Chapter Text
It had been over a month since the party and every day Evie became more and more sure that Danse had feelings for her. There were the touches outside of training, the ones that were just a beat longer than necessary. The sexy grins and occasional wink—all of it confirmed he thought of her as more than just a student. She still meditated every morning, but not for nearly as long as before—just enough to get her through training. Once that was over, she let herself fully react whenever Danse said or did something that turned her on.
Many times over the last month, Evie considered just flat out telling him she liked him. Each time, however, she convinced herself not to. While she was almost positive Danse liked her, there was still a tiny percentage of doubt. She told herself, over and over, that the reason he only flirted with her, never going further, was because she was still in her prohibition year. Even so, that lingering doubt whispered to her that he was just being nice. That since she didn’t know what real love was, she was just interpreting Danse’s kindness as interest.
If that was true, if she crossed the line by confessing how she felt, it would change their relationship forever. You can’t just unsay something like that; you can't take it back. Danse would forever know she liked him and she would always know he didn’t like her in return. The thought of their current, effortless relationship—platonic as it may be—becoming awkward and tense brought her to tears. She couldn’t risk that pain, even if it meant she would spend the next four months in uncertainty.
Evie shook her head and tried to focus on filling a fourth spare magazine with bullets. She hadn’t meditated this morning because they had a mission. Maybe I should have.
She knew how important it was to not be distracted while on a mission. It was just that, for some reason, it felt different now. Before it was easy to convince herself there wasn’t any real chance of Danse liking her back. But now, ever since she returned from the conservatory with “George,” the way Danse talked to her, looked at her made her skin pulse with electricity. She craved his touch like he was oxygen and she was a diver trying desperately to surface. More nights than not, she pleasured herself before going to sleep. It helped, but only so much, with how badly she wished—needed—it to be his fingers that brought her to climax. She bit her lower lip as she imagined him doing just that.
“You alright, Evie?”
She started, looking at Danse. When did he get here? Yeah, I definitely should have meditated. She nodded. “Just finishing up. I wanted to bring another spare mag, just in case.”
Danse just looked at her, as if he expected her to say more.
“What?”
“Granted, you are going on an overnight mission, but do you anticipate there will be a significant hostile force at MIT?”
Evie’s brows pulled together as she shook her head. “No. I just wanted to be prepared. Better safe than sorry, right?”
A smile played upon his lips, which made her heart skip. “I suppose over a dozen spare mags might make you feel safer, though I’d feel sorry for your shoulders after an eight hour trek with all that added weight.”
Evie blinked and then looked back at the table to see thirteen fully loaded magazines and a partially loaded fourteenth in her hand. Her jaw dropped. How had she zoned out so heavily?
Danse chuckled. “Lost in thought, were you?”
Her face flushed. She immediately set the partially-filled fourteenth magazine and the loose bullets back on the table, her mind racing for a believable excuse. "I guess. I... um..." She grasped for the first plausible thing that wasn't… him. "I was thinking about the air force base. Hanscom. How eerie it was.”
As the white lie left her lips, the memory of the previous week's mission returned with a vengeance, and a genuine shiver ran down her spine. The painted warnings: 'STAY AWAY! AREA CONTAMINATED!’ ‘AIR = DEATH!’
Danse’s expression turned grim. "Understandable," he said, pulling her from the sudden, sharp image. “I’ve seen some pretty awful irradiated ruins, as it's not uncommon for military bases—especially ones with research labs—to befall a similar fate."
Evie barely heard him. Her mind dragged her right back to that house, to the unnatural silence of a base with no birds, no wildlife at all. She could almost hear the steady click-click-click of Haylen’s Geiger counter as they stepped inside... and the sight that waited for them.
The bones on the bed.
She swallowed, her hands frozen on the table. Sorin had counted five skulls. Two large, two small, and one that was very tiny. A family. The thought of them dying together, maybe by poison to escape the agony of a slow death from radiation, made her stomach clench. That tiny skull. Her heart began to race and it felt like the air around her increased in pressure a thousand-fold.
"...While it may get easier, it never becomes easy," Danse was saying, but Evie couldn’t hear him. She forced herself to breathe. No! I was able to see them with my own eyes and not have a panic attack. I refuse to have one from a memory!
“...science they don't understand. Hopefully, today’s mission proves more fruitful.”
Danse’s words filtered to her ears and she used them to anchor herself, pushing the heartbreakingly tragic images from her mind. "Yeah," she said, her voice a little shaky. She began putting the extra magazines back, keeping only five to place in a front compartment on her pack.
“Your shoulders will thank you for not making them carry an extra eight pounds on such a long journey,” Danse pointed out.
She managed a small laugh as she put on her pack. “If Rhys is right about how hard the beds are at Diamond City’s inn, both my back and shoulders are going to be quite sore tomorrow—whether I’m carrying extra mags or not.”
Danse chuckled. “Well, keep in mind he’s never stayed at the inn in Diamond City; he’s going off of the makeshift beds that are common in smaller settlements. Oh, hang on. One of your straps is a little loose.”
As he walked over, Evie scolded herself for not paying closer attention. She really needed to stop thinking about him when on duty. He tugged on the strap in question. “All set.”
“Thank you, sir.” Evie started to turn to leave but stopped as her senses told her Danse was still right behind her.
“I do hope you don't sleep on anything, hard, tonight, but if it can't be avoided, I'd be more than happy to rub your shoulders and back once you’re home.” His voice was both lower in volume and pitch than it was a second ago, and desire instantly filled every cell in her body. It took all her willpower to not turn her head back, towards him. If she did—and saw the same hunger in his eyes from their poker game a month ago—she was positive she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from jumping on him. Her eyes widened. Oh, there was so NOT a loose strap on my pack! A grin spread across her lips. But now it’s my turn.
“Only if I sleep on a hard bed?” she mused. “My neck has been quite stiff lately, not to mention my lower back.”
Danse leaned in closer and she could feel his warm breath on her ear. “All you have to do is ask me to.”
Evie gasped and her heart began to pound. It had to be a coincidence, him using that phrase. It had to be because she hadn’t gotten the chance to sing that song yet and the few times she played it, Danse wasn’t in the common room. It had to be a coincidence... right?
“The others are already outside,” he said from a few feet behind her, his voice back to normal. “I believe the spare mags were the last thing you needed so you should be ready to go now. Right?”
He was absolutely correct; Evie was ‘ready to go’ in every sense of the phrase. She took a couple deep breaths to calm her burning body down. She slowly nodded. “Yes, sir. Ready to go.”
Without looking at him she left the supply room and headed to the garage. She knew he was behind her but waited to turn around until she joined Rhys, Haylen and Sorin outside the garage.
“No fancy send-offs,” Danse said, addressing them all. “You all know what we’re looking for. The handful of jewels and gold and silver bars that Haylen has should be more than enough to buy four rooms for the night. And Haylen, I want you to turn on the Geiger counter every thirty minutes once in unexplored territory. I don’t want anymore close calls.”
“Understood, sir,” Haylen replied.
“Rhys, Sorin: remember what I said the last time you went to Diamond City? That still applies tonight. Understood?”
Both Rhys and Sorin nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Alright. Be safe. I want you all to come back to me in one piece.”
Evie’s heart started to race once again as Danse had looked right into her eyes as he said, ‘I want you.’ She was so flustered she almost forgot to salute when the others did.
“Ad Victoriam.”
“Ad Victoriam,” they all replied.
“Let’s get this show on the road!” Rhys declared.
They followed Rhys away from the fire station but Evie gave in not thirty feet away. She looked back to see Danse looking at her, wearing that sexy smile she was almost positive none of the others got to see. She smiled back and turned around but right then an idea came to mind. With a grin, she reached up with both hands and rubbed the back of her neck. Her grin grew as she wondered if a certain part of Danse happened to be ‘stiff’ now.
“How long will it take us to get to MIT?” Rhys asked.
“Eight to nine hours, give or take,” Haylen answered. “We should have plenty of time to check out the campus and then get to Diamond City, well before sunset.”
“Alright. How come we didn’t check this place out first?”
“Because Hanscom is closer to us and it has hangars large enough to easily store the Prydwen. If the MIT campus works for us, the Prydwen will have to be stored at the airport which is close but still a mile or so away. We all know Elder Maxson wants his baby as close to him as possible.”
“His baby?” Evie asked.
“Oh, right. Not everyone, I guess,” Haylen said. “It was Elder Maxson’s idea to repair the Prydwen to working order. She’s an old C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft. Before he became Elder, we only had a few DHC-3 Otters and two V-22 Ospreys.”
“I have no idea what any of those are. But I take it the Prydwen is a big plane, and the Otter and Osprey are smaller planes?”
“Half right. The Otter is a smaller transport plane but the Osprey is a VTOL tiltrotor. Think of it like a big helicopter with two horizontal rotors off to the sides, rather than above it. But those rotors can tilt forward so they become propellers which allows it to fly faster and farther than a helicopter. We sometimes call them ‘Vertibirds’ since they can fly up and down as well as soar, like a bird.”
“If we had one of them and a lancer to fly it, this mission would only take a few hours,” Rhys grumbled.
“Well, all the more reason to find our next home,” Haylen said. “I can’t imagine they won’t bring at least one vertibird. Until then, we walk.”
For over seven hours, they headed southeast, following old interstate highways when possible. It was around a quarter past three in the afternoon when they crossed the Cambridge Street bridge, the Charles River flowing swiftly below it. Evie couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, even though there wasn’t anything or anyone around that warranted her worry.
“Which way, Haylen?” Rhys asked. “Left, right or straight?”
“Right. We’re going to follow the road next to the water.”
As they began walking down what was once Memorial Drive, Evie looked around. The sense of unease from a moment ago would not go away. “I would have thought there’d be at least some people around. Especially since the buildings don’t look super damaged. At least from the outside, anyway.”
“It does seem a bit quiet, but it’s also possible that people are here, but are keeping out of sight,” Haylen said.
Evie sighed. "Which could be because they're afraid of us. While I hate the idea of people hiding from us, honestly I'd rather that than why the last place we visited was so quiet."
Haylen looked at her with sad eyes. "Yeah, me too. Hopefully most of whoever lived there either weren't exposed or died quickly, if they were."
Evie nodded before looking around. All the plant life she could see looked perfectly normal, nothing like what they saw at Hanscom. The trees, while missing most of their leaves, were the correct shape and their branches appeared to be sturdy. There weren't any flowers around, but ivy blanketed many of the nearby buildings facades and, while she was no expert, Evie thought it looked like ivy should. Even so, her anxiety just wouldn't go away.
"Hey, Haylen. Can we check the Geiger counter again?” she asked.
“She just checked like fifteen minutes ago," Rhys noted.
Evie rolled her eyes. "It literally takes less than a minute."
Haylen stopped walking. "Go ahead and turn it on, Evie."
Rhys sighed and Evie smirked as she opened Haylen’s pack and flipped the power switch. Clicks, about one every other second, became audible.
“Only thirty CPM—a completely normal level of background radiation! You can turn it off.” Haylen paused. “Actually, you know what? Leave it on. I know the radiation back at Hanscom freaked you out and the battery has more than enough charge to power it nonstop for the next few hours."
Evie breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Haylen." The scribe smiled and the four of them continued on towards the MIT campus. The clicks of the Geiger counter almost felt like a slow, rhythmic metronome that they matched their pace to, and it absolutely helped calm Evie's nerves.
A dilapidated hotel, its right side mostly collapsed, stood to their left. On the front, near the roof, only seven letters remained of the hotel’s name: H AT RE NC.
“Hat Renc? What does that mean?” Rhys asked.
“There’s a few letters missing. It used to spell Hyatt Regency,” Evie explained.
“Okay, what does ‘Hyatt Regency’ mean?”
Evie smiled. “It doesn’t mean anything other than the name of the hotel.”
“What’s a hotel?”
“A really big inn,” Haylen offered.
Evie nodded. “I never stayed at this one but that’s because it wasn’t anywhere near fancy enough for Nate. Too bad it’s so far gone, though, as it could probably house at least half of our brethren. Hopefully the dorms are in better condition.”
“Actually, we may be in luck because that tall building over there,” Haylen pointed to a tall building ahead of them. “I’m almost positive that’s a residence hall. Not just that, it looks like it might still be solid, which, now that I think about it, would make sense since it looks like it was built with concrete, not steel and wood.”
“Do you want to check it out now?” Evie asked.
Haylen shook her head. “No. Don’t want to get my hopes up in the event it’s structurally sound but we discover we can’t use the campus for whatever reason.”
Evie nodded. “Smart.”
Haylen tapped an index finger to the side of her head. “Not just a hat rack.”
Evie stopped walking and blinked a few times as the joke registered before erupting with laughter. She laughed so hard that tears began to stream down her face. It was a good thing she peed not half an hour ago, or she would have peed her pants.
“Evie! Not so loud!” Rhys warned.
Evie tried to hold it in but that just made her want to crack up even more. After a few more minutes of giggles, she was finally able to stop laughing. “Oh... my god. I’m sorry, but that... that was hilarious for some reason. Hoo!”
Rhys sighed. “Can we go back to our mission now?”
Evie rolled her eyes. “Oh no, I delayed us for a whole five minutes! How will we ever make up the time? We should probably just turn back now and go home.”
“Evie... this is serious! It’s not the time, and you yourself said it was oddly quiet. Making that much noise will carry a decent distance. If there was anyone nearby, they probably heard you.”
Evie’s eyes widened and then closed as she realized her mistake. Guilt and shame replaced the mirth that she felt not a moment ago. “Shit. I’m sorry. Seriously. I should have known that. Dammit.”
Rhys gave her a smile she didn’t feel she deserved. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. Come on, let’s go confirm our new home and then we can show you Diamond City! It’s about a mile south of us.”
She nodded, still ashamed at herself for putting her teammates—her family—in danger. They began walking once more, the tall concrete building Haylen eyed looming to their left.
“Hold up a sec. I want to look at the map,” Haylen said. They all waited as she retrieved and unfolded the map. She studied it for a moment before looking northeast, then east. She nodded, refolded her map and put it back in its pocket on her jacket. “Let's turn northeast and cut through the forest over there. Once we hit Mass Ave and Albany Street, we go east on Albany until we get to Main Street which we follow again to the east until it meets up with Memorial Drive. That’s this road but around a mile and a quarter from where we currently are. We head west until we get to the Harvard Bridge. Once we cross it, then it’s only about a half mile to Diamond City. Easy!”
“Sounds good,” Rhys said. “The sooner we can check out the campus the more time we’ll have in the city.”
They all followed Haylen toward a grassy field. Evie still felt awful about her prior lapse in judgment and attempted to make up for it by being extra focused on her surroundings.
“We’re on duty all night,” Haylen reminded Rhys. “You can’t try and find Karen.”
“I know! But the longer we’re in the city the more time she has to find out I’m there. I mean, who’s to say she won’t decide to seek ME out at the inn?”
“And so what if she does? You heard Danse, she’s off limits.”
Evie wasn’t listening to the others but her ears did pick up Danse’s name. No! I cannot think about him right now. I need to focus! If I don’t and I miss something, people could die. I won’t let that happen. I won’t!!
She forced all thoughts about Danse from her head and continued to surveil her surroundings. They were headed towards an old parking lot, long retaken by nature. The remains of over a dozen cars littered the lot but as they got closer, she realized not every car was on the ground. A tree had grown through the bones of one of the cars left to rot. It seemed that, as the tree grew taller and taller, it—for lack of a better word—swallowed the car, carrying it into the sky. Evie stared in wonder as she was able to locate a bumper, part of the frame, possibly even some glass, all at least fifty feet in the air.
“Would be nice if he’d share,” Rhys grumbled. “It’s obvious she’s looking for anything more.”
Sorin snorted, but Evie didn’t hear. She was still looking at the car. “You don’t have to worry about that, Rhys. There’s as much of a chance that Danse will sleep with Karen as I will, though not for the same reason.”
“What do you mean?” Rhys asked.
“Back when we had that storm that knocked the power out. I overheard...”
Right then, a noise Evie hadn’t heard in years assaulted her ears. A dot matrix printer? What??
“OH FUCK! THE RIVER! NOW!! GO GO GO!!!” Haylen shouted.
They all sprinted as fast as they could, back the way they came. They crossed Memorial Drive and headed straight toward the Charles River. Haylen removed her pack mid-run, but instead of jumping into the water like Evie, Rhys and Sorin did, she first launched her pack downstream. As soon as it left her hands she dove into the water.
Evie’s heart raced as she treaded water, trying to avoid getting any in her mouth. Her pack weighed her down but she was able to use her arms to keep her head above the water. Haylen swam over to Sorin.
“Your soap! How much do you have? We need to wash as much of the radiation off as fast as possible.”
“Two... two bars! Is that enough?”
“It will have to be. I’ll get them.” Haylen opened Sorin’s pack and dug around until she found the slippery bars of soap. She dug her nails into one, then the other, breaking each in half. She gave one to Sorin, passed one to Evie and another to Rhys. She motioned for them to follow and swam a bit closer to the shore. When they were a dozen feet away, cool, soft silt squished through Evie’s toes as her feet found the riverbank.
“Wash any exposed skin first,” Haylen ordered. “Then strip. Everything comes off. Wash yourself and then wash your clothes and then, if there’s soap left, wash your pack and everything in it.”
Evie had begun washing her head, neck and hands long before Haylen finished speaking. None of them spoke as they stripped and washed, focusing solely on getting clean as quickly as possible. After Evie and Haylen had scrubbed every inch of their bodies they could reach, they washed each other’s backs, as did Rhys and Sorin. After their bodies were as clean as possible, they began cleaning their clothes and finally their packs. Once the last slivers of their soap turned into bubbles, they exited the river and wrung out their clothes before putting them back on. Evie kept her eyes facing forward as much as she could to try and respect Rhys and Sorin’s privacy.
“Without the Geiger counter there’s no way to know if we’re truly clean until we get back,” Haylen said, running a hand through her wet hair. She looked around, then tilted her head upwards while staring at the high rise dorm hall they passed earlier. “We need to get up there. On the roof.”
“Why?” Rhys asked.
“It’s high, we know this area is safe and that building at least appears sound from the outside. If we can get to the roof, we might be able to see what set off my counter.”
“That will take at least a half hour, probably longer,” Evie said. “Shouldn’t we go home as soon as possible to see if we got all the radiation off?”
Haylen shook her head. “Even if I still had my Geiger counter, all it would do is tell us if we’re contaminated and need to take another river bath or not. Since we don’t have it, there’s nothing more we can do right now. Only time will tell if we get ARS.”
“ARS?”
“Acute Radiation Sickness,” Sorin clarified.
“How bad is that?”
Sorin just closed his eyes and Evie tried to quell the knot of fear and panic that grew in her stomach.
“Doesn’t that mean we should get home ASAP, though?” Rhys asked. “I know we have some radiation treatment.”
Sorin sighed. “The only one I have is potassium iodide but that’s only effective for radioactive iodine.”
“And there’s no way to know what kind of radiation that was back there and it’s not safe to blindly treat an exposure with any available decorporation agent,” Haylen added. “That’s why I think we should get up to that roof if possible. It’s without a doubt a long shot, but even just a one percent chance of identifying the exact kind of radiation is better than the zero percent chance we’ll have if we return home right now.”
“What if you’re able to figure out the type of radiation but it’s something other than the iodine one?” Evie asked.
“Wait,” Sorin said grimly. “Wait and if we get ARS we’ll treat the symptoms as best we can. It sucks, but it’s all we can do. For the next week, let me know immediately if you get nauseous, have the shits, get the worst headache of your life, or feel tired to the point of collapsing.”
“Alright, let’s go take a look,” Rhys said, his voice firm.
The four of them headed towards the tall dormitory. They were able to get inside and find the staircase without any issue, until they started climbing them. The extra weight from the waterlogged packs they wore made ascending the twenty-four floor high rise that much more difficult. Around halfway, sweat dripped off Evie’s forehead and she craved the coolness of the river’s water.
“I can carry your pack for a while, if you’d like,” Haylen offered.
Evie shook her head. “It’s fine; just an extra intense workout.”
“Actually, I think it would be a good idea to have Haylen cycle our three packs,” Sorin suggested. “One of the earliest symptoms of ARS is extreme fatigue. By giving the three of us a break every so often, it would help prevent us from getting exhausted just from carrying the heavy packs.”
Evie couldn’t fault Sorin’s logic, not that she’d ever consider disregarding his advice. “That makes sense but you should be the first to get a break, Sorin.”
To her surprise, the medic didn’t argue but immediately took his pack off and handed it to Haylen whose eyes widened. “Oh, thank god!”
“What the hell do you have in here?” Haylen grunted.
“Mostly bandages. A lot of wet bandages that are all going to need to be boiled once we’re back.”
Haylen sighed as they continued on their way to the roof. “I should have realized that and offered to help sooner. I’m sorry.”
Sorin gave a half-laugh. “Stop it. If you hadn’t decided to keep your Geiger counter on we would have been in that field for over twenty minutes. That in and of itself literally saved all of our lives.”
Haylen shrugged. “Not yet. And even if we somehow don’t get ARS, Quinlan will absolutely give me shit when he arrives for destroying a Geiger counter and battery. It’s not like we have hundreds of them lying around back home.”
“I don’t doubt you did what you had to, but I am curious why you threw your pack in the river,” Evie said.
“There was a very high chance of the battery melting or even exploding the moment it hit the water. If that happened while I still wore the pack, the damage would have been significant, possibly lethal. I’d have awful burns on my back at the bare minimum.”
Evie’s eyes widened. “And Quinlan will be upset at you for NOT letting that happen??”
“More like, he’ll imply that if I were smarter, I would have been able to find a way to clean any radiation from it so it didn’t need to be destroyed in the first place.”
“What a bucket of sunshine; definitely looking forward to meeting him,” Evie said, rolling her eyes.
“Said no one ever,” Rhys grumbled. “You have infinitely more patience and self-control than I do, Haylen. I would have knocked his teeth out the first time he spoke to me like he does to you and the other scribes. Honestly, it will be hard for me not to do just that if I overhear him screaming at you.”
“I appreciate the thought, Rhys, but you don’t have to worry about that happening. He won’t dare talk to me like he used to for the exact reason I wanted to go.”
“I thought you just wanted to get away from him for a year.”
“If that was the case, I could have gone with any of the recon teams sent across the Wasteland, but I picked the Commonwealth for a reason.”
Evie inhaled sharply as Haylen’s long game coalesced in her mind. “Oh my god, Haylen. That’s genius! And he must not have realized it until after you left. I mean if he knew the risk of letting you come here, he’d never have allowed it!”
Haylen grinned. “Honestly he still may not have figured it out but if he did, oh how I wish I could have seen his face. Part of me actually hopes he did, right after we left, too. I hope it made him seethe, knowing I outsmarted him.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Rhys asked.
“I specifically picked this mission because it was led by Danse,” Haylen explained. “Danse, who is the Elder’s best friend. Quinlan is a very smart man. Smart enough to know Danse won’t like the way he used to talk to me. And what Danse doesn’t like, Elder Maxson doesn’t like, either.”
“Damn, Haylen. That’s really clever. I would have never put that together,” Sorin said.
Haylen laughed. “That’s because Kaede is a kind, compassionate person; literally the perfect teacher and mentor. That’s a good thing, Sorin.”
Sorin nodded. “Can’t argue with that. What’s that say? Level nineteen? Only five more to go!”
After another fifteen minutes they finally reached the roof, only to incur the wrath of the falcon whose dinner they interrupted. Once the angry bird of prey flew off—screeching obscenities at them—they oriented themselves and went to the northeastern side. All of them gasped as they looked out toward the center of the campus.
“What the fuck happened?” Rhys breathed.
Half a mile away lay a crater the size of a baseball field. It was almost like a giant ice cream scoop had removed the earth. Large trees with branch formations Evie had never seen grew in and around the crater. Their colors were off, too: all bright green, as if it were late spring, not the middle of fall.
“But, didn’t the nuke meant for Boston hit somewhere in New York?” Evie asked.
Haylen nodded. “That wasn’t made by a nuclear bomb. See how there’s debris past the edge of the crater? That, and the crater’s scorch marks are darkest at the bottom and then get not only lighter but also fan out the higher you go. This was an internal explosion of some kind.”
“Did MIT have a nuclear reactor? Maybe it exploded after the war began?” Sorin asked.
“I suppose... maybe. We should head back. I’ll have Danse radio home and have Quinlan dig up everything they can find on MIT and any nuclear projects they had.”
“First let me take my pack back and you can carry Evie’s,” Sorin said. “We’ll trade off every half hour or so.”
Evie gave her pack to Haylen and the relief to her shoulders almost brought tears to her eyes. She rubbed her shoulders and could feel the deep impressions the straps had dug into her muscles. She thought about Danse’s offer from earlier that morning and grinned. No sooner had it appeared than her smile vanished when she remembered she and the others could be extremely sick by the time they returned. She took a moment to evaluate how she felt; tired, yes but not abnormally so. She’d felt the same level of exhaustion after one of Danse’s more intense training days. She didn’t have a headache, wasn’t nauseous nor was her stomach upset. As they began their descent, Evie could only pray to anyone who might be listening that she and the others did not come down with ARS.