn’t. And there was no disguising the edge of hunger in her voice.

Curie beamed. No compliment ever escaped her. “You have seen me only an hour ago,” she teased.

Amarli couldn’t possibly explain that the time made no difference. Even if she’d only been away for a couple of minutes and returned to this view, she’d be just as awestruck. She knew why. To put it quite simply, Curie had no idea how attractive she was. She was completely oblivious to her own symmetrical beauty, and the swells and curves of her body, and how each clear expression on her face made her endearing and adorable. Even if it was all artificial, she was so real and perfect that Amarli had, in the past three days, decided that Curie was crazy not to even recognize it. She could show her, of course, but that was only half the fun.

Seeming to notice that Amarli wasn’t going to say anything else, Curie nimbly jumped to her feet and padded over, still looking curious. “How was the meeting?” she asked.

“Good.” Amarli’s eyes drifted lazily over her chest, down her stomach, right to the very tips of her toes. When she looked up again, Curie was blushing, and she knew her appreciation hadn’t gone unnoticed this time. “Curie…”

“Yes?” she said immediately.

“Will you help me out of these clothes?”

Her eyes brightening, Curie stepped forwards to a foot away and began unbuttoning her shirt, not even hesitating. Amarli’s breathing had climbed to a rapid pace, but she didn’t move to touch Curie, simply watching as those soft fingers undressed her, clumsily tracing her skin every once in a while. Before her trousers were off, she grabbed Curie’s hands and stopped her. “We’re leaving tomorrow,” she said.

Curie, surprised by the change of tone, cocked her head. “We will return home?”

Home. She remembered when Curie had told her she was what made the Commonwealth home. Never before had Amarli heard something so flattering. She realized that Curie had become her home, too.

“Yes,” Amarli breathed. She released Curie’s hands and ran her fingertips up her wrists, her arms, over her shoulders. Without the effort to stop herself, she bent down and tilted her face against Curie’s neck, enjoying the way she felt her pulse skip under the pressure of her lips. There was a faint gasp, making her smile. She combed her fingers through Curie’s hair, already feeling that same incredible desire, breathing in the scent of her, relishing the taste of her, the soft feel of her. How had she not been attracted to women like Curie before? 

With a shudder, Amarli snapped herself back, knowing she needed to have her now – with the same desperation as she’d felt the last fifteen times, she pushed Curie towards the bed and made her sit down on the edge. Those hazel-blue eyes wavered, darkening a little, and Curie chewed on her lip as if anxious; Amarli read it as a sign of her desire. Truthfully, she was so fraught with her own desire that it was almost painful to be turned on again and again without any release. But she’d wanted to focus on Curie completely, and she didn’t want to have to ask for anything in return. Now, the wheels in her head turned as she decided there was a way they could both benefit.

Curie began to sit back, and Amarli quickly dragged off her trousers, climbing on top of her. Their skin pressed hotly together and Curie made a soft sound against Amarli’s mouth as she immediately began to kiss her. She touched her all over, hands gripping each soft part of her tightly, until her passion drove her focus elsewhere. Leaning her face into Curie’s shoulder, she angled her hips closer in her lap and then slipped a hand in between them. They both sighed at the same time, breathless, and Amarli felt her own excitement increase as Curie’s hips rocked up towards her. She bit down slightly on the side of Curie’s neck, hoping to mark her again, and the other woman almost toppled onto her back. But Amarli held her close, making her stay, not wanting the pleasure to end. She moved her hand with more intention, aiming deliberately in between both of them, and was pleased when Curie took the cue and began moving against her. There was a faint moan, encouraging her, so she didn’t stop.

Amarli didn’t stop until Curie’s hands suddenly came up and grabbed her tightly, and even though she rarely wanted to let herself go early, she also knew that she needed to share the moment to get the most out of it. She was painfully aware of the fact that it had been three whole days of sex so far without her getting anything for herself, which was a completely new feat for her. If she didn’t come now, she didn’t think she could make it till tomorrow. So she kissed Curie and applied a little more pressure. The moment Curie gasped into her mouth, Amarli followed suit instantly. They pressed against each other and Amarli shut her eyes tightly as she felt the wave of delightful pleasure wash over her, hardly able to focus on much else. The room faded into the background and she felt nothing but Curie's body against her own and the warmth spreading through her. She was sure it had lasted for much longer than usual and marked it down to her willing abstinence. Maybe also because her feelings for Curie were still so intense.

Finally, she pushed Curie down onto the bed and slumped on top of her, laughing a little as she struggled to catch her breath. Curie giggled too, stroking fingers through her hair. “Oh,” she sighed, still trembling a little. “Oh, I think that was even better, yes?”

Amarli still had her face buried in the other woman’s neck, too exhausted to move. “Why do you think?”

Shyly, Curie said, “Because it was you and me. It was not just... me.”

Amarli tiredly lifted her head. She hadn’t realized Curie had been thinking about giving her pleasure in return; perhaps she’d felt too uncomfortable to ask. It was odd, considering Curie seemed so fond of their ‘experiments’. Most questions weren’t off-limits.

“When we get home, when all of this is over, I’ll teach you a few things,” Amarli said.

Curie eyed her. “A few things?” she repeated.

Amarli grabbed her hand and pulled it to her own hip, then down towards her thigh, waiting for Curie to get the hint. A blush spread over her cheeks. “Oh,” is all she said.

“Okay?”

“I would like that very much.”

Amarli grinned, cuddling against her again. “Me too.”

“Are you tired?” Curie stroked her hair.

Amarli nodded her head, unwilling to answer. It was funny; the day had started exactly like this, but now it was as if the positions were reversed. Now that the excitement was over and she felt comfortable in Curie’s arms, she was free to start thinking about the Mechanist again, and the future was seriously worrying her. She didn’t want any of this to end. She didn’t want anymore changes.

Amarli clamped her arms around Curie’s waist and closed her eyes. Perhaps she wouldn’t get very good sleep from now on, but at least Curie’s presence meant she could drift off and feel safe. It was an invaluable thing.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was a little scared to think this. She knew that no one, not one of the women from before the war or after, not even Nate, had ever made her feel this way. With everything they still had left to face, it would be so easy to lose it all.

Amarli didn’t want to lose Curie. Not ever.

Chapter Text

When they returned to Sanctuary Hills, Curie had only two things on her mind: one was the woman walking beside her and the other was the mutfruit plants she’d asked Shaun to take care of. As they crossed the bridge, Dogmeat bounding ahead into the neighbourhood – likely hoping to find Shaun – Curie reached for Amarli’s hand and slipped her fingers against her palm, smiling up at her. Amarli had told her before they left that things would only get harder, not better; she would be busier, there would be more danger, and they’d have less time to themselves. Curie couldn’t really imagine it. The last few days had been such bliss, and she didn’t think she could ever lose the heart-warming buzz she felt.

“We are home!” she said cheerfully.

“Yeah.” Amarli sounded grim. She had a lot on her mind, Curie knew, but she still wanted her to be happy, especially since they were returning with such a huge change. How would all their neighbours react? Were they allowed to know? And Shaun; would he be happy or smug? After all, he had told Curie to find the courage to make it happen.

Curie squeezed Amarli’s hand and stopped walking, knowing that the Minutemen stationed at the boundary were likely watching them with curiosity. But she needed to make sure of something first.

“Are you apprehensive?”

Amarli raised her eyebrows. She glanced warily towards the guards and nodded a greeting, letting them know everything was fine. “Yeah. I’ve got plenty of reason to be.”

“About… this?” Curie let go of her hand and backed away a little bit. She felt her cheeks burn as she sensed eyes on them from the other side of the bridge. Her heart wrenched from mixed feelings of doubt and confusion; how could it be so bad for two women to love each other, even if one was a synth? What would these Minutemen even do about it? They had no right in interfering with their General’s life. The past few days had felt heavenly, even though she’d been hesitant to show her affection for Amarli in the Castle. But now… now they were home, Curie had thought they wouldn’t have to hide anymore.

“What? No.” Amarli’s eyes had widened a little. “I already said – no, that doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’m worried about the Mechanist.”

“Oh,” Curie said quietly. Unable to help herself, she tentatively added, “It does not matter?”

Amarli’s face softened and she gave Curie a look that made her feel immediately ridiculous. “As in, I could care less about what my neighbours think,” she said pointedly. “Obviously this… matters.”

“Okay.”

It was such a simple answer that Amarli almost looked puzzled. She tucked her fingers into the belt of Curie’s armour and tugged her into a hug, kissing the top of her head. “It’s not that I’m not always thinking about you, Curie, but there’s other serious things on my mind, too.”

“I understand.” Curie hadn’t meant to be negative, or to distrust Amarli’s feelings. “It will be a change, you have said.”

Amarli pulled back and nodded. She had a lot of work to do. Not only was she planning to build Jezebel’s body and converse constantly with the Minutemen, but she had also expressed her interest in trying to construct some new weapons and modify her power armour for the battle. So, it was back to her working hard across from the house while Curie just watched her through the window from the lab. Curie wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to observing Amarli from afar, pining over her when she was supposed to be working. But it seemed, at least until the Mechanist was gone, that she had no choice. At least they’d have most of the nights to themselves.

“Let’s go.” Amarli extended a hand and Curie took it again, forcing back her anxiety.

Shaun was there to greet them when they entered the house, delivering a tight hug to each of them. When Amarli expressed her need to get out and start working, Shaun let her go. Curie watched as she disappeared down the hallway to unpack and chewed on her lip, prepared to follow immediately. But Amarli had looked stressed, and she was obviously planning to get straight to work – there was no time to welcome each other home. Curie decided the logical thing to do would be to give her some space. She glanced down into Shaun’s eyes and said, “The plants, mon loulou? How have they been?”

Shaun’s smile widened into a beam and he grabbed her hand, dragging her towards the back door. “I’ll show you.”

Moments later, Curie found herself crouching beside the little experiment she’d built in the garden, inspecting it closely. The soil she had expertly mixed herself using a recipe from her database contained cured compost, leaf mould and rotted wood chips, and although there was likely still some radiation in it, there was a whole lot less than the normal Commonwealth soil. It was damp even now, so she assumed Shaun must have been watering the plants every now and again using the purified water cans she’d stacked against the wall, pouring the water in through the one-way pipe she’d borrowed from Doctor Sun. It worked much like an artery, with little valves that prevented backflow and therefore let no unwanted substances in or out.

To isolate the plants from the tainted air, she had created a small mesocosm – a cube of plastic which separated them from the outside world. The plants and the soil were surrounded first by a metallic sheet which kept all the radiation out and then a wire mesh which prevented insects from getting in and feeding on the fruits. She had filled the mesocosm with fresh carbon dioxide from a tank and allowed the plants to filter it until there were equal parts oxygen and carbon dioxide and they could cycle the air by themselves without needing anything from outside the system. The plants which had grown here, therefore, fresh and green with purple buds already growing on their stalks, were perhaps the cleanest crops the Commonwealth had ever seen. These mutfruit would be radiation-free. Exactly what she needed for her experiments.

Curie took off her bag and immediately grabbed her notebook, inspecting the plants while Shaun watched, poking at the surrounding plastic with the end of her pencil. She couldn’t open the mesocosm until the fruits had grown, and even then she would need to make sure they didn’t properly come into contact with the air until she’d taken a sample. For now, she was forced to predict the plants’ masses and sizes, deciding that the fruits would begin to grow over the next week. By the end of the following week, she should be able to take her first sample and begin testing it for the correct sugar.

“Are they okay?” Shaun asked.

Curie closed her notebook and leaned back on her heels to grin up at him. “It is perfect!” she said cheerfully. With two hands, she pulled him down into a hug and ruffled his hair. He laughed and tried to mess her hair back, but she straightened fluidly before her could reach her. “I cannot start my work without the samples,” she said, smiling down at him. “I must wait two weeks, I believe.”

Shaun nodded, though he looked puzzled.

“This means I can spend more time with you,” Curie prompted. “Do you have a plan for the rest of this day?”

He took her hand again, beginning to take her towards the creek, and she giggled at his enthusiasm. “Let me unpack first, mon loulou. I will come out again when I am finished.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “Dogmeat and I will be waiting.”

He let go of her hand and put on a burst of speed, running towards the creek and clearing it in a leap. Dogmeat had been sniffing around the garden, but the moment he saw Shaun run off, he became instantly excited, barking and following at lightning speed. Curie giggled again at the sight of them playing together and went back inside.

She was surprised to find Amarli still in the bedroom when she entered, especially since it seemed she had finished packing. She looked over her shoulder, green eyes serious, and then softened as she smiled. “Hey.”

“Are you working?” Curie came up behind her and saw she was looking at the terminal screen.

“This is where I log all the equipment we’ve got. Just making sure I have what I need to build Jezebel’s body.”

We. It was equipment they shared now. Curie glanced around the room and could not keep from smiling as she took in the familiar paintings and posters on the walls, and the patchwork curtains, the soft bed. This was their room. Humans could build connections stronger than any robot could imagine, especially since they could attach emotions to objects as well as people. A human could have an incredibly powerful bond to a diamond ring, or a childhood toy, and for them to share this thing with somebody else was incredibly hard. They attached their memories and feelings to it, and to lose it would be painful to bear. So they had to overcome a primal instinct, stop themselves from thinking mine and instead think ours. Amarli had done this with Curie long before they had even properly been friends. She was a rare sort of human being. But Curie had never really felt like any of these things really belonged to her; simply that she was borrowing until it came time for her to leave. Now, knowing Amarli loved her, she realized she didn’t have any reason to leave again. The table clustered with equipment was hers; so was the bed and the furniture; the Nuka-Cola clock was hers; the hat collection under the bed; the posters and the paintings on the walls; all of it was hers. This was her home, these people were her family, the people outside were her neighbours and her friends.

For a robot to have ownership over anything was a strange notion. Curie had never had this power. But Amarli had given it to her.

Amarli must have seen the silly smile on Curie’s face because she swivelled in the chair to look at her head-on. “Something funny?”

“No.” Curie put her bag down on the bed.

“Then what is it?”

“Nothing.” Her cheeks flushed and she began to unpack, knowing Amarli was busy; she had no time to lay in bed with her and talk about love and happiness and their future. But Curie wanted to. Especially now they were home. Especially after her recognition of all the possessions they shared.

Amarli got up, and Curie turned slightly, only to find that warm hands had landed on her hips. She felt a kiss pressed to the back of her neck.

“I’m not going to dismiss you just because I’m busy,” Amarli said against her skin. She pulled away slightly so Curie could turn around to face her. “You’re happy, and I like it.”

Curie nodded shyly. “It is odd, but… this has never felt more like home to me. I think it is because of us. You.”

There was a tightness in Amarli’s expression, and Curie registered it immediately as something amiss. She knew what she was thinking: It might not be home for long. The Mechanist could make sure of that.

Thankfully, she didn’t say it out loud. They simply stared at each other, sobered by the thought. The moment stretched on for what seemed like minutes, green eyes gazing into hazel-blue. Humanity, friendship, love – she had come so far to earn these things, and she decided she would not lose them because of this Mechanist. It had taken too much effort to get here. Perhaps Amarli had been thinking the same thing, because her expression loosened and she said, “Home is where the heart is, right?”

Curie nodded vigorously. This was exactly her notion – in fact, when she’d first ever come to Sanctuary Hills and had seen the happiness between mother and son, she had thought that phrase exactly. A home was not a home if there were no cherished ones there. And Curie could now understand why so many people chose to fight hard for the people they loved and their countries; if their homes were taken, their hearts were taken, too. Two losses with one strike.

Amarli caught her face and delivered a kiss as scorching as the summer had been, holding Curie so close that she could hardly breathe. When she pulled back, she stepped away. “I need to work.”

“Of course.” Curie felt her cheeks pinking again. She stared at Amarli’s lips for a few seconds, calmed her breathing, and turned back to her bag to finish unpacking. There was a slight chuckle, implying that Amarli knew exactly how she felt.

Still, she teased, “What’s wrong?”

“You disrupt my mental functions,” Curie said truthfully. “In a very… delicious way.”

“Tell me about it. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get any work done when you’re anywhere near me.” Amarli sighed.

Feeling a little guilty, Curie said, “I will leave.”

“No, no… that’s not what I meant.” There was silence, and then she heard Amarli sitting back down in the swivel chair.

“You have said how busy you are. Do not let me stop you.”

Amarli laughed. “Did I seriously just hear sarcasm? My god, how things have changed.”

Pleased it had worked, Curie nodded eagerly. “I have been studying.” She paused and wrinkled her nose. “However, I must say that sarcasm is very hard to recognize in other people. They are saying something, but they mean a completely different thing… why do humans need to do this?”

Silence.

Without an answer to her question, Curie was puzzled. She chanced a glance back at Amarli and saw her biting her bottom lip. “You look flustered.”

Matter-of-factly, Curie replied, “I do feel flush.” She straightened and pressed a hand to her face.

Amarli still looked at her, biting her lip, looking very suggestive. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend an hour just…”

“Non.” Curie looked at her, almost drawn in, and then took her clothes over to the dresser to begin putting them away. She had promised Shaun she would play with him, and she knew Amarli was just messing with her. Perhaps she was just looking for a distraction until Curie was finished. She removed her armour as well, and ran her fingers through her hair. When she returned to the bed to collect her bag and put it away, she made the mistake of meeting Amarli’s eyes again and almost froze in her tracks. Less than a week of having sexual intercourse with this woman, and she was already completely infatuated. She almost felt as if her body’s reactions needed to be tested, just to ensure they were normal. Curie ducked her head, put her bag under the bed, and straightened. Unable to help the awkwardness, she said, “I will… leave you alone now. Perhaps we can conduct further nocturnal experiments? Tonight.”

Amarli eyed her. Perhaps she hadn’t expected Curie to be so straightforward. “Sure, doc.”

“I would like you to teach me something new.”

Amarli’s expression changed to one that Curie didn’t recognize. She knew that Amarli wanted to be touched. She had sensed it after all their time spent in bed together; sometimes Amarli gave her looks almost of frustration, and she’d finally cognized why. Curie would do whatever she could to make Amarli feel what she had felt so many times.

“Work, my love. I will see you in the evening.” Curie left the room.

 ---

Curie spent the rest of the day re-familiarising herself with her favourite place in the Commonwealth, keeping company with Shaun and the dogs while he tinkered with one of his inventions. In the afternoon, she did her rounds of the neighbourhood to say hello to Sturges and some of the friendly Minutemen. Outside the remains of Mama Murphy’s house, she stopped and stood a while, her head bowed. It felt strange still to not have her alive and well. Curie had found Mama Murphy uncomfortable sometimes, but she had been nice. For humans to be so animated and alive one second, and so absent the next was a terrifying thing for her robot mind to behold. Curie simply couldn’t imagine losing Amarli or Shaun in such a way.

That evening, Amarli’s lessons did not go to waste. Curie learned exactly how to touch, how to move, how to draw the most delightful sounds from the other woman, how to make it last so that the feeling grew. When Amarli finally lay there flushed, an arm flung over her eyes, seemingly tired out, Curie was very pleased with herself. She filed away Amarli’s directions for later use, knowing she would like to do this again and again. They fell asleep curled up together, Amarli’s body wrapping her own. Curie was home. Even the threat of the Mechanist could not disrupt her comfort in Sanctuary Hills.

The days began to pass as smoothly as they used to when Curie first started living with Amarli. Although the weather was growing a little colder, the sun still prevailed. She spent hours exploring the withered forests around Sanctuary Hills with Dogmeat and Angustia. She and Shaun built numerous weapons and traps; they even designed a pair of nightvision goggles using scopes from sniper rifles. Each of these items, once tested, were distributed amongst the Minutemen. Amarli was pleased with them, and she had some of the weapons shipped to other settlements as well.

The Mechanist had not ceased in his attacks. Several more settlements had fallen since Curie and Amarli had left the Castle behind. For every robot the Minutemen killed, five more seemed to appear. Unless they killed the Mechanist himself, the danger was unstoppable. Amarli stopped sleeping properly, and therefore Curie did too. She would pretend to sleep, but really she’d be watching Amarli work all night long, worried for the woman she loved. So much responsibility for one person to undertake. Curie wished she could help.

Thankfully, once the mutfruit plants were ready, Curie had plenty of work of her own. She stopped spending all of her time outdoors and devoted herself to working in the laboratory, testing numerous mutfruit samples. She stopped sleeping properly, too, sometimes working so hard that she would fall asleep at her desk and only be woken in the middle of the night by Amarli’s return to the house. For once, her research seemed to actually be leading somewhere. She was constantly referring to her internal database when it came to analysing the results, and to her surprise it turned out that she finally knew exactly what her end goal was – if she could find a way to fix her altered mutfruit samples to some other ingredients (namely, antiseptic and artificially-manufactured blood), she could potentially build a restorative serum capable of healing wounds three times as major as those stimpacks were capable of healing. Curie also knew that antioxidants had been studied for their capacity to reduce the cytotoxic effects of radiation in normal tissues at least 50 years before the Great War. If she could use some of the mutfruit’s incredible antioxidation properties, this meant that her new and improved serum could reverse the damage of up to three million microsieverts of radiation exposure. The potential sitting in her laboratory could be a breakthrough in the Commonwealth. It could prevent ghouls from becoming feral, therefore returning them to society for good. It could save thousands of lives, increase the general life expectancy, stop children from being born with mutations. For those who were still fighting wars, this serum could be the difference in winning or not. Soldiers on the brink of death could be brought back to life. Perhaps even cancers could be battled.

Curie was overcome with emotion at how close she was to completing such an important discovery. While she was near to producing a prototype, in no way would the medicine be ready for perusual until she had developed and tested it for at least two or three more years. She would need feedback and assistance from other scientists, including Doctor Sun in Diamond City, Doctor Amari in Goodnieghbour and numerous travelling doctors who had seen radiation damage and the side effects of stimpacks in person. Curie would need both animal and human test subjects. She would need records from some of the greatest scientific institutes in the USA, so she would likely have to seek information from outside of the Commonwealth.

The future was bright with possibilities.

 ---

While Curie worked through her discovery, Amarli had drawn up some blueprints and was putting together a robotic body for Jezebel, something she claimed would be her most complex invention so far. Shaun helped her most days, his clever mind coming up with solutions to the mechanical issues she faced. Meanwhile, Jezebel sat on a counter in Sturges’ house and insulted every human who dared to walk past. The Minutemen patrolled the town constantly, stockpiling weapons and defense for the inevitable battle they had ahead. Ironically, Sanctuary Hills had never been safer.

As busy as they were, Curie and Amarli still made sure they found time either during the day or the night to be in each other’s company. Either they’d take a lunch break together and compare progress with their respective tasks, or they would take a much longer break and spend all of it in bed before getting back to work.

One day, when Amarli was perhaps a week away from finishing Jezebel’s body and finally possessing a way into the Mechanists’s lair, they were both lying in bed with the curtains closed, surrounded by a restful silence. They had two hours to themselves, and even though Amarli sensed an ending of some sort looming over them, she couldn’t help but feel calm in Curie’s presence. She reverently rubbed her fingers along the silken skin of Curie’s inner arm, smiling as she saw Curie’s eyes close.

“Tired?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” Curie murmured with a tiny sigh. She opened her eyes again and looked lovingly at Amarli. “Are you?”

“Very.”

They gazed at each other for a moment longer, and then moved closer together simultaneously, wrapped up in each other’s bodies. Curie’s head lolled onto her shoulder and Amarli tucked her arms around the other woman’s waist, breathing in the soft, clean scent of her.

“Curie, I wish it were all easier.” A silly thing to say, really – who didn’t? But something in the back of her mind disagreed. I can dream, can’t I?

“Easier?” Curie speculated.

“I wish we’d met in a different sort of world.” Amarli allowed her mind to wander. “A world where there was no Great War and everything was still whole, like it used to be. Villages, and towns, and cities. Shops full of fresh, non-radiated food and drink. Healthy people living happy lives. It would also be a world where no one would have to hide who they were, and leaders wouldn’t have to worry that loving someone could cause their downfall. A world where, even if crime and death still occurred, most people felt safe.”

“This sounds very pleasant,” Curie whispered.

“It’s a paradise.”

“And you and I would still be like… this?” Curie inquired suddenly. “We would be happy?”

“The happiest. A family of three living in Sanctuary Hills, one of the newest suburbs in Boston. We’d have loads of neighbours and friends, barbecues on the weekends, decorations for every holiday.” She paused, unsure if she should say what she was thinking. More quietly, she continued, “Nate would be there.”

Curie didn’t stiffen up like she’d expected; rather, the other woman just opened her eyes and gazed at her curiously. She didn't have a bad bone in her body; Amarli almost laughed at herself for imagining Curie jealous.

“Not living with us, of course, but… he’d be my best friend. The way he was supposed to be. He’d be a successful sports star and I’d see him every now and then.”

“I would like to have met him,” Curie said, evidently noting the reverence with which Amarli talked about him.

“Wish you’d been able to.” Amarli sighed. She realized she had gone too far with this wonderful world of hers; she felt an ache tug at her chest, that all-too-familiar feeling of loss. Bitterly, she muttered, “The only issue with dreaming up paradise is that paradise doesn’t exist. Never has, never will. You and I will have to live with the cards we’ve been dealt.”

“‘The path to paradise begins in hell’,” Curie recited.

“Hmm?”

“Dante Alighieri states this in Dante’s Inferno.”

“Wise words.”

“Oui.” Curie sighed another small sigh. She sat up a little. “My love, I will keep you safe. My goal is to protect you.”

Smiling at the conviction in her voice, Amarli said, “You’re tiny.”

The other woman frowned. “My size does not speak for my skill.”

“I know.” Amarli hadn’t really been kidding though. In the past, Curie had experienced plenty of trouble with combat and being a good medic. As a robot she had been perfectly equipped to deal with danger. Now, she was more equipped to deal with chemicals in the lab.

“I will not lose you,” Curie decided. “To feel like this, and to lose everything… my mind cannot process it.”

“Don’t try to,” Amarli said quickly, sensing some distress in her voice. She pulled Curie’s body back down into her arms and kissed her cheek. “I believe that you’ll take care of me.”

“And you?”

“What?”

“Will you take care of me?”

It was a strange question, in Amarli’s opinion. What else had she been doing all this time?

“Curie, I’d literally set myself on fire to keep you warm.”

The other woman smiled enough that it dimpled her cheeks, but then shifted on Amarli’s shoulder to release one hand and press it over her heart. “You know I do not want that.”

“I would do anything for you,” Amarli insisted. She covered Curie’s hand with her own, trapping it there, and closed her eyes.

“You are very silly,” Curie said fondly.

Amarli didn’t think she was silly. Happy is what she felt when Curie walked in the door, when she knew that for the rest of the evening the woman was all hers. Just being near her lit Amarli up inside, gave her a serenity she could never know without her lover being close. It was as if she couldn’t take full breaths when Curie was away, like her smiles were incomplete. And Curie never said no to cuddling, to just holding her for hours and talking to her. Every time Amarli marvelled at how wonderful Curie was, she wanted to put it into words; most of the time, Curie seemed to think her words were silly. But that was no issue.

For now, they were together, and that was all that mattered.

Chapter Text

“Interesting. The body you’ve selected for me isn’t quite what I had envisioned, but it will have to suffice.”

Amarli rubbed a hand over her face, exhausted beyond belief, and then sighed when she remembered it was covered in grease. She probably looked like she’d been working in a coal mine. It was past midnight and all she wanted to do was take a long hot shower and then crawl into bed with Curie. However, with Jezebel’s body finally built, she had an important duty. “What were you expecting exactly?”  she inquired.

“Considering I look like a junkbot that’s been hastily wielded together by an amateur, I’d say almost anything else would have been better.” As if pausing to let the insult sink in, Jezebel continued, “However, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised given your limited skill set derived from your equally diminished intelligence.”

Jezebel’s insults, while hitting as hard as always, had little effect on Amarli at this point. She was too tired to react. Rolling her eyes, she straightened from where she was leaning against the workbench and walked a full circle around Jezebel. She was an amateur, yes, so this was a damn good job for her first automated robotic system.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said absently, eyeing the hand-welded armour plates at the robot’s back. “This was the best I could do in such a short timeframe.”

“Evidently,” Jezebel agreed.

Again, Amarli had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. She reverted to business. “So, I’ve upheld my half of the bargain. What about yours?”

This was it – the moment the Minutemen had been waiting for. The location of the Mechanist’s lair. Amarli felt her heartbeat quicken, her eyes latching onto the single eye and floating brain, expecting something akin to a betrayal. After all, if Jezebel seemed to hate her so much, why would she bother returning the favour?

And yet, Jezebel surprised her. “Look… it’s obvious we don’t care for each other’s company, which suits me just fine. So just ask me whatever you need to know and I’ll be on my way.”

Amarli felt a flash of something – delight, perhaps – and quickly sat on a stool, blinking away the haze of exhaustion so she could focus properly. “Tell me everything you know about the Mechanist.”

“Now there’s a fascinating subject,” Jezebel hummed. “The Mechanist – amazingly adept at programming, a veritable genius with electronics. I’m not surprised you’re interested. I’ve been dutifully carrying out the Mechanist’s instructions to help the people of the Commonwealth for quite a long time.”

Amarli narrowed her eyes. “Help them?”

“I followed my primary directive. By my calculations, the easiest way to help a human is simply to destroy it. There’s no point in lengthening a laughably fragile life.”

For a few seconds, Amarli had to sit there and process that. It sounded so cold. Human lives were nothing to this machine, and apparently to the Mechanist too, whoever he was. Save the Commonwealth… by killing all the people in it.

“The Mechanist gave you these instructions? To kill people?” Amarli growled.

“What the Mechanist’s robots have been doing is really quite elementary. But, given your minimal intellect, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t understand.”

Amarli frowned. She stood up again and began to pace back and forth. Dogmeat, who sat on the porch of Sturges’ house, watched her thoughtfully. Angustia trotted over and tried to join in as if it were some kind of game. She gently nudged the dog aside and then turned once more to Jezebel. “Let’s just skip to the point. How do I access the Mechanist’s facility? Where is it?”

“It’s rather simple, really. In order to gain entry to the Mechanist’s facility, you’re going to need to outfit your pet robot with an “M-SAT” modification. I’ll upload the plans to your Pip-Boy device.”

Again, Amarli found herself scowling. “That’s it?”

“That is all. I have upheld my end of the bargain.”

A special modification to a device that Ada could willingly equip, and they would know exactly where the Mechanist was and how to get inside his facility. Within weeks, they could have a gun to his head and it would all be over. Easy. It seemed too easy, in fact.

She could hardly believe it.

Muttering to herself, Amarli rushed into Sturges’ house and approached him in his bed, shaking his shoulder to rouse him. The day before, when she’d informed him that Jezebel’s body was just about finished, he’d told her to make him the first to know of the Mechanist’s whereabouts. He could take control of the situation from there and contact all relevant Minutemen.

“Hmm…? What’s goin’ on?” He rubbed at his eyes, quickly becoming alert.

“It’s time,” Amarli said.

He blinked and then sat up immediately. “You… you have it?”

Amarli nodded. “I need you to get on the radio. Contact the Castle on as secure a frequency as you can, tell them we have what we need. Two weeks to prepare, and then we’re going in.” She suddenly had an idea flash in her mind. “Tell Preston he needs to meet me in Sanctuary Hills. And tell him to contact everyone he knows who could help us along the way – he knows some of my friends in Diamond City and Goodneighbour. Tell him to enlist them, bring them with him. And tell Ronnie Shaw to bring as many Minutemen as the Castle can spare. The Mechanist may have a lot of robots, but we won’t be unprepared.”

Even though he was still blinking sleep out of his eyes, Sturges immediately jumped out of bed and rushed past her to the living room, sitting by the radio and beginning to tune in. Amarli left him to his devices and returned outside, surprised to find Jezebel still there.

“Is there anything else?” she questioned.

“Oh, no.” Jezebel sounded oddly pleased. “I was thinking perhaps I would stay here for a while and see how things resolve between yourself and the Mechanist… purely for my own amusement, of course.”

“Do yourself a favour and stay out of my way then,” Amarli said. “I’ve got a war to prepare for.”

“Of course.”

 ***

Amarli didn’t bother to be quiet for once as she let herself into the house and made her way to the bedroom. This was big news – all of her family deserved to hear it.

Curie, surprisingly, was asleep and not working late on her samples. Crouching by the side of the mattress, Amarli reached to gently run her fingers against the other woman’s cheek, waking her gently. “Curie?” she murmured.

There was a soft sigh, and then Curie rolled over, eyes squinting at her through the darkness. She must have sensed some sort of apprehension, because she asked, “What is wrong, ma chérie?”

Amarli didn’t answer for a second, knowing that they both had been anticipating and dreading this very moment. She reached out and touched Curie’s face again, liking the way the other woman turned her cheek to nuzzle into her palm. “Jezebel told me where the Mechanist is,” Amarli said simply.

“…Oh.” Curie didn’t move, and Amarli couldn’t clearly see her face, but she knew instantly how she much look. She could picture the tugging of the dark eyebrows together, and the downtilting of the corners of her mouth. She had known that Curie would be worried – scared, even – but she didn’t like it.

“Move over,” Amarli whispered decisively.

Curie shuffled sideways to make room for her on the mattress, and Amarli climbed in beside her, wrapping her up in a comforting hug.

“How long do we have?” Curie murmured.

Amarli sighed at the resolution in her voice. It was as if Curie didn’t see anything lasting beyond their fight with the Mechanist. Perhaps she was right.

“Two weeks, and then we go in. Ronnie Shaw should bring the rest of the soldiers in by the end of this week, and Preston will arrive with some of my friends in tow.”

“Friends?”

Amarli buried her face in Curie’s hair. “You’ll see.”

With a sudden movement, Curie detached from her and then reached for the bedside light, filling the room with a warm yellow glow. “I have something I must say,” she stated.

Amarli tilted her head, confused by her abruptness. “About what?”

“I begged to become a synth so I could make real progress in the medical arts.” She cleared her throat as if nervous. “I have had a breakthrough.”

Raising her eyebrows, Amarli sat up and leaned against the headboard, showing she was ready to listen. Curie had told her only a few details about the experiments she was conducting, but Amarli had learned it was to be some sort of medicine similar to a stimpack.

“Using a new strain of mutfruit, I have discovered a way to greatly improve the restorative properties of stimpacks. Perhaps this is not earthshaking, but-”

“What do you mean by ‘greatly improve’?” Amarli asked curiously.

“If I can manufacture it into a health pack, it will be able to close wounds perhaps three times faster than a normal stimpack. And, with more research, it will also heal broken bones in battle. And radiation! The mutfruit sample could give the health pack the incredible properties of RadAway, but even more potent. Radiation damage could be reversed, and radiation sickness could be cured. Cancers could be avoided!”

Curie sounded so excited talking about this breakthrough that Amarli felt herself getting excited, too. “Curie, that’s incredible!” She yanked the other woman into her arms and kissed her face. With a laugh, Curie smiled up at her and said, “I find my head full of notions. Experiments. Many will fail, but maybe I will make more discoveries. And… you have given me this capacity. And beyond that, so much more. This world is full of possibilities, because of you.”

Amarli felt herself soften. She didn’t know what to say.

“You are very dear to me,” Curie said. “You have given me so many favours. Just now, when you told me of the Mechanist, all I could think was I must tell you. Nothing feels real until I share it with you. And even if this health pack may take many years to complete, and if we die soon, you must know you mean very much to me.”

“Yeah, I love you too.” Amarli kissed her again, but softly this time, enjoying the warmth and softness of her lips.

“I… I wanted to make this breakthrough for you. So you would never be too hurt in battle, never be lost to me. I have seen you hurt too many times. It is a pity I cannot bring it to fight the Mechanist, so I can keep you and your friends safe.”

“You’ll keep me safe,” Amarli said firmly. She wanted to say something else to make Curie feel more at ease but was interrupted by a particularly large yawn.

Eyes widening, Curie giggled at her. “You are tired?”

“I haven’t really slept at all for two days,” Amarli admitted. “But look-”

“You do not need to say anything more,” Curie told her quickly. “Perhaps it is best if you sleep?”

Amarli yawned again, almost as if to prove her point, and then scowled. “I don’t want to sleep. I want to talk to you, and then I want to go and make sure Sturges has contacted everyone. And I want to double-check the location that Jezebel put on my Pip-Boy…” She made to stand up, checked the time, and groaned. God she was tired.

“You must not work anymore tonight.” Curie stood instead and firmly pushed Amarli back towards the bed.

Sleeping did look rather tempting right now.

As if knowing Amarli would be too conflicted to stop her, Curie reached towards her and began removing her clothes. She also disappeared to the bathroom for a few seconds and came back with a damp towel so she could wipe her face. Amarli wasn’t used to being treated like a child. She would never let anyone else do this; only Curie. There was something very sweet about how the other woman wanted to take care of her. With her shirt and pants off, Amarli climbed onto the bed and buried her face in the pillows. She knew Curie was right, that she should sleep so she wouldn’t be a liability to the Minutemen, but still… she also knew she had many jobs to do, and spending yet more time in here was not what she needed.

Amarli felt the mattress wiggle a little as Curie sat down next to her and stroked her back, eliciting a shiver.

Curie paused. “It is good?”

Amarli managed a nod. Curie applied more pressure, rubbing at the tense muscles of her shoulders, and she all but moaned into the pillow. Of course – yet another thing Curie was incredibly good at. It seemed they discovered a new thing every week. For a few minutes, she just let herself loosen up as Curie filled her with bliss, hands smoothing her flesh. And then, as Curie’s fingers wandered below her hips, Amarli let out an involuntary sound.

Curie quickly stopped. Amarli arched her back instinctively, not wanting her to.

There was a slight hum of recognition. “Oh.”

Amarli knew she should be outside right now, doing her job. Her cheeks heated slightly, and she felt a little embarrassed for letting herself be turned on so easily. Was a little bit of physical contact all it took these days?

Curie’s body slid up against hers and soft lips pressed against the back of her neck, making her shiver again. “You have not relaxed for a very long time,” she murmured. “This is correct, yes?”

Amarli sighed as those deft hands returned to her back and then tightened around her hips.

Oh my god.

“No, I haven’t,” she said, realizing how much she liked this. She also realized how long she’d gone feeling anxious and stressed, never quite allowing herself proper release. Doubtfully, she began, “Curie, I…”

“You do not need to have control at all times.” A trail of kisses this time, all the way down her spine, lingering on the scars there. “Please, can you let me take care of you?” Curie implored.

Amarli was definitely not used to just lying there and letting things happen to her, but as Curie leaned over to feather a kiss over her lips, she almost completely let her guard down. Fingers slowly moved between her thighs and she immediately arched her back again, muffling her moans in the pillow. With each stroke, each press, Amarli felt herself sink deeper and deeper into the mattress, realizing how urgently she needed to reach her limit. Eventually, the moans became reflex sighs of bliss, and she let her eyes close, feeling the sensation rise. She ached with the need to turn and grab Curie’s hand and control her pleasure, but she also knew that if she moved this incredible feeling would end. Again sensing her conflict, Curie whispered, “Let go.”

Give her control.

Amarli could hardly form words. Suddenly the feeling was just too good, too powerful. Her knees twitched upwards on the mattress, the only sign that she was close, and Curie saw it instantly. Amarli gasped as the sensation overcame her, overflowing, filling her body with pure, raw ecstasy. She clasped herself hard around Curie’s hand, hardly believing how wonderful it felt, and the other woman angled her wrist, evidently enjoying the feel of her. All at once, the sensation seemed to become even stronger, and Amarli let out a noise she herself had never heard before. Her whole body felt like jelly once it was over, and even as she turned over and tried to drag Curie up beside her, her arms would hardly move. With a giggle, the other woman climbed up next to her and cuddled up close, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Curie,” was all Amarli could say, still shocked and overcoming the power of that orgasm.

“Now you may sleep,” Curie said, sounding smug.

With a slight grin, hardly believing herself for what had just happened, Amarli let her eyes flutter closed and was drifting off within seconds.

 ***

When Preston Garvey did finally arrive at Sanctuary Hills a week later, he was with some very familiar faces. Amarli was outfitting Ada’s modified M-SAT when she heard a jokey, “Well look at you, all greased up and in your element.”

Immediately, she spun and grinned at one of her past companions, his eyes glinting with humour. “MacCready?” She couldn’t believe it. She’d thought he had enough mercenary work to do, but the Mechanist’s onslaught was obviously affecting his business as much as it was affecting the rest of the Commonwealth. By his side was a yellow-eyed synth in a trench coat, scarred face smiling with pleasure at seeing her after so long. “Hey, Amarli.”

“Nick!” Amarli threw her arms around the detective and hugged him, realizing all of a sudden how much she’d missed him. “Preston really went all out on this one, didn’t he?”

“A bit too out, I’d say,” MacCready sighed, taking off his cap and running fingers through his ruffled hair.

Unsure of what he meant, Amarli peered past him and saw a hulking green figure stomping up the road to Sturges’ house. The soldiers watching him pass didn’t seem to know what to do about a Super Mutant in Sanctuary Hills, especially since it had Preston walking calmly by its side.

Amarli almost laughed out loud. “He brought Strong, too?”

“Would rather he’s on our side than we be against him, I guess,” MacCready muttered.

“Human!” Strong barked, almost as if happy to see her. Amarli kept her distance but grinned up at the Super Mutant as he came to a stop in front of her. He was so out of place that she almost imagined she was dreaming. The makeshift armour he was wearing gleamed in the sunlight, his bulging green face set in its usual angry expression.

“Hello, Strong.”

“Strong want fight robot master!”

Even though she was amused, Amarli said, “I thought you’d like the Mechanist. After all, his target is the humans, not Super Mutants.”

The hulking giant scowled. “Strong not like metal men. Can't eat them.”

Preston smiled a little awkwardly. “Figured you’d want all kinds of fire power for this, General,” he explained, cutting in. “Strong was a hard guy to get ahold of.”

“I’m sure he’ll be useful.” Amarli fought another grin. Having traveled with Strong before, she knew there were few enemies which would best him.

“You guys can take whatever beds you want in these houses,” Amarli said, gesturing around the neighbourhood. “Next week we’ll be heading out, so take care of your weapons and armour as efficiently as possible. If you need anything equipment-wise, talk to Ronnie or Preston. If you’re low on medical supplies, talk to Curie.”

“Who’s Curie?” Valentine asked, perking up. “Another of your traveling friends, huh?”

“Curie is our very own genius scientist and combat medic, currently in the process of manufacturing one of the most potent medicines in the Commonwealth,” Amarli said proudly.

The group all looked mildly impressed.

“And she’s my… girlfriend, so be nice,” Amarli quickly added, her cheeks heating.

MacCready smirked. “Oh, I’ll definitely be paying her a visit now.”

She scowled.

“So this is our key, huh?” Preston said, coming up and peering at the M-SAT device. “Seems so tiny for such a big cause.”

“I know.” Amarli placed her hands on her hips and sighed. “Preston, do you remember when you asked me to be the General of the Minutemen?”

Cocking his head, the man smiled at her. “’Course I do.”

“You said the Minutemen needed a leader, and that I had it in me to be that person.”

As if sensing her line of thought, Preston said, “You still do, believe me. If you don’t remember, I also said the Minutemen needed someone to bring the Commonwealth together in a common cause.” He gestured around them at the street full of patrolling soldiers, weapons crates and some of Amarli’s oldest Commonwealth friends. “Look at this, general. You’ve brought us all together in a common cause. People from all over the Commonwealth came here just because you asked them to. Because they trust you.”

“Should they?” She chewed on her lip.

“Amarli, you’re still the same lady who slayed the Commonwealth’s boogeyman,” Valentine pointed out. “If anything, the people here think you’re something of a legend. You have guts.”

“You helped me get rid of those Gunners who were causing me trouble,” MacCready added. “And you helped me get that medicine for my boy.”

“You help Strong try find milk of human kindness,” Strong said matter-of-factly.

Amarli tilted her chin down, slightly embarrassed by all the praise. Yes, it was true that she had been instrumental in taking down the Institute. It was true that MacCready’s son was now alive and well. It was also true that she had spent months and months of her life travelling to each and every Commonwealth settlement to build defences and more effective communications so that no one would have to fight alone ever again. She knew that she had made drastic changes to the Commonwealth, and that the majority of people who knew her seemed to love her. But despite all of these things she had done, there had still been loopholes – there had been a loophole large enough for the Mechanist to squeeze his way in and start terrorizing the Commonwealth. No matter what Amarli did, it never seemed to be enough. The very things she stood for seemed futile. Her fight was just as small and apparently inexplicable as the tiny M-SAT device which was supposed to let them into the heart of the Mechanist’s operation.

“Regardless of how futile this might feel, the Mechanist needs to be stopped,” Ada pointed out, almost as if reading her mind.

Turning to look at her, Amarli nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

“I wish to see the Mechanist endure the same fate as my friends,” Ada said firmly, “and you are the woman who has gotten us so close to seeing that happen.”

“Let’s go, then,” MacCready said. “Jeez, boss, stop moping around. You never used to be like this.”

Amarli scowled at him again. “Excuse me for considering the fact that this might be the last time we all see each other alive and in one piece before we face the Mechanist. I’m just… worrying.”

“We’ll be fine,” Valentine promised, patting her shoulder. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re all pretty hard to kill. And we’re just as invested in seeing the end of this as you are.”

Strong grunted as if in agreement. He then caught sight of Dogmeat and immediately trundled off towards him. "Dog! Still alive? Too bad - Strong know how to cook dog... very tasty!"

"Don't worry, I'll make sure he doesn't eat your dog," Valentine said with a knowing smile. Amarli watched him leave, and then was left only with Preston, Ada and MacCready.

"You're right, we'll be fine," she suddenly decided. "Uh...thanks for showing up. It means a lot that you were willing to join me."

MacCready grinned. "It ain't just your problem anymore, boss."

"It's the Commonwealth's problem," Preston agreed. He cleared his throat and looked pointedly at MacCready. “Now… I assume you’ve got things to do. The General and I have plenty of planning to sort out once she’s prepped the M-SAT.”

“Yeah, yeah.” MacCready tipped his hat towards Amarli. “See you around.”

Chapter Text

After everything, all the planning and the building and the experiments, and the army-building… here they were.

A few days’ journey, all of them travelling as a group of twenty-strong, and they had reached the factory within which the Mechanist was hiding. Amarli was not alone as she had been when she infiltrated the Institute. This time, she had with her Robert MacCready, Nick Valentine, Preston Garvey, Ronnie Shaw, Sturges – and above them, Strong’s hulking figure with a giant spiked sledgehammer in his hands. By her flank, sticking close to her as commanded, was Curie in her newly-upgraded lead-infused armour, a helmet hiding the dark locks of her hair and a medic’s pack tied over her shoulders. She had her gun, but Amarli had been very clear that her job was to be the group’s medic and there were to be no heroics. Ronnie and Preston would be acting as her sergeants, and each led a team of six well-trained Minutemen soldiers (among whom were men and women she had specially requested, including two of the men Curie had befriended at the Castle: Wen and Yarun). If Amarli ended up dead or seriously injured before they reached the Mechanist himself, Preston would take over as commander.

Now, Amarli gave them the signal to position themselves. At the entrance of the factory, Amarli’s own group stood centrally and the rest of the Minutmen flanked them, dressed in the Minutemen's best energy-infusing armour. Their sole job was defense, while Amarli and her friends would be on the offense, destroying any robots in their way. This formation would remain as long as they were inside the factory.

Every mind was as much a battlefield as the ground beneath their soles. Amarli and her handpicked army were resolute, staring unwaveringly at the battle to come, adamant that they would finish this even if they did not return alive. Before they entered the building, they each had time for their minds to bid farewell to far away lovers and families while trying to wipe all emotion clean away, to focus on the task at hand. Only once did Amarli tear her gaze away from the building, and that was to look at Curie one last time. There was a small smile in return, and the smaller woman reached out to squeeze her gloved hand. Amarli, satisfied that Curie knew her role and would avoid harm, turned away and steeled herself. She had a mission, and like hell if she wasn’t going to get it done with some flair.

 ---

The carnage began almost as soon as they entered the factory.

Explosions and the rat-at-at of gunfire became a chaotic blur that made clear thinking almost impossible, but Amarli let her instincts carry her through the motions. Two of the Minutemen were dead almost instantly but the rest took cover and together they managed to rid themselves of the rest of the junkbots that had been waiting for them in the entrance room.

Amarli made everyone wait while Curie quickly checked on their two fallen comrades, her pale face looking morose when she announced their deaths. Neither of them were her friends, and while Amarli had taken care to know the names of all her chosen soldiers, she wasn't even sure who they had lost. There was no time for mourning; very swiftly, they moved on.

The factory was filled to the brim with robots – for every one they killed, two more appeared in its place. Amarli knew that the only way to stop the replacements was to kill the Mechanist himself, but she feared that they would never make it that far. They moved from warehouse room to corridor to factory belt, Ada’s M-SAT unlocking each door in their path. MacCready was shot in the leg when he was the first through one of the doors and, while his friends returned fire and destroyed the enemy, Curie stimpacked his thigh and helped him back to his feet. Strong seemed to almost deflect the bullets, barging forwards and roaring as he smashed several of the bots to pieces with his sledgehammer. He and Valentine together proved to be Amarli’s most useful soldiers, as they kept moving no matter how many times they were shot. Strong in particular was like a brick wall.

Preston, Ronnie and Sturges were sticking behind Amarli as backup, ensuring that Ada was protected; without her, they could no go further. None of them were capable of equipping the M-SAT themselves. While Amarli wasn’t at the forefront of battle, she barked out orders constantly, knowing that their only chance of success relied on her ability to think strategically. She knew how each and every robot could be killed. After the success of the Syringer rifles when rescuing Jezebel all those months ago, Amarli had made sure that hundreds more of both types of capsules had been manufactured for use against the Mechanist. For the swarm bots that ran on fuel, syringes could be shot from many feet away, ensuring they had exploded before they even sensed an enemy presence. For the nuclear-powered robots, Amarli had two of the Minutemen soldiers carry the other type of Syringer capsule on them and inject as many robots as possible. While the Mechanist had the upper hand in terms of number of soldiers, Amarli had a great many tricks up her sleeve. She’d always been good at tactics; she'd have made a very good lawyer.

While the fighting was far from easy, Amarli’s entire team managed to make steady progress through the factory, hardly stopping at all in any of the rooms or corridors. She hoped that wherever the Mechanist was, he was sweating like hell. When they reached several security doors that Ada couldn’t open, or a corridor of tripwires that needed a terminal to be disabled, Sturges took charge. Amarli had always been more of a techhead than a hacker, and he trumped her when it came to computer systems.

As Ada unlocked another of the Mechanist’s special doors, there was a loud rush of static over the speakers and Amarli quickly raised her hand to make everyone stop in their tracks.

“So, the scourge of the Commonwealth has used my own technology against me.” There was a pause for effect and Amarli could hear the dripping of water somewhere in the corridor and the humming of a machine in the walls. “You may have gained access to my Sanctum, but you’ll need better skills than that to defeat me.”

Amarli glanced at Preston and they both shared an understanding immediately.

“He’s definitely rattled,” she said smugly.

“For sure.” He nodded at her. “Your lead, General.”

And so, at her command, they continued moving. The Mechanist’s panic manifested itself in some dirty tricks: robots appearing out of drains and air vents in the ceiling; swarmbots waiting directly on the other side of every door, waiting to pepper them with plasma bullets. Even the traps seemed numerous here, and Amarli wondered if that was because they were getting close to the heart of the building. The more dangerous it got – at one point, she felt a bullet pass through the flesh of her outer thigh, and at another she got a burn on the side of her face from an explosion – the more she began to worry about Curie, constantly searching for her in the fray. She knew she couldn't afford to get distracted, but she couldn't help it. Curie stayed mostly by her side, light on her feet and quick to dodge attacks. She was good at being defensive, and she was even better at knowing exactly when her medical skills were needed. When her friend Yarun fell, she injected him with a stimpack and left him behind with gauze pressed to his wound so they could collect him later.

Eventually, they were all intercepted by the much more advanced robots which took less damage, namely tankbots and those that were modified from assaultron frames. Even more of the Minutemen soldiers were left behind and Strong got a particularly bad wound on his shoulder that Curie couldn’t patch up.

“Strong must fight!” he growled.

“You’re staying behind us now,” Amarli warned him. “You can fight, but stop running ahead. Listen to me.”

He growled again and muttered something about stupid humans as he stomped to back of the group.

Valentine too was wounded pretty badly – when one of the assaultrons self-destructed, his arm was blown off his body and he was flung into a wall. Amarli ran to his side immediately, grabbing him by the shoulders.

“Valentine, are you-?”

“I’m fine,” he muttered. But the yellow of his eyes was flickering and there was an inky substance draining from the wound where his arm used to be.

Curie immediately dropped by her side, tapping her shoulder. “Go!” she said. “I will take care of him.”

Amarli did as she was told, returning to the fight with vengeance as Curie patched him up. They seemed so close to the Mechanist, but when Amarli paused to look around and take stock of her small army, she realized how much they were struggling. MacCready was straining on his injured leg; Preston and Ronnie were flanking Ada but both were clearly tired; Sturges was covered in blood and could hardly hold his gun up anymore; their Minutemen soldiers had been cut down to about four men left; and Amarli herself felt her confidence draining.

But they couldn’t stop.

Eventually, when Amarli began to wonder if the Mechanist was even here at all, they all entered a large room with platforms snaking up to the ceiling and a windowed control room. There was no other exit besides the one they had just come through and Amarli knew immediately that they had made it – this was the heart of the Mechanist’s lair. And this, finally, was the fight that she had been conserving all her energy for. This was what mattered.

Bright spotlights illuminated her remaining soldiers as they walked to stand in the center of the room, staring around them warily. Amarli felt as if she was on a stage. The final show. A voice – the Mechanist’s voice again – crackled over the speaker, sounding strained. “I cannot believe someone so respected, so honorable… would come here and destroy my robots! Your reign of terror ends here, Silver Shroud.”

Amarli arched an eyebrow and looked at Preston again. She didn’t know how to react. This guy thought she was the Silver Shroud? Just how mentally unhinged was he?

She turned towards the control room and felt a cold hand clench around her heart – he was right there. Exactly like in the comics, wearing metal armour with a robot helmet, hands on hips like he was ready to dispense justice. The lighting left him mostly as a silhouette, and somehow he seemed even more far away than he’d been before. He didn’t appear real.

When Amarli didn’t say anything, simply staring up at his impressive figure, he spoke with finality. “Very well. My righteous robots will end your tyranny once and for all.”

There was a resounding hum as the exit shut behind them and Amarli whirled to stare at it, feeling acidic bile at the back of her throat. Her friends were similarly shaken, all of them raising their weapons as a siren began to sound overhead.

Shit.

It was as if all hell broke loose.

Robots seemed to swarm in from every crevice and vent and Amarli and her friends barely had time to duck, let alone run for cover. She had no time to look after any of her people – not even Curie – and knew she had only one purpose now. She had to get to the Mechanist and kill him. She couldn’t die yet. His death was her destiny, and it would be her legacy, too. She was sure of it.

Amarli was soon sprinting up one of the walkways with about five bots speeding after her, and she felt two bullets hit her and resound off her armour. She didn’t stop. In fact, she ran until she reached a wall and realized she was at a dead end and then turned to face her adversaries. The first to attack was one of the assaultrons. She tried to dodge a swing from its massive arms, but it struck her side and she tumbled into the metal walkway, knowing her ribs were at least cracked. Her instincts preceded her; as the assaultron-bot moved to pound her into the walkway, its facial compartment generating so much heat she could feel it burning her face, she grabbed the blade from her belt and twisted her body in an upwards motion. The blade severed a joint in the robot’s armour and it shuddered, sparking. Amarli twisted and shoved her arm in further, ignoring the shuddering that came with electricity meeting her armour. She had spikes on the knuckles of her gloves and the material was thick enough that her skin would not be burned. With a battle cry, she pulled out the knife and shoved her fist into the hole she’d made in the robot’s torso, ripping out its combat inhibitor much like she might brutally tear out a heart. Before the robot had even shut down, she was shoving it off of her and checking herself for wounds. Now that she had space to retrieve her weapon from its holster, she shot several rounds at the other four robots. They scattered and she crawled to her feet. Before they could move to attack her again, she climbed over the edge of the railing and threw herself off the walkway to rejoin her soldiers below.

Tactics, tactics – that’s what she had to remind herself. She couldn't afford mistakes now. As long as they remained in a group, they would survive the battle.

If they went down, they went down together.

Amarli lost track of how many robots she killed. She didn’t know how many times she had been shot or how many explosions she had narrowly avoided. It was a bloodbath. And she had no idea which of her friends was even still alive. She’d lost track of MacCready’s voice for sure, and Valentine was nowhere to be seen. Strong was roaring and smashing bots to pieces despite the growing bloody wound in his weakened shoulder.

“Preston!” she yelled, panicking as a tankbot shoved her into a corner and proceeded to smash her skull to pieces.

Instead of her first in command, it was Ronnie Shaw who saved her, shooting the bot twice in the head and dragging her away. She thanked her breathlessly, one arm held to her chest. How many ribs were broken? Was one of her lungs punctured?

Curie was at her side immediately, and the relief she felt when she saw the other woman’s face was phenomenal. She grabbed her shoulders, unable to help herself. “Is it – are you…?”

“Here.” Curie jabbed a stimpack into her shoulder and hooked her under the arms to lift her onto her feet again. Her hazel eyes were fearful but Amarli thought she saw relief in them, too.

Curie was okay.

It was all going to be okay.

“Look around you!” the Mechanist sneered over the sounds of gunfire. “This entire facility is at my command. For every robot you destroy, ten more will come.”

Another, less familiar robotic voice joined in: “Warning! Power generation capacity exceeded. Now drawing reserve power.”

The lights shut off and the entire room was plunged into darkness. Amarli thought she heard a scream of terror and suddenly felt cornered like an animal. All she could hear was the sound of bullets, the flashes of gunfire, and the shuffling feet and voices of her comrades. She couldn’t see a thing. She could only hope the robots couldn’t either. A hand grabbed hers, and from its size she knew it was Curie's. Firmly, she dragged the other woman behind her, backing them both into the wall.

The lights returned with the same sudden flickering and Amarli instinctively raised her rifle and shot the nearest swarmbot to pieces. It spiralled and crashed into a wall, exploding into a fiery mess of metal joints.

“Reserve power at fifty-eight percent,” the computerized voice informed them all.

“Activate the tesla coils!” the Mechanist screamed.

Amarli threw herself back into battle, ignoring the pain in her chest and trying to focus on finishing off the robots before she met her end. She saw Preston struggling against about seven swarmbots, Strong only barely shielding him from their bullets. With a running jump, Amarli swung out and took down two of them, her knife slicing through what she was sure must be important circuitry. She shot blindly at the rest, rolling as she felt hot bullets pepper the metal grating around her.

“Reserve power at thirty-four percent.”

The was a growl of frustration from the Mechanist.

Amarli rushed to Sturges’ side as he helped MacCready off the ground and dragged him behind a crate of spare parts to shield him from the battle. Curie was already waiting there, a half dozen stimpacks at the ready. Valentine, while still missing an arm below the shoulder, was back on his feet and fighting again, determination in his eyes.

Amarli had never seen such a resilient group of soldiers before, not since the Institute, and she had also never seen her friends suffer like this. All for the sake of the Commonwealth. They were heroes. And they would be remembered as such if they should die today.

“Warning. Critical power failure is imminent.”

“Dammit Sparks!” the Mechanist yelled. “Throw everything at them!”

More robots seemed to appear from the very cracks in the walls and Amarli nearly lost track of what she was doing. She imagined she had lost a lot of blood and was absolutely exhausted, but she refused to stop fighting. Her goal was to kill the Mechanist, and she would not die until her job was done. Her friends were similarly exhausted, but they still somehow held their own, backing into a tight circle in the middle of the room. Only a little more – only a few minutes more and they would win. The Mechanist could be defeated if they just held on...

“Warning. Warning. Power failure in ten…”

Amarli fell hard on her shoulder, all the air leaving her lungs, and flailed wildly at the machine which had grounded her, grabbing hold of whatever she could and yanking with all her might. Wires came loose and the machine shuddered before crashing on top of her.

“Nine…”

She shoved the robot off of her and paused for a few seconds before trying to climb to her feet.

“Eight…”

All her bullets were gone. All she had was her fists and her combat knife.

“Seven…”

Her hat – one of her favourites, the sea captain’s cap – had been blown off her head at some point and she had no idea where it was.

“Six…”

The Mechanist was angrily yelling inside the control room, and Amarli turned her head to watch him dazedly before yet another robot slammed into her and she found herself on the ground yet again.

“Five…”

This time, it was Curie who saved her, letting loose several very precise rounds into the robot's chest and then crouching by her side. “Amarli? You can hear me, yes?”

“Yes,” Amarli choked. She felt the needle of another stimpack in her neck, but she was certain it wasn’t enough to heal all of her. She didn’t know if she could stand.

“Four…”

Hands were hooking under her arms again, and she realized she had no choice. This was how it always was. Even when she felt like she was about to die, or she couldn’t possibly go on, she was forced to. There was no stopping.

“Three…”

Curie wrapped an arm around her hips and Amarli flinched as another needle met her arm. She’d expected it to be another stimpack, but was shocked as energy was pumped into her like a spear of lightning – Psycho. Curie was very much against the use of recreational or performance-enhancing drugs, but clearly she’d thought Amarli needed it.

She was right.

“Two…”

Suddenly, standing up straight was no problem at all. Amarli’s mind seemed to come back online and she surveyed the carnage around her.

“One.”

The entire room was plunged into darkness yet again and there was another yell of frustration from the Mechanist. Amarli grabbed Curie and pulled her closer yet again.

“Sparks, get the power back on!”

A negative beep answered him.

There were no more robots left. Somehow, against all odds, Amarli and her little depleted army had managed to destroy all of them, and now Amarli gleefully realized that the Mechanist was incapable of manufacturing any more.

“Emergency power, then!” the Mechanist snapped.

There was a humming noise as a red-coloured light returned to the room and Amarli blinked to un-blur her vision, looking around her to see who was still left. Even with the Psycho running through her veins, she felt numb and exhausted, and when she noticed that MacCready wasn’t among the standing, she couldn’t quite bring herself to mourn.

There was no time.

“This isn’t over, scourge!” the Mechanist growled. “I will not rest until I see the Commonwealth free of you!”

Realizing he was talking to her, Amarli simply glowered at him. She had to force her words out through an aching jaw and a swollen tongue. “I’m not a villain! All I want is for you to hear me out, face to face.”

A pause. “Very well. I will hear you out, but only for the sake of the Commonwealth.”

The door of the control room hissed open and Amarli beckoned to Ronnie, who had come to stand at her side. Silently, the woman passed her weapon over, and Amarli took it with a tight grip. She would see the Mechanist stopped, no matter the consequences. As he strolled down the walkway, an eyebot hovering by his shoulder, Amarli stared with slight trepidation. He walked until he was facing her and her friends, hardly a few feet away, and she was shocked to see how… small he was. A tiny man who had led an incredibly dangerous army of robots - most of which had murdered her friends.

“Let us discuss this amicably,” he said.

Up close, Amarli also realized that the voice coming from his helmet sounded wrong – fake, even. Like it was being spoken through a filter.

“Amicably?" she snapped in reply. Her anger was surging up and her eyes almost stung with tears, but she had to force herself to stay calm. She was the general; she was here to find a solution, not create her own violence. "Who are you?” Amarli demanded, eyes narrowed. “If you wanna talk, let’s actually do it face to face.”

“You’re right. It’s time I faced the true enemy of the Commonwealth.” The voice shook a little before the Mechanist reached up with careful hands to lift the helmet from his head.

Amarli wondered if her jaw had actually dropped.

The Mechanist was… a woman. A very tired-looking woman. She wiped an arm over her sweaty face, dark eyes meeting Amarli’s gaze.

“There,” she said, her voice shockingly young-sounding. “Now we both know what we’re dealing with.”

“You think she’s the enemy here?” Preston demanded angrily. “We may have busted your robots, but they’re just machines. And they’re killing real people out there!”

“People who threaten the safety of the Commonwealth!" the woman snapped in reply. "They’d never harm an innocent person. The robots are programmed to protect!”

She sounded very confident of herself, and Amarli wondered if she’d even seen what her robots had been doing to people. She wondered if the woman has really thought Amarli and her soldiers were a band of villainous outcasts set on destroying her work. All this time, Amarli had thought the Mechanist was just insane, a psychopathic villain she needed to destroy. But maybe, just maybe, the so-called Mechanist had actually thought she was the good guy. Just like the hero in the comics.

She's fucking insane, a voice in Amarli's head whispered. She's attacked your home, killed your people, and hurt your friends. You know that she has to die.

“They have taken innocent lives,” Ada pointed out, barely able to keep a tremor from her voice. “My friends… they were simple traders. All dead at the hands of your robots!”

A small frown was now on the woman's face - was she starting to believe them? “B-but… I take every precaution! The risk is minimal!” 

“Sounds like a serious flaw,” Amarli growled. “And a dangerous one at that.”

The woman’s eyes had become panicked, darting between Amarli’s friends’ faces. She took a small step back.

“… The hero unknowingly became the villain…” she whispered.

Amarli could see her spiralling, but she honestly hadn’t expected this situation at all and had no idea what to do or say next. A quick look at her friends’ faces told her they hadn’t expected this either. This woman had no idea what she’d been doing. And now, supposedly, she was in shock. All of this carnage, and for what? The Mechanist had never even been an actual villain. Amarli's friends had died for a young woman's ignorance.

“I-I only ever wanted to make the Commonwealth a safer place!” she said, looking pleadingly at Amarli. “I swear, I didn’t know – I thought I was saving lives, helping people!”

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Amarli began. "Give me a second to think." She lifted a hand and the woman took two more steps back, eyes widening in terror. She had seen the gun in Amarli's hands - she clearly thought Amarli had every intention of using it.

“P-please, I didn’t mean anything by it! Robots are all I know, and I thought… I thought I could…”

If Amarli could have known what would happen in the next few moments, she probably still wouldn’t have been able to jump to safety. She was faced with a person who had unknowingly done terribly immoral things – a murderer ignorant of her own corruption – who was quickly spiralling out of control in front of her, fear evident in her eyes. She had seen it before in the eyes of other people she had fought. Scavengers who knew they had done wrong but didn’t want to die for their crimes, who knew that survival came above anything else in the Commonwealth. Similarly, this woman was backed into a corner with nowhere to go. She knew she had killed Amarli’s friends, attacked her family, tried to destroy the Commonwealth – and she thought she would be forced to atone for all of it.

Amarli was not a ruthless leader. Not always. And she realized she didn't really want to kill this woman. She was tired of death, and had she known she would later learn the woman's name was Isobel Cruz, and she was a settler who had grown up on a farm in the Commonwealth not far from here; had a way with technology, just like she did – she would have even regretted the turn of events. 

But Isobel Cruz thought she was going to die, so she made one last bid for survival.

In a split second, her gun was in her hands and she was pointing it at Amarli’s chest, her face twisting with desperation and anger, and she was whispering "please," and Amarli’s friends burst to life around her, each wanting to protect their General but all standing too far away to make any sort of difference to the -

“Stop!” Curie shouted, raising her own gun and pulling the trigger before Amarli could even tell her to stand down.

A shot was fired and Amarli heard it as if it were next to her ear. She hadn’t seen it come from the Mechanist’s gun, but she knew it must have. She knew even before the feeling set in that she had been hit. And then it rushed over her like a wave – the impact of what this meant. She could hear nothing. All was silenced, the yells of the Minutemen and her friends, the rattling of gunfire as the Mechanist was riddled with bullets for her retaliation; all inaudible. All Amarli could do was feel. Feel the cold ground pressed against her, the heat from the pain, and the rhythm of her heartbeat that would signal her end. She looked upward. She didn’t have time to think – her vision faded away without pause for final words.

Chapter Text

Curie was dropping to her knees and inserting the needles of both stimpacks into Amarli’s chest and thigh before the rest of the Minutemen had time to react. These were her prototypes; she had only brought them on a whim, thinking maybe she could test one on a fallen soldier. Either they could perform a miracle, or they could send her patient faster to her grave. She had not thought she would make Amarli her patient.

Her internal systems screamed on high alert, her blood rushing, her heart pounding, her mind working to figure out what glitch must have made her behave so badly, to make such a grave mistake. If she hadn’t stepped in, if she hadn’t lifted her gun, if she hadn’t shot at the Mechanist…

If she had been more accurate and killed the Mechanist before she could kill Amarli. If she had been a robot still, and relied on numbers rather than emotion.

If, if, if...

Never before had Curie felt so fragmented. She knew the humanity of this synth body was the reason for this. As a robot, she had never made such mistakes. She never loved in the first place, so she did not ever have to lose something so unbelievably important as Amarli Lorenzen. All the things she had experienced over the past months – lies. She had fallen in love with humanity, she had betrayed her purpose, she had made herself incredibly emotionally vulnerable. None of it, even falling in love with Amarli, was worth that. She knew now, as she staunched the bleeding from Amarli’s wound and gazed down at the stillness of her face, that it had all been wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong…

She sensed that everyone had begun to crowd around them, most of them silent and looking on with grief.

Preston’s voice was the first to get through to her. “Curie, let me see if I-”

“Non!” She removed the emotion from her voice, even though all she wanted to do was release it. No response from Amarli, and they were already approaching the thirty seconds it took for normal stimpacks to take effect. Curie’s health packs were not meant to be tested on humans yet. They had not undergone any testing whatsoever. This was completely against protocol, but she had no choice.

“What did you just inject her with?” Preston demanded.

“Tell me she will not die,” she whispered, not answering his question. She closed her eyes, still pressing hard against the wound in Amarli’s stomach, warm blood pumping against her fingers. The world seemed so far away. Shaun was out there, waiting for his mother to come home. Curie had never experienced grief this terrible before, not even when the doctors in the Vault lab had died, or when Mama Murphy suffocated, or when she had lost Wen and Yarun during the battle. She had spent two hundred years alone already. Now, she would be alone again, until the end of days; she couldn’t imagine moving forward, not without Amarli to guide her, to protect her, to love her. She felt there was no point in anything anymore, not even this medicine which had seemed so wonderful before. Her calculations must have been wrong. Thirty seconds had passed. The blood was still flowing, there was a still a pulse, but it was growing weaker by the second.

“Tell me she will not die,” Curie begged again. For all her knowledge, the wide expanse of facts her system had collected over the centuries she had been alive, she had no idea what to do. There was nothing she could do. Intelligence could not save a woman on the brink of death if even a supposed cure-for-all medicine she had concocted could not.

Preston did not comfort her.

Curie shuddered, bending so close to Amarli’s face that their foreheads touched. She began to regurgitate words, facts, everything she knew: “A gunshot wound to your abdomen may cause damage to your liver, stomach, intestines, colon, or spine. It may also cause damage to your kidneys, bladder, or other structures in your abdomen. These damages cannot be treated without the availability of a sterilized workspace, a skilled surgeon, and specialized tools…”

“Curie-”

Preston had removed his hat and was holding it against his chest in a gesture of honor to his fallen general. He still didn’t seem to know what to say, his eyes full of sadness.

“Move her out of the way. She’s in shock,” came another voice. This was the voice of Nick Valentine. It sounded kind yet firm.

“She’s the fuckin’ medic,” Sturges snapped. “She’s the only doctor here, only one who can do something!”

“She ain’t doing nothing,” Valentine said sadly. “I know what guilt and grief look like – she doesn’t know what to do.”

Large hands came to land on Curie’s shoulders and began to lift her, but she immediately struggled as hard as she could, crying out. She needed to be here, to be touching her love, to be hearing her shallow breaths until she had left this world. It was her fault, and she must see it through.

“Human not fight!” Strong growled in warning.

“Whoa – you see that?” The animation in Ronnie Shaw’s voice caught all of their attention. Strong put Curie down again, his attention focused elsewhere. She made to crawl back to Amarli’s side.

“The heck you talkin’ about?” Sturges demanded.

“Ever seen something like that?” Ronnie crouched by Amarli’s body and pointed at the bullet wound which was visible through the break in her armour. Her blood wasn’t flowing profusely anymore. In fact, it looked as if the wound wasn’t bleeding at all anymore.

“The bruises on her face, too,” Preston pointed out. He jammed his hat back onto his head and quickly crouched by Amarli’s side as well, lifting her head with his hands and sliding an arm under her to support her body. The bruises were fading at a speed which certainly was not possible with an average stimpack – Curie blinked, and they were gone. The same was true for the bleeding cut on her neck, the burn on one wrist. It was like watching a film sped up to four times the normal rate. Everyone crowded around in awe, watching as Amarli’s afflictions seemingly vanished.

Mortals were born to live and then die. Curie had thought Amarli’s time had come. She had wanted to be lost with her in those final moments, to be touching her skin, to be remembering the life in her beautiful face and all the kind, selfless things she had done for everyone around her. A true gem in the history of humanity. Indeed, Curie’s favorite human out of all those she had met, for more reasons than just her selflessness. But now, for the first time since Curie had entered this body, she was witnessing her own breakthrough: the drug she had created had just reversed mortality. This was something no scientist had achieved before. As everyone else got closer, taking Amarli’s hands, exclaiming their relief, rejoicing at having won the battle without losing their beloved leader, Curie found herself backing away.

She reclaimed all her memories with Amarli – all the smiles, the absent-minded touches, the kind words, the friendship, the family, the love, the fear of loss – and knew immediately that this was it. Soul mates were another creation of ever-hopeful human beings, but Curie had truly believed she and Amarli would live happily until the sun stopped shining and the world ceased to exist. In truth, they had always been on a timer. Amarli was not immortal. She was a soft-bodied, vulnerable human being. Someday, Curie would lose her; it was inevitable. One thing was clear now: not only had she made a grave mistake today which had almost cost her the life of someone she loved deeply, but she was suddenly certain that she and Amarli must part ways. Amarli had a son, a home, people who looked to her for guidance and safety, friends in many places… and Curie was born from cold metal and complex coding, her only purpose to obtain information and use it for science. They were as different as night and day. Curie, with her constant internal conflict of “head over heart”, as the humans called it, had no rightful place in a world like Amarli’s. Not anymore. This incident had proven that.

As Amarli came to abruptly and coughed blood from her lungs, her eyelids flickering, all of her friends calling her name and trying to help her sit up, she was exactly where she was supposed to be. She was waking from death, the saviour of the Commonwealth once again, and her people would love her for it.

Go, CVRIE. You have a job to do.

With no eyes on her, Curie slipped away unnoticed, hugging the shadows as she ran, feeling the brutality of her decision weighing down on her shoulders. She yearned to be the first thing Amarli saw when she resurfaced. She wanted to kiss her warm mouth and stroke her hair and apologize again and again for nearly getting her killed. She wished she could hold Amarli’s hand and not let go until they got back home; well... not home anymore. It was Amarli's home, and it could not be her own. This wasn't safe. Curie wanted to be part of a family but she did not belong. Love had never been her purpose, even if she’d been lucky enough to find it. Now, a sacrifice had to be made.

It was the end.

 ---

Curie ran until her breaths were ragged and her feet could no longer move with ease. She wouldn’t make it back to Sanctuary Hills, and she was scared that people would be following her, trying to find her, so she headed in a completely random direction.

The only happy thing she could think of was the fact that she had saved Amarli, that she was alive right now and could be pleased about her success after the hell they had all gone through over the past few months. She imagined Amarli returning to Sanctuary Hills and taking Shaun in her arms and never having to be in danger again, because the Commonwealth was saved. Until another villain entered the Commonwealth and the Minutemen needed her again.

And hopefully she would not look for Curie. She would not come after her and try to convince her to come back, as Curie knew that she would not be able to say no. She loved Amarli too much.

At best, she had a half-day head start. Distance was all that mattered, and she wasn’t going to stop walking until she was sure she was far enough away to rest.

She ran until she was inside a storm. The wind penetrated the polyester fibres of her armour with ease and every drop of icy rain soaked through to her skin. Summer had very quickly become autumn and the weather was no longer suffocatingly hot; rather, it was piercingly cold. She could sense that there would be a considerable amount of radioactive damage, but there was nothing she could do about that until she reached some destination.

She didn’t know where to go. Only once had she left like this to be on her own, and back then she had had a plan, at least. Perhaps Goodneighbor was a good place to start again, but she couldn’t stay for long. And she couldn’t let anyone who knew Amarli see her lest they tell her of Curie’s whereabouts.

It was nighttime all of a sudden, and Curie wondered how long she had been moving. She didn’t have a Pip-Boy like Amarli, or a simple analogue watch to tell her the time. The clouds overhead blocked her from seeing where the moon was in the sky. She ran through mazes of buildings and winding side streets as the sky rumbled, and heavy rain bounced off the asphalt. Perhaps it had already been a day since she set off. Perhaps several days. It was as if she were back in that vault and every day was melding into the next until suddenly a century had passed and she had hardly moved. She was trapped, but time was fluid, and she could feel it flowing past her. Eventually – she didn’t know how – Curie found herself in a settlement and asked for directions to Goodneighbor. They pointed her towards the city and told her to cross the river.

She ran again.

She ran and ran until her feet literally gave out beneath her. And then she crawled under the shade of a building and collapsed against the side of it and fell into an exhausted slumber.

 ---

Goodneighbor’s streets looked exactly the same, still covered in rubbish, with all sorts of people staring at her as she stumbled by. She was still smeared in blood from the battle several days ago and now had radioactive dust smeared over her face, too. She was certain that no one would actually recognize her. Maybe they would think she was a mercenary of some sort. She hoped.

She had just enough caps to buy some supplies from Daisy, making sure to keep her face turned away so the ghoul wouldn’t recognize her. She then sat in an alley and cleaned her wounds. She refilled her gun with bullets and entered the Third Rail, hoping for someone generous to buy her a drink or some food. Someone who wasn’t Magnolia or the bartender.

She was careful. Or at least she thought she was being careful. But a big hulking shape approached the table she was sitting at, even while she was hidden in the shadows at the back of the room. The man’s head was bald, and he looked like he could crush any mortal in a fight, but his eyes were kind. Curie remembered his eyes. They made her want to cry - but she didn't. She would not be lead by emotion anymore.

“Hey there, little bird,” he said gently. “Fancy seein’ you here.”

“Big Al.” She shivered. “Oh, Monsieur, I did not think you would be… here. I did not think I would see you.”

Her voice sounded cold and tight, and he clearly noticed the difference. Those kind eyes raked over her appearance, and his mouth curled down at the corners into an expression of distaste.

“What the hell has happened to you? Did someone do that to you?” He sat down beside her, his eyes suddenly too caring and probing, and she avoided looking at him so he wouldn’t see the truth.

“There was… a battle. Do not worry. I made a mistake, so I am leaving to be alone.”

He was silent for a little while. “Not again, Curie. What about your friend? The one who came to find you here last time you were like this?”

Curie just shook her head. She didn’t want to remember the last time. And she certainly didn’t want to remember how she had felt about Amarli. 

“I’m going to buy you some food and a drink,” Big Al said. “And a hotel room. Okay?”

She was too exhausted and hungry to deny him. And she had missed him a lot. There were no words to express how happy she was to not actually be alone, even though solitude had been her intention.

Her burly old friend slid out from beside her and headed over to the bar and Curie buried her head in her hands.

 ---

When she woke up the next morning, and the morning after that, in a dingy Rexford hotel room, without Amarli, Curie cried. She couldn’t seem to stop crying, even though she'd told herself not to. Big Al tried to comfort her whenever it happened, but she wouldn’t tell him why she was so sad. Eventually, she told him of her plans, just to get it off her shoulders.

“I am going home,” she said.

“Really?” His eyes brightened. “To Sanctuary Hills?”

“Non. My real home. The place I belong. Where I will be of real use.”

He sighed. “Curie…”

“Monsieur, you see, I should have never left. I was a machine, and I should have stayed that way. My… ambitions were too large. All I have done in this synthetic body is harm other people and myself.”

He frowned at her. “Curie, are you ever gonna tell me what happened?”

She didn’t reply. And, as usual, he didn’t force her to speak. Big Al had always been respectful with boundaries. Nevertheless, he went with her whenever she left her hotel room, back to acting as her bodyguard. She knew that he would try to leave with her when she announced she was going off alone. Curie wondered how she would leave without him knowing.

The next day, Curie woke up very early in the morning. It was raining again – an irony, she thought of it now, considering her mood – and Big Al had gone somewhere else, apparently satisfied that she was safe at the hotel. She packed up the very few things she had left to herself and disappeared.

Curie was running again before midday. She didn’t expect to ever return to Goodneighbor again.

 ---

Standing with her feet on painted metal, confined like she was in a coffin hundreds of kilometres underground, Curie allowed herself to feel the cold settle in her bones. She allowed herself to feel the hopelessness, and the fear, and the heartache. And she thought of Amarli, telling herself it would be the last time before she got to work and stopped trying to be so human.

The people of Vault 88 had accepted her with open arms, recalling her use in saving that little boy almost a year ago, and the doctors had seemed very interested in putting her to work in their clinic. She would have her own space for a lab. Developing vaccinations was all she would do between now and the end of existence.

It would be… nice. Methodical. Practical. Exactly what she was made for.

Curie pinched at the stretchy material of her new vault suit, not particularly liking how it made her feel even more restricted. She wondered if she could ever be happy here, the same way she was happy back at Sanctuary Hills. Was happiness something she really needed?

The kids in the vault were very interested in her presence, and when she passed them on the way to the clinic, they called her “robot girl” and pointed. Curie wasn’t used to everyone knowing what she was. When she thought about Amarli telling her she must hide, it made her ache with a deep pain she couldn't ignore.

At dinner, she tried to eat alone, but the kids again were too curious to give her space. The little redheaded boy who Amarli had saved – Austin, his name was – looked at her curiously. He had freckles on his face, and even though everything else was completely different, he still reminded her of Shaun. She missed that little boy with all of her heart. She missed his giggle, and how smart he was, and how he hugged her the same way he hugged his real mother. She missed Dogmeat, too, and her own little Angustia, who had found her in a time of need – or had Curie found her? Curie missed Sturges, who had used to cheerfully yell good morning to her when she opened the curtains every day, and even the Longs, although they were quiet and wary of her. She missed Mama Murphy and her tales and strange predictions, even though Mama Murphy was dead now.

Most of all, she missed the woman who had introduced her to all of it. The Commonwealth legend known by all for her selflessness, intelligence and influence. And her apparent immortality, as she constantly found her way out of one certain death situation only to be thrown into another. The most heroic human being ever, Curie had always thought, and she had records upon records of heroes throughout human history proving their worth. Amarli was up there among the mythical men and women who had only changed the world in tall tales, not real life.

“Hey, did you hear me?” the little boy asked, dragging Curie from her thoughts.

“Hmm?” She was hardly listening.

“I said, you’ve been outside the vault for a year. Why would you come back?”

Curie didn’t quite know how to answer. Children were always so blunt, which she wasn't used to. When he still stared at her pointedly, she sighed. “This is where I belong.”

“Okay…”Austin frowned as if he didn’t quite believe her. One of his friends – the shorthaired girl with dark eyes – seemed to brighten up. “What about you tell us a story?”

“What story?”

“Have you ever fought a Deathclaw?” another kid asked.

“Did you go to Diamond City? I’ve heard it’s supposed to be super massive!”

Curie sat back, eyes wide as the children continued to pepper her with questions, some of the adults from other tables glancing over curiously. And then, even through her sadness, she found herself smiling. She liked telling stories. By passing on her knowledge, she would educate them about the world outside the vault.

“All right,” she said quietly. “But you must not interrupt me. I will tell you about the supervillain of the Commonwealth, a man who called himself the Mechanist. And how me and my friend defeated him in the end.”

“Ooooh! I have those comics!” Austin exclaimed. “But you’ve gotta tell us a real story, lady.”

“This is real. You must be prepared for a great many twists,” she added. “Especially about the Mechanist himself.”

“Okay, start then,” the girl said impatiently.

“It begins here, in this vault.” Curie could see it in her minds eye: a woman staring at her through the fogged window of the research lab. A voice as smooth as velvet. “I was a robot in the beginning. My friend – you remember her as Amarli – helped me find a human body so I could improve my scientific understanding. But before she did that, she saved you.”

Austin nodded when she pointed at him, excited to be in the story. “I remember.”

“She is a very powerful woman. Of the Commonwealth Minutemen, she is the General. And a whole army lies under her command...”

Curie lost herself in the story, describing Amarli as best she could and seeing the enraptured gazes of the children before her. For the first time in weeks, she felt all right.

She could have a life here, in Vault 81.

 ---

Several more weeks passed and Curie began to lose herself in the routine of life inside the vault. She grew to know the doctors and the other vault dwellers, but most of them were wary of her. They didn’t like robots – didn’t trust them. Only the children were friendly.

Curie didn’t mind. She spent most of her mealtimes telling stories, and when she was alone she was thinking about Amarli and wondering where she was. She wondered if Amarli had even tried to look for her. She wondered how long it had taken for her to give up. If she would ever give up.

Sometimes Curie imagined she heard her voice, or felt her touch, and she would wake up violently and stare around her quarters only to find she was still alone. And she felt all over again that feeling of immense loss, like she was hollow on the inside. Most of the time, she wished she could go back to Goodneighbor and tell Doctor Amari to return her consciousness to a robot body.

But she didn’t leave. She stayed, because Vault 81 was suddenly all she had left, and she didn’t want to lose another stable thing.

Soon enough, Curie noticed a month had passed. She had drawn a picture of Sanctuary Hills and plastered it to her wall so she could stare at it before she went to sleep. It wasn’t anything like the real thing, but it worked well enough that she managed to dream of her old home on most nights. Curie imagined the bubbling sounds of the small stream down the hill from the house where Shaun and Dogmeat normally played, and the hammering of roof tiles across the street, and voices through the walls as a familiar song was played on the radio. She smelled grass and flowers, and the shampoo and soap she and Amarli both used – above all, she smelled lavender. Amarli’s smell. The scent which had sent her drifting off easily to sleep most nights. It had made her feel safe, especially when she was in Amarli’s arms.

When she woke up each morning, Curie’s memories were distant and all she could smell was generic fabric softner and plastic. She began to miss the smells of soil, grass and rain. Even the more human odors of sweat and mud, which she had grown used to, were now lost. Everyone in the vault was sterile. She missed the feeling of the sun on her skin, and even the rain. She missed human contact, having someone touch her even casually, grounding her to reality. She missed when Amarli would place a kiss on the back of her neck while she was working and stroke her shoulders. When Shaun would hug her or take her hand and drag her out to the garden to play.

Oh, to go back to that life… she would be happy for the rest of eternity. Curie sometimes wondered if she would still be welcomed with open arms if she were to give up on this new life she had chosen and headed back to Sanctuary Hills with her tail between her legs. She wondered why she had even chosen to do this sometimes, and whether this was yet another error in her system. She’d loved Amarli and she’d loved her life. Although she had wanted to improve herself and protect herself from hurt and danger, she sometimes wished she had chosen to at least stay for a little bit. To sit by Amarli’s side as she returned to the world of the living and apologize for what she’d done. Curie knew Amarli wouldn’t have blamed her for a thing, and she also knew that if she had told Amarli her fears, she’d have been discouraged from trying to run away again. And she would have stayed and been happy.

But Curie had not done any of those things. She was here, in her nightmare, and she’d chosen this for the sake of safety. And there was no going back now. She’d imprisoned herself here. All she could do was sleep, eat and work, and dream of Amarli. 

Maybe, just maybe, there would be no savior this time, and Curie would truly remain in the vault for eternity.

She wondered if she would end her own life before that could happen.

She hoped not.

Chapter Text

Curie was put out of her misery sooner than expected. She’d been eating breakfast in the cafeteria when there was a voice over the intercom from the Overseer, calling for her in particular and saying she was needed at the entrance of the vault.

So far, Curie had not needed to return to the surface at all, so the order came as a shock to her. She puzzled over it as she returned her tray and walked to the elevator. No one else was traveling up with her, which was also strange, as no one really travelled to the surface alone; there was always at least one security guard or another vault dweller. Finally, Curie decided it must be an issue with someone from the outside. A new stranger needed screening and perhaps Curie was the only scientist free to do it. She didn’t mind a change in her work, especially since she had been sitting in her little office every single day from nine until five.

She stepped out of the lift and found the Overseer standing right outside waiting for her. The woman’s face was frowning slightly, but she smiled when she saw Curie.

“You called for me, Madame?”

“Yes… actually someone else requested to see you.” The Overseer cleared her throat. “And as she’s somewhat of a hero to the people of the vault, I could hardly refuse.”

Curie felt her chest tighten. “Who?”

The Overseer gestured with her head towards the vault’s entrance and Curie began moving before her mind had even caught up with what was happening, nearly sprinting around the corner.

She came to a sudden halt.

When she saw Amarli, it was as if space and time became the finest point imaginable, as if time had collapsed into one tiny speck and exploded at light speed. It was as if her universe began and ended with that woman. She could run forever, search forever, but in the end, every path would lead right back to her. Amarli was facing away, arms folded and talking to one of the vault dwellers who was stacking suits and staring at her like she had a third eye. She had come here against all odds, to the very place Curie had been certain no one would expect her to be. There was no hiding or pretending she wasn’t here; clearly, there was nowhere she could go where Amarli wouldn’t follow her.

Taking a deep breath, Curie took a step forward. “Madame,” she called softly. She hadn’t said that word in so long, even though it had used to be her rule of respect. Now, it felt awkward coming from her lips, as if they were strangers and Curie was beneath her. It also recalled a sense of nostalgia as she remembered the days of summer spent in Sanctuary Hills with Amarli and Shaun, getting to know the both of them.

Amarli turned. Their eyes met with an abruptness that sent tingles shooting down Curie’s spine. She lacked breath all of a sudden, and the will to speak. They stared at each other in an odd manner, as if it were a silent argument, and Curie didn’t look away until tears arose. As if remembering why she was there, Amarli walked quickly to stand in front of her. She blurred when she came so close.

“Curie,” she said, her voice soft and concerned. “I… thought I’d find you here.” Curie registered her hesitance with a feeling akin to pain. For months, they had been apart. Curie had vanished like a ghost – exactly her intention. It was likely that Amarli still did not know why.

Curie didn’t know what to say. Should she apologize for having left? It seemed strange to apologize for something she had ultimately done for her own good. Her decision had been simple; leave, and never return. But she hadn’t hidden herself well enough – or she hadn’t wanted to – because now Amarli had seen her and certainly would not let her go.

Then Amarli asked an unanswerable question: “Are you okay?”

Curie chewed on her lip. She felt her heart rate speeding, thumping inside her chest. The truth was of course that she was not ‘okay’. If she was okay, she would not be here, in a place that made her feel terrified and claustrophobic. If she was okay, she wouldn’t have torn her own heart out just to protect the life she had almost lost a month ago. To her robotic mind, the solution had been so simple: Amarli had almost died, and the emotions had been too much. Her existence, as it had always been, provided vulnerability to the people around her. Remove herself from the equation, and they would no longer make drastic decisions for her sake. She could take care of herself and focus on developing her medicine, which had been her purpose all along. But while her mind reckoned it was the only way, Curie’s humanity had astounded her with the pain it felt. She had slept barely a couple of hours at a time, had been unwilling to eat, and refused to let herself feel content. She would never be content, not when she was far away from everything that made her feel happy.

“Curie…” Amarli reached to touch her cheek. With a flinch, Curie drew away quickly like a frightened animal. She burned with shame at refusing to accept Amarli’s touch, but she couldn’t help it. She could not let her mind be changed.

Amarli stared at her with hurt in her eyes. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “I’ve been looking for you for so long. I was terrified I wouldn’t find you!”

“You should not search.” Curie kept her voice low. “My duty was never to succumb to my humanity, Madame. I needed it for my research, but I knew I could not let it overwhelm me. But it did. And it almost ruined everything.” She raised her chin, hoping to look defiant. “I will not let it happen again.”

“I don’t understand,” Amarli said simply, her eyes beginning to shine – with tears, Curie imagined. It made her chest clench again, because she knew that Amarli never cried if it wasn’t for good reason. “I don’t know what you’re so scared of. Or… guilty of. Whatever made you want to leave, I just… I don’t understand.”

Curie sighed. “You would not,” she said.

“It was Isabel Cruz.” Amarli stared at her, as if willing her to understand. “She shot me. And she died for it. You were always there to help me; without you, I would have…”

Curie’s gaze hardened. “Deceased? Perhaps this is true, Madame, but if not for my interference, the bullet would not have been fired at all.”

“Maybe it would have. Still, you brought me back.” Amarli tried to properly meet her eyes; Curie looked away. “Everyone who was there that day, who saw it happen, they’ve all described it to me a hundred times. They’ve asked about you, launched search parties to find you, said they would help to make sure you’re safe. They’re calling you a hero, Curie. The local Commonwealth people who have heard about the battle are calling you the ‘Angel of Death’.”

“These titles mean nothing.” Curie was created as a database, a robot, a scientist. She was no hero.

“I don’t know why you’re struggling with this, why you think any of it is your fault,” Amarli growled in frustration.

Curie’s lips trembled. “I brought you back because it was my duty. Because you should not have tried to protect me – you always try to protect me, and it never ends well.”

All of a sudden, Amarli’s face was blurry again, and Curie realized she was crying. And she hated Amarli’s reaction to it, her eyebrows drawing together and her hands clenching as if she wanted to touch her but was trying to respect her boundaries.

“Because I love you.”

Curie’s breath caught and she couldn’t speak anymore. Of course, there was that. But she had already decided that Amarli’s love was the one sacrifice she would make.

“I always protect the people I love,” Amarli said solemnly. “I’ve loved you for a long time. And I think I always will. So don’t do this to me, Curie. Please – I need you, and I want you to come home with me.”

“You do not need me.”

“Oh, really? So you think you’re doing this, staying in this terrible place – a place that used to be in your nightmares – for me, to help me?” Amarli seemed to cut herself off before she could get too heated, instead muttering “idiot” under her breath and shaking her head.

Curie had never been called stupid before. She moved to retaliate, but Amarli spoke again: “You should know everything about me, Curie. Ever since I woke up in this goddamned wasteland, I’ve felt alone. Everyone I knew and loved – gone. I found sex, drugs and alcohol, and I thought I was happy. I wasn’t. I stopped with the chemicals, I made a hard decision and got rid of the Institute, and I found my son. Again, I thought I was happy. I wasn’t.” She levelled Curie with a hard look. “The first time I was happy – actually happy, without any sort of doubt – do you know when that was?”

Curie bowed her head.

“I was happy when I had you, you idiot.” Her voice broke. “I was happy, because I have never loved someone before the way I love you, and I knew that somewhere along the way I had made some right decisions or I may never have met you. You changed my life, Curie. For the better. You changed Shaun’s life, too. You have made my family feel whole again, and I never thought that was possible.”

Curie couldn’t meet her eyes, worried she would cry even harder. “Is this true?” she asked softly.

“Yes, it is. So I’m sure you understand why I think you’re being stupid, Curie. You’re not protecting me, you’re not making a sacrifice for the greater good, you’re just making me miserable. And you’re making yourself miserable. Since when did running away do you any good before? Why did you think this was the only answer?” Amarli shook her head angrily. “Mama Murphy was right. I mean… she was full of shit most of the time, obviously, but one of her so-called prophecies did come true. She said you had the power to change everything in the end. Remember? If you hadn’t been there, maybe I would have died after all. You were there, and you saved me. I save you, you save me – that’s how it’s always been. That’s just how we are.”

Curie finally looked up at her, heart in her throat. She truly struggled to find a counterpoint, to shoot back and protect her motives for being here, but somehow Amarli had seen right through her. She always had.

Sometimes Curie forgot that Amarli had been trained as a lawyer and it was particularly hard to win any argument against her, even when her own mind contained a whole database full of facts and logic.

“You still love me, don’t you?”

Curie bunched her hands into fists. “I love you very much,” she said quietly. “You have consumed my mind since you freed me from this place. I wake up and I go to sleep thinking of you. When I work, I cannot help but be distracted by you. Sometimes I cry because I cannot stop loving you, and it hurts so very much.”

“I don’t want you to be in pain,” Amarli said, her eyes soft. “Are you worried it’ll only end badly?”

Cautiously, Curie nodded her head.

“I told you I was scared once, remember?” Amarli narrowed her eyes. “And you told me that even if I hadn’t faced my fear in the past, I could face it now. So I did. Curie, you have absolutely no reason not to do the same thing.”

“This is… a valid point,” Curie said reluctantly, realizing she was right.

Amarli stepped forwards, reaching for her hands. The touch of her skin made Curie’s mind spiral, as she had yearned for this feeling for so long. She had craved Amarli more than anything else.

Amarli gently uncurled Curie’s fists, slipping their fingers together. And then, from her pocket, she pulled a small pouch tied with red string. Her face didn’t change as she untied it one-handed, and Curie watched with slight awe as she emptied the pouch out into her palm. A single ring fell out, surprisingly warm against Curie’s skin, and she stared at it in disbelief. A… wedding ring, she registered. Amarli slid her hand over the top, hiding it from view, and Curie automatically met her eyes.

“If you love me, come home,” she pleaded softly. “Face your fear. The Mechanist is gone, and there won’t be another big danger in the Commonwealth for a long time. We’re stronger than ever.”

Curie stared at her, unable to look away. All the while, she felt the coolness of the ring clasped between their two hands. She tried to imagine what it meant.

“This ring belonged to Nate,” she said suddenly, understanding.

“I kept it.” Amarli nodded. “Maybe it felt like I was taking control of my life again, not needing a husband to control me, to look after me, to make my life work. When I had his ring, it felt like I was completely in power and no one could hold me down.”

“So…”

“I want you to have it.”

“Why?” Curie looked at her in confusion.

“Because I know you wouldn’t control me. And I’m not being forced to make a decision. I want you to have it, Curie. This is my choice, for once. If I was going to give Nate’s ring to anyone, it would be you.”

Curie blushed. Her mind whirled. She was so caught up with the feeling in her chest that she could hardly breathe. “Oh,” she said simply.

Amarli’s eyes turned sad. “You’re already my family, Curie, so what more is there for me to say?”

The emotion that accompanied this conversation was simply too much to bear. “Oh, I–” She paused. “I-”

“I’ll leave, if you want me to, and you never have to see me again,” Amarli said, catching sight of the expression on her face. “But keep it – the ring. Just keep it.”

“Non. Do not leave me!” Curie said it mostly out of desperation, and watched as Amarli’s eyebrows rose. “And I will not leave you,” Curie added quickly. “Not ever again.”

Those dark eyebrows rose even higher. Amarli looked truly shocked. “Really?”

“You have convinced me sufficiently, yes.”

A splutter, and then, “I… thought it would be much harder to convince you.”

Curie frowned at her. “You have made some valid points. I have found it very difficult to create an argument based solely on logic.” She slid the ring onto her fourth finger on her left hand, where humans commonly wore their rings of promise or engagement. She looked up at Amarli again, waiting for her to say something else, but she seemed lost for words.

“Just… just like that?” Amarli stuttered. “You’re not even gonna tell me your ‘purpose’ is more important, or whatever?”

Curie suddenly realized how anxious Amarli had been prior to this conversation. Months of searching for her loved one, scouring the Commonwealth, hoping she wasn’t dead or enslaved somewhere. Confused as to why she had disappeared in the first place, why she hadn’t been there when they returned to Sanctuary Hills in victory. Why she’d given up a seemingly perfect life just to live in the vault which had created her nightmares. All of this… she’d thought it was done. She’d thought Curie had dismissed her, and the connection between them, as if it mattered little in comparison to her scientific progress. Well, that was true, of course. Curie had decided her programming was much more important than her feelings. 

“I am sorry,” Curie said. She reached for Amarli’s face and held her, looking into her eyes. “Some decisions, for me, are made because they are logically correct, even if they are morally corrupt. It is how my mind is made.”

“…I know.” Amarli’s eyes were shining with tears again. “I just… I was so worried. Everywhere I thought you’d be, you weren’t. The trail kept going cold.”

“I was also anxious. I planned eventually to leave the Commonwealth entirely, so you would never find me. I knew you were looking for me, and I did not want to see you. But leaving here scared me.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I thought, with more distance, my feelings for you may become… less important.”

“Have you never heard the phrase, ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’?” Amarli pointed out, smirking.

“I did not believe it.” Curie’s heart ached, even touching Amarli’s skin, and it felt like a drug having been administered after months of staying clean. She imagined this was what an addict must feel like. “But it is true. I am glad for the ring.”

“You’d better not lose it.” Amarli tilted her forwards until their foreheads were pressed together, and pulled her in close. “If you lose it, I’ll never forgive you.”

“It is now my most prized possession.” Curie rubbed at the metal fondly. She imagined the previous wearer, the man who had tried to save Amarli from herself, and from her family. It seemed strange that Curie could live up to that. But she would try. “I… am sorry. I am very sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“I know,” Amarli said. And then she closed the distance between them and kissed her, and Curie melted into it like butter. All of her anxiety was gone the moment Amarli’s hands were in her hair, and in hardly a second… she was happy. Content. Everything was all right.

Even in the middle of a Vault 81 foyer; even though she had thought she would dedicate the rest of her synth life to science; even though she had been convinced she was too much of a machine to feel and deserve proper happiness that only humans came by… Curie realized that she had never felt more human in her life.

 ***

1 MONTH LATER

Curie struck the match and lowered it into the pumpkin, lighting the single candle Shaun had placed in there before replacing the lid. It had a spooky grin and slanted eyes but Curie thought it was cute. Angustia, however, ran for her life whenever she saw it.

“Do you know the origins of Halloween, mon cherie?” Curie asked absent-mindedly.

Shaun shook his head.

“The Celtic festival of Samhain was celebrated between the end of the harvest and the beginning of the winter, a time where they believed the ghosts of the dead would return to Earth,” she recalled. “They would wear costumes to scare off the ghosts and tell each other’s fortunes.”

“What about trick-o’-treating?”

“This is also an old story,” she said, waving a hand. “Do you believe in ghosts, Shaun?”

“No. Do you?”

“Science has no evidence supporting the existence of spirits.”

“That’s true. But loads of people believe in ghosts anyway.”

“Ignorance is a hallmark of humanity.”

Amarli let out a heavy sigh, interrupting them. She was sitting in the living room with Dogmeat’s head in her lap, stroking his nose. “Can you guys have a nice, light-hearted conversation for once? I’d like to think of happy things at this time of year.”

“Okay.” Curie tried to think of something happy. “Did you know that during the eighteenth century, there were Halloween traditions for a woman to follow that would help her find a husband?”

Amarli glanced at her, amused, as Curie sat down on the couch across from her. “Traditions like what?”

“Bob for apples. Throw apple peels over the shoulder. Stand in a dark room with a candle in front of the mirror.”

“Sounds stupid.” She let out a derisive snort. “Humans are strange.”

“Yes, I agree.”

Amarli shoved Dogmeat off her lap and stood up. “Shaun, do me a favour. Take the dogs out to bother Sturges instead of us?”

He huffed. “Why?”

“The man needs attention. He’s been on bed rest for way too long.”

“But why me?”

Amarli shot him a look. “Shaun. Just do what I say.”

Watching the exchange made Curie puzzled; Amarli wasn’t normally so stern with her son. And there was no real reason he should need to leave the house and see Sturges. Sturges was back on his feet already and seemed in good spirits – at least, as far as Curie was concerned.

She watched Shaun leave with the dogs at his heels and then turned to Amarli. “Is there something wrong?”

“Definitely.” Amarli took her hand, and it was only when she was being led to the bedroom that Curie realized what was happening and laughed.

“Oh. You could not wait until the night?”

“No.”

Amarli pushed her into the bedroom and then, as soon as the door was closed, she was pressing her against it with a kiss. Curie whimpered a little as she felt a hand already on her chest, another in her shoulder-length hair. She quickly began to unbutton Amarli’s shirt but Amarli’s hands suddenly covered hers, stopping her progress. Her head was filled with heated thoughts, and she almost let out a sound of frustration as she looked up at the other woman. Amarli let go of her hands and walked her back towards the mattress until her calves hit the edge of it. “Just lay down,” she said softly. “I want to touch you first.”

Curie shivered all over just at those words and immediately did as she was told. Her body was reacting with an extreme intensity to Amarli’s presence. Amarli crawled onto the bed beside her and immediately leaned to kiss her again, her lips full and deliciously warm. Her tongue teased at Curie’s bottom lip, and at the same time one of her hands touched the base of her neck and moved down. Curie’s face heated, and she reached for Amarli desperately, wanting to touch her in turn. With lightning-quick reflexes, Amarli pulled back and caught her hands, pinning them against the mattress. “Wait,” she said softly.

Curie wriggled a little bit, pleased despite her rising frustration. She allowed Amarli to kiss her again, deeper this time, trying to return it as best she could, following the movement of the other woman’s lips. It got considerably more heated as Amarli’s hand reached her breast over the t-shirt and lightly circled its shape; overwhelmed, Curie immediately grabbed her waist and tried to tug her closer.

Amarli sighed and pulled back. “Do I seriously have to tie you down to get my way?”

Curie dropped her hands back on the bed and said, “Maybe. No. Please, you may continue.”

“Don’t worry about touching me – I just want to make you feel good.”

“But I want to touch you,” Curie insisted.

Amarli grinned down at her. “Well, you can wait your turn.”

She then swung one elbow over Curie’s body so she was partially on top of her, and tucked a knee between her legs. With her heart beating frantically, Curie gasped at the feeling of Amarli’s lips on her neck where she was most sensitive. A hand stroked at her hair and cradled her face. And then it was back over her chest, squeezing lightly, and she arched her back towards it a little. Amarli sat up and tucked her fingers under the hem of Curie’s t-shirt, pulling it up to expose her tummy. Curie watched her as she worked with experience, her lips lowering to kiss a line from her bra to her navel. She knew exactly what she was doing, and Curie knew absolutely nothing. Curie didn’t have time to feel embarrassed about this, however; she had a feeling that Amarli was glad to have the upper hand.

Surprising her, Amarli swept her tongue along her waistband, grinning as Curie tensed up and squirmed beneath her. She kissed her again, sucking lightly at the skin so that feeling arose; Curie felt herself heating, pooling between her thighs. Amarli’s fingers followed where her tongue had been, tracing the line of Curie’s tummy until it reached her bellybutton, raising goosebumps in her wake. When Amarli lifted her to sit up and remove her shirt, she didn’t hesitate for a moment. Amarli took off her own shirt, too, and Curie was awed by the sight of her curves. She instinctively reached out a hand again, but Amarli tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. Curie could almost hear her saying, Seriously?

“I am sorry,” she said quickly, hand dropping back onto the bed.

Amarli chuckled and pulled Curie into her arms, straddling her completely now, and kissed her again. She dragged her teeth down over her jaw, kissed her collarbone, her stomach, her bellybutton… and then began to pull Curie’s pants down. She hardly dared to move, not wanting this to stop. Not being allowed to touch was actually even more tantalizing than being able to do what she wanted.

When Amarli settled between her legs, she shivered and shifted her hips a little. A hand pressed against her, pushing her back down onto the mattress.

“Think you could stay still?” Amarli asked slyly, kissing the inside of her thigh.

Curie whimpered at the sensation. “No,” she said honestly.

“Try.”

And then Amarli was touching her and Curie let out a shuddering breath, pressing both hands to her face and trying her best not to move her body at all. It was hard. It felt so good that her hips already were lifting off the bed again. Amarli didn’t stop, however. She increased the pressure and added a finger and suddenly it was already too much – Curie reached a hand down and buried her fingers in Amarli’s hair, trying to tell her to pause. The other woman immediately pulled away and smirked up at her. “Already?”

“Please, not-not so fast,” Curie panted.

“If you promise not to move, I’ll make this last as long as you want it to.”

Curie squeezed her eyes shut, suddenly worried that she would orgasm without Amarli even touching her. Eventually, the feeling faded a little and she leaned up on her elbows. “Okay,” she agreed.

Amarli smiled at the challenge in her voice and lowered herself again. Immediately, Curie’s hips flinched towards her. Amarli did something with her tongue then that made flames of heat lick through her entire body, and Curie moaned softly, and suddenly she didn’t care about coming too fast; it just felt so good, and she loved Amarli taking control – she loved Amarli so much – and she was going to-

Amarli pulled away again and stared up at her pointedly, and Curie bit her lip so hard that it almost bled, teetering just on the edge. It was curious, how her body was able to feel so much pleasure that it almost seemed like pain.

“I thought you were meant to be good at following instructions,” Amarli said. She stroked her thighs again, just the feeling of her breath against sensitive skin almost driving Curie too far. So she tried to move away, to recall some sense of sanity, but Amarli’s grip held fast like iron. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said wickedly. “Let’s try this instead: if you want me to let you come, you have to stay still.”

“Why?” Curie sighed.

Amarli laughed. “Do you have any idea how…? Never mind. Just sit back.”

Curie did as she was told, laying her head back, and tried to breathe slowly as Amarli again settled between her legs and began to touch her with long, slow strokes. She moaned again but this time managed to keep her hips still – and, impossibly, it felt even better. The lack of control was… was… oh, it was so wonderful. It was frustrating, but wonderful. The tongue, and the soft lips, and the painful slowness of it… Curie could already feel herself on the edge again.

“Good girl,” Amarli whispered against her. And then, true to her word, she moved her lips and tongue in such a stunningly pleasurable way that Curie came abruptly from the feeling. She cried out, and her body seemed to fill with lightening, and she lost track of where her body was, and what she was doing.

She sensed Amarli slowing as she shuddered, bringing her down from her high of pleasure. And then, when she opened her eyes and looked down, her whole body feeling like jelly, she saw Amarli gazing at her with an expression of awe.

“See? That was so hot.”

Curie managed a small giggle. “That was… very good. Very…”

“Yeah, it was.” Amarli climbed up her body and kissed her cheek. She nuzzled into her neck. “Do you mind if…?”

“Can I touch you?” Curie interrupted eagerly. She was tired, but she was always eager to make Amarli feel good. There was a sharp intake of breath by her ear as the other woman seemed to think about it. Then she shook her head decisively. “No, you can’t. But you can watch.”

Curiously, she turned her head and saw Amarli’s hand dip beneath the band of her underwear. She swallowed, transfixed by its movement and also on the expression on her partner’s face. Amarli had her bottom lip trapped beneath her teeth, eyes half-lidded, and Curie so desperately wanted to kiss her and help in any way she could. But she knew Amarli wanted her to stay still.

She watched without looking away, feeling more and more frustrated about being still while Amarli touched herself. Eventually, when she saw she was getting close, Curie shifted towards her and tentatively reached out to touch her breast, gently in case she was told to stop. It was enough, apparently. Amarli leaned into her body as she came undone, letting loose a very faint moan into her hair – just the sound made Curie skin tingle and she immediately reached out to touch Amarli’s moving hand, applying some pressure to help her. It was as if Amarli had forgotten her instructions, because she kissed Curie immediately, and seemed to peak all over again. Curie touched her gently until she was sure it was over and then pulled the other woman into her arms, smiling gleefully.

“I think that was good, yes?”

“Oh, do you?” Amarli stroked a thumb over her cheekbone, looking at her adoringly. Curie allowed her to turn her face, eager for another kiss. She would worship this woman much like humans liked to worship their gods if Amarli let her. Curie would forfeit anything, in this moment, to simply spend the rest of eternity like this.

Amarli grabbed her hand then, bringing Curie’s fingers to her mouth, and kissed the ring on her fourth finger. Looking at it absently, Curie suddenly said, “I have a question, if you please.”

“Fire away.”

“Am I your fiancée? Or your wife?”

A pause. “I guess it depends.” Amarli looked at her amusedly. “You can be my wife if you want.”

“The human tradition is to have a big ceremony,” Curie said. “But I do not need one. I am happy to simply be… whatever you want me to be.”

Amarli nodded. “Had one with Nate and it wasn’t all that great. I think a big ceremony is out of the picture.”

“So… I am your wife, then? It is so simple?”

Kissing her hair, Amarli glanced at her Pip-Boy on the nightstand to see the time and then quickly climbed to her feet and began to collect her clothes. “Yes. Simple. And might I ask my wife to please get dressed? Think I heard Shaun come back in.”

Curie’s eyes widened at the thought of Shaun finding them like this and how embarrassing it would be and she hurriedly rolled off the bed to find her own clothes as well.

 ---

Amarli had MacCready’s body buried in Sanctuary Hills after the battle against the Mechanist. She’d always thought of him as one of her greatest friends and she wanted him to have a nice ceremony. Whenever she visited Nate’s grave, she saw MacCready’s as well, and she remembered his little boy and the stories he’d used to tell. His stupid jokes and how good he was with a rifle. Mama Murphy, of course, was buried there as well. Today, Amarli laid a hand on her grave and thanked her for being wise rather than crazy, because there must have been some truth in her prophecies.

Valentine hadn’t been able to have his arm reattached. Nevertheless, he’d returned to Diamond City to continue running his detective agency, and Amarli still heard updates from him every other week. He seemed to be doing well. Strong had disappeared again on his solo mission to find ‘the milk of human kindness’ and Amarli assumed he was just fine, too. Preston, Ronnie and the rest of the Minutemen had returned to the Castle and their respective settlements, each of them prepared to spread the newest story about their great General. Now, months later, Amarli was known for yet another heroic tale. Piper Wright came all the way up to Sanctuary Hills just to write a story about her, and she received gifts whenever traders came through: normally supplies, food, toys, and letters. Curie, too, got a great many letters.

Now that Curie was back, and Amarli felt whole again, she tried convincing her new wife to return to science. The Commonwealth clearly needed her expertise, and now that they knew her super stimpacks worked after saving Amarli’s life, it was time that they became more easily available. The possibilities were endless; Curie’s invention was thought to be capable of greatly improving the quality of life and reducing the dangerous effects of radiation for good. It could take years to produce enough of the medicine to make a difference, but the Minutemen were pleased with the potential.

Almost a year after the battle against the Mechanist, Curie had finally perfected the stimpacks for use both in clinics and on the battlefield. While a lot of these were sent to various settlements via trade routes, Curie was forced to travel solo around the Commonwealth to teach doctors and scavengers alike about the stimpack’s many uses. Her missionary-like trip took several months. Amarli missed her like hell, but she kept herself busy with her own inventions. When Curie finally returned, it was with rosy cheeks and even longer hair than the last time Amarli had seen her, and with plenty of stories to tell. They spent perhaps two entire days in bed, wrapped up in each other. Amarli loved that Curie, despite spending over a year now in a human body, still acted and talked like a robot sometimes. And she loved that Curie was so smart, and so unknowingly funny, and so unbelievably kind. She definitely liked Curie’s longer hair – it made her look older, somehow. More like a Commonwealth local.

All that remained was one question Amarli had been trying to avoid: how long would this last? How long until Amarli began to look old, and began to become weak, and her time left with Curie and Shaun was limited? How long until she was dead, leaving the two people she loved most in the world behind?

She knew that Curie adored her, and would always adore her, no matter what she looked like, but Amarli didn’t want to grow old. Not when she’d be the only one doing it. She wanted to be there for her family forever. While she still continued with her inventions, Amarli’s attention slowly focused on one thing: finding out how exactly she could achieve immortality. The Institute was gone and along with it the technology that allowed exact synth replicas of humans to be made; and besides, Amarli didn’t want to be replaced, because she’d still have to die. She had to find a way to extend the life she already had.

Finally, one morning when she woke early and was lying awake thinking nervously about the issue of her own growing older – her birthday was in a couple months, in fact – she let her eyes grace the portrait which hung by the door. A portrait of Jack Cabot, an intelligent man whom she’d let die due to a silly mistake. And yet…

Even in tragedy, there could be a silver lining.

His family had been plagued by an ancient artefact that Lorenzo Cabot, an archaeologist and the patriarch of the family, had found a long, long time ago. The Cabot family had achieved immortality for centuries through the use of that artefact, but all at the expense of Lorenzo’s life. He had been controlled by whatever power was held within and hence his son had kept him trapped, only using him when more of the immortal power was needed. Even Jack’s use of the artefact had been immoral, but Amarli made the ultimate mistake when she set Lorenzo loose and he killed his entire family. He didn’t lay a finger on her, and he’d promised her a favour if she ever needed one. If she wanted, he could provide her with the same serum which had kept the Cabot family alive for centuries. All she had to do was ask.

But… it could be dangerous. Did she really want to risk seeking him out again?

Rolling onto her side, Amarli watched Curie’s sleeping face and tried to imagine the day she died. She had managed to cheat death so many times that the idea of finally resting in a grave seemed almost ludicrous. This was what she wanted; she knew it for sure. She wanted to be with Curie forever. And she wanted Shaun to know she would always be there for him, no matter what.

“Hey,” she whispered. She reached out and stroked at Curie’s hair, smiling when her wife murmured sleepily. A hand rested against her waist and squeezed lightly, but Curie went still again, apparently returning to sleep. Amarli chuckled. After a moment’s thought, she disentangled herself and got out of bed. She’d leave a note or something saying she was leaving. Curie already knew she was off to one of the inner city settlements today. She didn’t need to know about the detour to the Cabot house until tomorrow when Amarli returned. There was some danger involved, sure, and they were very honest with each other about pretty much everything nowadays, but Amarli didn’t want Curie to worry. Or come with her. As lovely and empathetic as Curie could be, she just didn’t get it.

Amarli dressed as quietly as she could in the dark and, after grabbing a couple mutfruits from the kitchen, she strapped on all her armour, made sure her weapons were packed, and let herself out of the house. She was determined that she would not return empty-handed.

Chapter Text

Lorenzo Cabot was the oldest living man in the Commonwealth.

He had been born on the 28^th of March in the year 1835. From the earliest days in his youth he had taken an interest in archaeology and, specifically, ancient civilizations that predated the earliest traces of humankind. For years, he was intrigued by the lost city of Ubar which appeared in many legends and was said to have been founded over four millennia before the first human civilizations. In the 1890s, he bid farewell to his family as he left on a steamship on an expedition to the Middle East. After all the research and dedication, he found himself in the very place he had dreamed his whole life to find: a ruined city in the Arabian Desert that coincided with the description of Ubar.

As his team of excavators unearthed the site, a strange series of events took place: there was a neverending sandstorm which drove them to shelter and killed their native guide, and when they returned they found that the ruins had been covered again and they had to start over. Despite the setbacks, the excavation project yielded leads and answers to the nature of the city and its long-deceased inhabitants. Lorenzo and his men uncovered plenty of evidence, including a mysterious crown that granted him abilities such as immortality and – though he could hardly believe it – telekinetic powers. However, after placing the crown upon his head and developing these powers, there came the real cost: his sanity. He had still believed there was much more to the buried city, but had it hidden once more to protect its secrets until he was ready to return and uncover them.

In 1898, he returned to his family in Boston. He was 63 years old, and his family quickly had him admitted to Parsons State Insane Asylum for life in order to protect themselves from harm. His son, Jack, was equally as intrigued about the lost city and the artefact his father had found. He dedicated himself to studying it and soon developed a serum derived from his father’s blood which granted the entire family to live for more than four hundred years.

Two centuries after the Great War, when Amarli Lorenzen found herself in the Commonwealth searching for her son, she was conscripted by the family’s right-hand man Edward Deegan as an extra gun. Emogene Cabot had disappeared and a package of the special serum had fallen into the hands of a local Raider gang who had heard of Lorenzo’s powers and wanted the serum for themselves.

Lorenzo promised Amarli that he would reveal his secret to immortality if she freed him, and blinded by her own morals and sense of right and wrong, she did exactly that. She left the asylum aware that she had made the worse choice, but had been so focused on the mission of finding her son that she didn’t think to look back. Lorenzo Cabot returned home and killed his family in revenge for imprisoning him.

Now, as Amarli gazed up at the large house which had once belonged to the entire Cabot family, she felt a sense of dread deep in her gut. She had no idea whether Lorenzo would be here, and she also didn’t know if he’d remember her after all this time. Would he try to kill her? He was perhaps the only possibility of immortality she had left, and she had not forgotten the promise he made; an unlimited supply of his blood. She could not kill him, even if he attacked her. The possibility of being able to live for as long as she wanted to was too important now.

Amarli pressed the button on the intercom and cleared her throat. “Is anyone home?” she asked.

A long, painful silence. After a couple of minutes, she was sure that he was not home after all and she had come all this way for nothing. Where else could he possibly be?

But then there was a crackle of static and a voice snapped, “Who is that? What are you doing outside my house?”

The voice was gruff, and it reminded her vividly of the old man who had been locked inside a glass room, speaking through the wall at her and pleading for his release.

“I don’t know if you remember me,” Amarli said flatly. “But I hope you do. It’s because of me that you’re free.”

Another long pause.

“Ah. You."

"My name's Amarli. I'm here to ask a favor-"

"I can guess what you’re here for," the gruff voice interrupted her. "I’m surprised it took you this long. Most humans wouldn’t dare to turn down the gift of immortality.”

“I thought back then that I would rather die, but I’ve since changed my mind.”

A sinister chuckle. “You can come inside and find me in my office upstairs.”

Amarli knew she shouldn’t trust this man. She remembered Jack telling her he had gone insane. She had freed him anyway. No man should be caged like that, she’d thought, remembering her own experience from Vault 111. Now, again, she wondered why she had made such a dangerous choice.

Regardless of danger, she knew she could not leave here without the serum. She turned the handle and went into the house, surprised to find it looked almost exactly as it had before the Cabots died. Everything was immaculate and clearly expensive, and the rooms were large with vaulted ceilings. An old house, but one which had been carefully maintained for hundreds of years. Amarli felt the acrid taste of regret in her throat as she walked through the lounge to the stairs, hating how silent it was. At the top of the stairs, she passed Jack’s lab, and hated herself even more for how empty it had been left. She wondered if Lorenzo had buried them somewhere, of if he had just left them outside to feed the creatures of the Commonwealth.

Lorenzo’s office was dark, lit only by a lamp on the desk, and when he turned to her she felt as if she was staring into the eyes of death. His face was grey and hollowed, but his eyes held an animated energy which did not suit him at all. He was wearing a black suit, his grey beard neatly trimmed, and the crown still firmly on his head. Pursing his lips, he invited her silently to sit by his desk.

She did.

“I remember my promise,” he said simply. And then he paused and opened what looked like a fridge beneath his desk and drew out a single vial of clear liquid, sliding it across the desk towards her.

She didn’t move to take it.

“With Jack’s notes, I was able to make more of the serum from my blood,” the old man explained. “However, to avoid any of the same mistakes that my son made, I shall only develop one at a time. If you try to sell this, or use it on anybody else, you shall never receive another drop. Do you understand?”

Amarli let her eyes meet his again and immediately regretted it; she felt as if she was being drawn into a black hole from which she would never return. “How long does it last?”

“Even Jack’s notes could not tell me that. But he and his mother and sister were able to take one dose every six months and not age a day.”

“And you’re willing to let me return for another vial every half-year? For… eternity? That wouldn’t bother you?”

He waved a hand. “I have employed several people throughout the Commonwealth to assist me. Should you come for another vial and find I am not here, one of them will give it to you. And don’t even think about tampering with it. I have eyes and ears everywhere in the Commonwealth now. It doesn’t matter who you are, how important or powerful you are – I will find you and make you pay. This is a gift I am giving you, but it is not yours. The power belongs to me.”

Amarli gulped. She didn’t doubt it. Was this really a good idea? Was it a worthy price to pay? She was literally making a deal with the devil.

The old man stared hard at her. “I must warn you. While the serum may not be physically addictive, it could have an effect on you psychologically. My daughter could not go a month without it.”

Amarli didn’t remember Jack ever telling her this, and she stared down at the serum on the edge of the desk with increased hesitance.

“Jack never told you much, did he?” Now Lorenzo was smiling. “They only ever used a diluted form. It halted aging, but it did not provide the incredible strength and damage resistance that I myself have.”

“And this is…?”

“This is undiluted,” he said, tapping the vial. “I am being very generous, so I suggest you are very wise with what you do with it. You may live and look as you do as long as you are taking this serum at regular intervals, and furthermore… you will be a real force to be reckoned with.” He grinned. “Stronger than the strongest man, your bones like iron, and your body almost immune to radiation. Don’t you want to be a god?”

Amarli didn’t move to reply. She had only wanted to live alongside her loved ones for a great while longer, and these extra gifts were overwhelming. Few people would believe that she had super strength, radiation resistance, or immunity to almost every disease in the Commonwealth. Curie specifically would be shocked to find that such a serum existed – one more potent even than the one which she had created. But Lorenzo had said that it could not be sold or tampered with. Which meant that Curie could not take it for testing, or try to reproduce it. If Amarli didn’t live by Lorenzo’s rules, it was likely he would retaliate.

Amarli did not want to be a god. But if that was what it took, and it would keep her alive for longer, then so be it. Should anyone question any of her new powers, she would not provide an answer. She would not tamper or try to trick Lorenzo into giving her more of the serum. For as long as she could, she would abide by his rules.

Curie wouldn’t like this, but it wasn’t her choice to make.

Hesitantly, Amarli reached forward and took the vial in her hand, taking her bag off and sliding it into the middle pocket. Lorenzo watched with a cold smile on his face.

“Thank you,” she said mechanically.

“I will see you when you return in a few months, I suppose,” Lorenzo said with a haughty nod. “Unless you change your mind, of course.”

Amarli wondered if that was a possibility. She had no idea what the serum even felt like once it was running in her veins and had become part of her, but she had a feeling that once she took her first dose, she wouldn’t be able to go back.

Hopefully, even if she assumed the same powers as Lorenzo had, she would not go insane.

 ---

When Amarli returned to Sanctuary Hills, she found Curie waiting for her in the front yard. The woman ran over and wrapped both arms around her waist, cuddling in for a moment before tilting back to smile up at her. “The trip was good?”

“Yeah,” Amarli said. She didn’t know how to tell her about the serum, but she knew she’d have to eventually. Her mind had been completely occupied by the little vial in her bag for days.

Curie went on her tiptoes to deliver a hasty kiss before taking her by the hand to yank her into the house. She and Shaun had been watching a movie and Codsworth was cleaning all the surfaces in the kitchen. Amarli dropped her bag and her coat, already beginning to unstrap her armour.

“Hey, kid,” she said, leaning to kiss Shaun’s head. “What, no hug?”

Quickly, he turned to give her what she wanted before returning to the TV. She rolled her eyes. Curie was smiling at her brightly and Amarli was pleased to know that her wife was this happy to see her, even after a few days. With Curie’s help, she took her things to their room and sat on the bed to remove the rest of her dust-smeared clothes. It was summer again, and radioactive storms had been kicking up hot clouds of dust which covered her from head to toe whenever she was out in the open. Curie watched her curiously, still smiling, and Amarli winced as she realized that happiness was about to be all but wiped away.

Bending down, she removed the vial from her bag. She hadn’t drunken it yet; even though she didn’t think she had any intention of changing her mind, she knew she had to tell Curie first and ask her opinion. Not only because this was a life they would be sharing, but because Curie was incredibly smart and would be able to tell if something was amiss.

“Come here,” Amarli said, patting the mattress beside her.

Looking confused now, Curie sat down. “Is something wrong?”

“I need to tell you something. Don’t… god, Curie, I don’t want you to worry. I’ve made a decision that’s pretty serious and I just want you to know about it. Okay?”

Curie’s big hazel eyes met hers, full of concern. “What have you done?”

“I made a deal with a very dangerous man.” Amarli winced again. “Brace yourself, because this is going to sound absolutely insane, and you’re pretty unlikely to believe me. But I promise it’s the truth.”

And then she launched into the history of the Cabot house, Lorenzo’s encounter with an ancient alien city, the crown which had given him powers, and the outcome of her work with Jack Cabot. Curie didn’t interrupt her, but her brow had become even more furrowed in a way that Amarli knew meant she was doubtful.

“And you believe this? You believe that… that extra-terrestrial life has existed on this Earth before human civilisation, and these organisms were immortal?”

Amarli shrugged. “I don’t know how much of it I believe. All I know is that I made a terrible mistake back then, when I let Lorenzo go free, but now I actually might have a chance of immortality. Like him. Like his family. I saw the effects of the serum with my own eyes, so I know for sure it works.”

Curie was still frowning, and Amarli reached out to smooth her thumb between her eyebrows, not liking the expression. While Curie leaned into her touch, she didn’t stop glaring at her. “Please don’t be angry at me,” Amarli said quietly. “You know this is something that we had to talk about eventually – something that would bother me eventually. And I thought this was the best solution.”

“There are too many risks with this plan of action,” Curie said dismissively, crossing her arms. “I shall not let you take this serum. Not until it has been tested, and until I myself have verified its background.”

“You can’t, Curie,” Amarli sighed.

“Why not?”

“You can’t tamper with it, or try to reproduce it. Lorenzo gave me very strict guidelines. The serum is meant for me, and only me.”

Now Curie looked incredulous. “This is too unsafe! You cannot-”

She reached for the serum suddenly, but Amarli stood and drew it out of her reach. “Curie, please just listen. I know it seems risky. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all of this before, but it’s my life. You’re a synth, so you already know you’re gonna live forever. I… I just don’t want to…” She hesitated. “…I don’t want to die and leave you and Shaun behind. And I don’t want to grow old while you have to watch. And I don’t want to wait until I have to find a solution, because by then it might be too late.”

Curie’s face seemed to struggle with a number of emotions: confusion, anger, pity. She was wringing her hands. “I want to find an answer,” she said finally, in a small voice. “Please, you at least must let me try. I have come so far in my studies, and this new stimpack has already proven the difference between life and death.”

“Curie, do you really think you could create something that would make me immortal?” Amarli asked. “Do you seriously think that’s possible?”

Curie bit her lip. “There is no previous scientific evidence in any of my records that…” She stopped, realizing she had failed to prove her own point. “I do not know. But I want to try. You know I do not want to have to watch you grow old and die. I love you too much.”

“I can’t wait for a slim possibility, Curie. I’m sorry. This is the best idea I’ve had in ages. Even if I have to deal with a man whose motives are questionable… well, until he does something that makes him an enemy of the Minutemen, this is my key to immortality. I’m going to take this serum for as long as I live, and I’ll never have to grow old. I’ll be there for you.”

“Please do not take it,” Curie insisted, looking at her desperately now. “Mortality is what makes life so valuable! It is not worth the risks!”

“It is to me.”

“Non!” Curie jumped up to reach for the vial again, but Amarli wanted to prove her point. She quickly uncorked the vial and downed the serum in one gulp. It didn’t feel like any drug she’d taken in her life, but she knew as it burned down her throat that it was the beginning of a long road. Should she ever stop taking this serum, she would lose her grip on immortality, and it would be the end. Immediately, she regretted being so impulsive. Nevertheless, she lowered the vial and returned Curie’s gaze resolutely.

Curie was staring at her with a betrayed look in her eye. Without another word, she turned and left the room. Amarli heard the front door slam a few moments later and sighed. She hated that she’d upset Curie, but she’d already known this would be the result of their conversation. Curie would never have agreed to let her take a mysterious substance with god knows what ingredients inside, provided by a man who had murdered his own family, apparently allowing abilities hailed from an ancient alien civilization. There were so many blank spaces, so much that wasn’t known, and while Amarli had accepted them, Curie’s scientific logic meant that she could not possibly justify such a large risk.

Still, she had rarely seen Curie look so hurt before. Hopefully it wouldn’t last for long.

 ---

Amarli didn’t feel any different. She still looked exactly the same, of course, and it wasn’t as if she’d expected to wake up the next morning with super powers. But she had thought there’d be some sort of proof that the serum had worked, or even some deep feeling of guilt or greed that the Cabot family had suffered with. Nothing. It seemed too good to be true.

She longed to talk to someone about it, but she still hadn’t had a proper conversation with Shaun about his being a synth, and Curie was still angry with her. Every hour she spent either staring at her reflection or worrying about the serum’s effects made her more and more anxious that she’d made a terrible mistake. Why couldn’t she have waited a little longer like Curie said? Why couldn’t she have just waited for Curie to find a solution, or let Curie secretly run some tests? It was too late now.

Besides, she was almost certain she believed Lorenzo Cabot’s threat. Had she let Curie tamper with the serum, he might send someone to hurt her. And Amarli would not pay that price. This was her burden – hers alone.

For exactly two days, Curie avoided her. She’d only come into the bedroom to sleep or collect fresh clothes, but she’d never speak to Amarli unless she felt she needed to be polite, and would lay with her back to her. During the day, she’d be out of the house hiking over the hills with Angustia or busying herself with one of the medipack supply deliveries. Whenever Amarli approached her and tried to speak, Curie would get a determined, defiant look on her face and dismiss herself.

Amarli hated it. It made her feel even guiltier, and she had no idea how to get Curie to speak to her again. She wouldn’t apologize, so it seemed there was nothing to say. All she could do was wait.

One night, she couldn’t even bring herself to return to the house. She ate dinner with Sturges instead, and tried to make herself feel content again, the way it had been before she started thinking about immortality. Amarli had been so certain the serum would make her happy, but she just couldn’t be happy when Curie wouldn’t even look at her.

I’ve made the right decision, Amarli told herself. I made it for me, and she’s got to learn to accept that.

But would she?

“So how’re you doin’, Amarli?” Sturges asked, bringing her out of her thoughts.

“Hmm?” The room was dark with the exception of a few lanterns scattered about the floor. Sturges had almost finished his repair of the house, but he hadn’t put much effort into furnishing it yet. The ghostly flickering of firelight made him look like the subject in an old painting.

“Now, I love seeing you – you know that – but this feels pretty weird. I’ve seen you and Curie avoiding each other. Is that why you’re here?”

“Partly,” Amarli said, seeing no reason to lie to her friend. “And yes, we have been avoiding each other. But I also just wanted to spend time with you – is that really so strange?”

“No.” He smiled. “Do you wanna talk about the Curie thing?”

“Definitely not.”

“Thought so. What about a beer then?”

“I can do with a beer.”

She watched Sturges get up and head to the little alcove where a pre-war kitchen used to be, opening the fridge and pulling out a few bottles of Pilsner. When he returned, she wasted no time downing her first, enjoying the warm burn in her throat and the bitter taste in her mouth. Curie might disapprove of drinking alcohol, but Amarli reckoned she could do whatever she wanted now that Curie didn’t seem to care about her.

No… that was unfair. Amarli knew that Curie was just worried. But this felt oddly like that time Curie had fled after the battle against the Mechanist; she’d fallen back to logic and seemingly forgot what emotions were used for. What was it she had said so earnestly? Some decisions, for me, are made because they are logically correct, even if they are morally corrupt. It is how my mind is made.

Logically, Amarli had taken a huge risk; that was the issue here. Right? Why couldn’t Curie see her side of it? Would there always be disagreements between them based on logic versus immorality?

All too soon, it seemed that hours had passed and Amarli had downed almost six bottles of beer. She was definitely not a lightweight, but she hadn’t even looked at alcohol for a long time, and the bubbles had gone straight to her head. Sturges must have noticed, because he stopped offering her more beer. Instead, he gently took the last bottle from her hand and said, “It’s getting late, isn’t it? You should go home and get some sleep.”

“I won’t sleep,” Amarli said truthfully. “There’s not much I’m capable of doing when Curie’s angry with me.”

“Then go home and talk to her. She’s a smart lady, but she’s also… sensitive. And I assume she’s struggling just as much as you.”

It didn’t seem like it, but Amarli knew he was right. Reluctantly, she bid him goodnight and left his house, walking as slowly as possible down the path towards home. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, worrying again about the serum running in her veins and what a sacrifice she had made. Mortality is what makes life so valuable! It is not worth the risks! Curie had been correct, but Amarli felt that she had adequate enough control over her mortality that it was still valuable. Should she miss a dose, she could grow old in an instant. And she wasn’t impervious to physical damage or sickness, even if Lorenzo’s powers had made her superhuman.

Perhaps it was a moral conversation that she needed to have with Curie, after all. They needed to talk now, or they’d both be miserable for a long while.

Amarli took her time brushing her teeth and psyching herself up for another argument, but was disappointed to find Curie already asleep when she entered the bedroom. As with the previous two nights, she was curled up on her side of the mattress, facing the wall. There was an invisible boundary between them that gaped ever wider, especially in the darkness, because Amarli yearned to hold her.

Amarli undressed silently and climbed into bed. Although part of her still wanted to exercise defiance and turn her back on Curie, the alcohol had a curious effect. She was willing to give in. She didn’t want to fight anymore. She was tired. She wanted to tell Curie she loved her, and she never meant to hurt her, even though she was still sure she’d made the right choice.

Carefully, as if approaching a wild animal, Amarli scooted across the mattress towards her wife and stopped just short of touching her. Even with less inhibitions due to the alcohol, she was strangely nervous. Gently, she reached out and touched Curie’s shoulder. When there was no response, she stroked down the bare skin of her arm. How had it been so long since they touched? They used to touch whenever they had the chance, and now Amarli had let this childish feud come between them.

She pressed herself against Curie’s back, burying her face in her hair with a soft sigh. And then, to her absolute surprise, Curie turned quickly in her arms and burrowed into her body with a quiet whimper – the sort of sound Dogmeat made when he felt he hadn’t gotten enough attention – with arms wrapping around Amarli’s torso and holding her tight.

She hadn’t been sleeping after all. It seemed neither of them were capable of functioning during a fight. Was this the first real fight they’d ever had? As far as milestones went, Amarli would have been satisfied to skip this one.

She stroked Curie’s back, pleased to be touching her again. “I don’t want you to avoid me anymore,” she whispered.

“Non,” Curie agreed, her voice muffled against Amarli’s shoulder. She pulled back, and Amarli stroked the outline of her face in the dark, exploring it like she was seeing it for the first time again.

“So… can we stop fighting and talk?”

“I don’t want to fight.” She pushed herself up on one elbow and delivered an open-mouthed kiss to the side of Amarli’s neck, following it up with a well-practiced slide of her tongue. “But we can talk tomorrow, yes?”

Amarli was surprised, but she couldn't deny that her passion had been ignited. “Yeah.”

With explicit permission, Curie kissed her neck again, stroking her palms down her chest and her belly, and then sat up to swing one leg over her body. In a surprisingly bold move, she removed her shirt and tossed it on the floor. Amarli was reminded of a dream she’d once had before all of this, when she’d still been in denial about her feelings. Curie had straddled her, and Amarli hadn’t wanted her to stop, even though her desire was somewhat overcome with shame.

As if afraid the image would dissipate, Amarli carefully reached up and touched Curie’s naked chest, feeling goosebumps spread in her wake. Curie’s teeth had snagged her bottom lip, and she gazed down at Amarli with an expression of equal parts adoration and desire. Her fingers were at the waistband of Amarli’s underwear already, digging beneath but waiting for instruction.

“Can we…” Curie paused, and Amarli knew that she was probably blushing. “… together?”

“Can we what together?” Amarli was smirking.

Curie ran a hand through her hair to remove it from her face, and let out a small gasp as Amarli’s fingers touched the underside of her breast. Amarli knew what she wanted, because she wanted the same thing. But she wanted to hear it from the other woman’s lips.

“May we touch each other?” Curie asked. “And… the orgasm, that can be together, too?”

“Very romantic phrasing,” Amarli teased her.

Curie was definitely blushing again.

She reached for Curie’s underwear and tugged. “Take ‘em off.”

Curie climbed off her momentarily to do as she was told, and Amarli followed her own instructions, too, removing her own top and underwear. When Curie straddled her again, the feel of their bare skin pressed together was electric. Amarli touched her firmly now, pulling Curie down on top of her so that she could taste her lips. They kissed with passion, but not with aggressive need – the movement of lips and tongue was achingly tender. Amarli stroked Curie’s body, teased her with fleeting touches, prying gasps and moans out of her, and was pleased when Curie reciprocated with the same softness. When Amarli finally stroked past her inner thighs and touched her properly, she felt Curie moan into her mouth and didn’t think she’d ever heard anything so erotic. And then Curie was stroking her too, and they’d stopped kissing so that they could watch each others’ reactions; it was so shockingly stimulating that Amarli allowed another wave of passion to overcome her. She groaned, low in her throat, before rolling them over and pressing Curie down into the mattress. She kissed her hard and then soft, enticing several more moans out of her. Curie’s hips rocked against her hand involuntarily, and then suddenly they were moving in unison, entwined together. It grew to be impossibly more erotic, and Amarli wasn’t sure they had ever had sex like this before. Not so passionately, so carefully, watching each others’ faces.

“I am- I think I will…” Curie paused, a gasp escaping her throat, and Amarli nodded quickly.

“Me too,” was her stifled reply. She saw Curie’s eyes begin to close against the waves of oncoming pleasure. She didn’t stop moving her fingers, but she did add, “Look at me.”

Curie opened her eyes again and looked at her with such heated desire and tenderness that it tore her apart from within. They truly seemed to break over the edge as one, and Amarli felt as if her nerves had been lit with magic; that was the only explanation. Curie’s gentle fingers against her drove her to a height of pleasure she was sure was better than ever before. And to watch Curie’s face like this as she too came undone was perhaps the sexiest thing she could think of. As they both stopped moving and lethargy veiled them, Amarli pressed a much softer kiss to Curie’s parted lips. She stroked her neck, her chest, every part of her body she could reach. “I really fucking love you,” she said with a hint of anxiety.

Curie’s eyes were searching hers, and they seemed full of worry. “Why do you look scared, ma cherie?”

“I don’t know.” Amarli climbed off her and tucked into her side, still unable to stop herself from touching that smooth, warm skin. Curie stroked her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead.

“I am here,” Curie said. “And I love you very much, also.”

Amarli fell asleep with Curie in her arms.