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"Amata..." Ari's dark brown, slender hands gripped one of her own with a frightening intensity. "Come with me."
"I..." Her friend's pale eyes bore into her soul. "I don't know..."
"We've always wondered, haven't we? Didn't we stay up at night talking about what's out there?" Ari's hands were dry and warm around hers. "Here's your chance to find out."
To this day, Amata wondered what might have happened if she'd chosen differently. So much could have changed; she could have turned out to be a completely different person. She never stopped pondering the 'what-ifs' and 'what-could-have-beens' in rare moments of quiet.
However things might have changed, it didn't matter. She'd squeezed Ari's hands between her own and, heart practically bursting from her throat, said "Okay." Hand in hand, they ran down the metallic corridor, past bones of people who hadn't made it into the vault God knew how long ago, and into the blinding light.
If she'd been alone, she might have curled up outside the old wooden door and let herself succumb to a panic attack. She knew her friend; if she'd been alone, she might have done the same thing. But together they faced the vast, overwhelming open with giddy, near-ecstatic courage.
Any homesickness Amata might have felt went away when Ari led them to the town of Megaton. The metal that made up the town was different from Vault 101; earthier, somehow. Probably because it picked up the same green-ish, grey-ish brown that the rest of the land outside seemed to have. But it made the same creaking and groaning sounds that the pipes running through Vault 101's walls did; the voices of people packed closely together bounced off of the walls in a very similar way.
As long as she'd known Arianna, she'd known her friend to be shy and quiet. The only times she raised her voice was when facing injustice, whether it was the overbearing nature of her own father or the local bullies a corner away. This new setting was no exception; Amata was the one who stepped up to people to ask questions about James and the town as they tried to gain their bearings. The times Ari did speak up, she maintained the polite cadence she'd learned got her a long way with grown-ups in their childhoods.
This was a different world, though. The politeness did nothing to deter some creep from trying to blow up the town, nor did it stop him from attacking the sheriff.
She would never forget the look on Ari's face as the final bullet entered Burke's skull. How her icy blue eyes widened in shock, how they drifted down to the pistol in her hand, as though trying to piece together how it had gotten there.
Amata acted without thinking. "Ari," she said, gripping her shoulders. "Ari, listen to me..." She pulled her friend in close, squeezing tight, the way she'd learned to do when her breathing picked up to an uncontrollable pace years ago. "It's gonna be okay, okay? I-it was self defense." It wasn't, really; it was defense of someone else. But that was something, right? "You're gonna be okay, you did the right thing, I--"
Her words were swallowed by Ari's full lips, and her train of thought stopped cold.
Ari, thankfully, did not get in trouble for this stunt: Sheriff Simms thanked her for saving him. She accepted the gratitude with a shaky smile as Amata kept a hand in between her shoulder blades.
After that moment in Moriarty's Saloon, they'd needed some fresh air. They'd made their way down to the center of the town, and Amata could see from the look on Ari's face just what she had in mind for the large bomb right there.
Amata needed no instruction. She talked up Confessor Cromwell, asked him what his deal was. He didn't notice as Ari kneeled next to the thing and worked her magic with her nimble fingers. There were a few onlookers around, mostly outside the medical center and the Brass Lantern, but if any of them had any protests, none of them voiced them out loud.
Once again indebted to Arianna, Sheriff Simms gave her the ultimate repayment: her very own house. It came with its very own Mr. Handy butler; if Amata closed her eyes, it was almost like having Andy around and she was back home again.
Years later, when Amata would think back on that eventful first day outside the vault, the moment that she'd remember the most was when the sun first set.
They sat at a table in front of the house and celebrated their first day alive in the Capital Wasteland with soft drinks, sweeter than anything she'd ever tasted and laced with delicate amounts of radiation. Something she supposed she and Ari would have to get used to.
"And you said studying explosives was a waste of time!" Ari teased with a smile.
"I didn't say it was a waste of time," Amata corrected. "I said using cherry bombs to get back at that idiot Butch was a waste of time."
Ari shrugged. Her grin was white in the fading light of the sun and her dark skin glowed blue in the lights strung up all over the town. How had Amata never noticed how her friend shined before? A blue diamond that stood out, back amidst the grey of the vault, and now amidst the brown and green of the wasteland. "Well, you were right about that, I guess; turns out I just had to save his mom from radroaches. That's all it took for him to stop being an ass." Ari pulled the black leather jacket tighter around herself, though it wasn't too terribly cold out.
She didn't say what they were probably both thinking. They'd never liked Butch or his stupid gang, but it was strange, thinking that they'd never see them again.
Amata leaned back in her chair, inhaling deeply to stop any potential tears from falling, and couldn't help the gasp that left her throat. "Ari...look," she breathed.
They knew what stars were; they'd both seen pictures in books before, constellations that people had found in the skies.
But those pictures were nothing compared to what was very real, and yet so very dreamlike, right above their heads. Despite the Hell that had been wreaked on the world, polluted the earth and seeped into the water, those bombs from centuries ago hadn't taken those billions of glittering lights so far away.
Amata couldn't remember a time when she'd felt so small, and yet so entrenched in something so much bigger than herself. And as she felt a familiar warmth in her hand, she looked down just in time to see the moonlight reflected in Ari's eyes and face, and right then felt nothing more than grateful that she could share the moment with her.
Something had ended, yes. But that night, something entirely new had begun.