Chapter Text
There was really nothing for it. Sure, he and Lucy could try to take on Hank MacLean and all of whatever he had in his pocket – or more likely was answering to – on their own, but Cooper didn’t like their chances of success. Nor the frankly excessive number of ways it could go wrong without the merciful finality of death. So, after looking down at the ruined city skyline for a while, trying to figure out what to do next, he turned his feet and started walking. Away.
“Where are you going?” Lucy asked, several layers of betrayal and exasperation and exhaustion bleeding through her tone. To be honest, he was reluctantly impressed with her persistence. She was walking chum in an ocean of sharks but hadn’t gotten eaten yet. Not even by him, although he’d been sorely tempted from time to time. The fact that she sounded more pissed off than defeated was a mark in her favor for staying alive.
Cooper looked at her over his shoulder. “East.”
He knew by now that wouldn’t be enough for her, oh no. Little miss twenty questions and incessant chatter and wanting to know the why of everything. He counted silently and waited for the outburst.
“Cooper! What’s east? And I don’t mean in general. Specific to us. I mean, I thought this is where we needed to be. What’s east?”
Someone who can help, he thought. He didn’t quite want to say that out loud, however. He didn’t need his little Vaultie thinking he didn’t have a handle on this situation. To be fair, he didn’t. But he wasn’t about to admit it.
“Sweetheart, we are going to see the fabled General. Gonna be a long walk. So shut your trap and save your energy for your feet.”
It lasted about twenty paces. Then she was at his elbow, her too wide eyes glistening in the sun. “Who’s the General? Why do all of you people use so many titles instead of just your names?”
Cooper stopped in the middle of the road, after first casting a glance all around to make sure they were alone. Her frustration was a little entertaining, given everything he knew she’d been through, and not just with him. She’d traveled with her little Brotherhood soldier for a while; they all used their ranks like they were on a holy crusade. Which, he supposed, was accurate. He was further tempted to point out that her own dear daddy was apparently known as ‘Overseer’, but decided she might actually shoot him in her present state. And that would be tedious.
He lit a cigarette and took his time about it. His old bones ached already and he knew there were literally thousands of miles to go before they reached their destination. Not to mention the sheer time it was going to take to get there and back. But it would be worth it if the General was willing to help. He had an inkling she would be.
“Miz Nora Perdue, General of the Commonwealth Minutemen,” he said at last. “I expect you Vaulties don’t get much news of a current nature in your sardine can, but she is famous – or infamous, if you prefer – for takin’ down the Institute, single-handed. I owe her a favor.”
Lucy looked...dubious. It was a recently learned expression in her time on the surface. And in his company. Totally unrelated to each other, he was sure. “If you owe her a favor, then why are we going to go see her and ask for help? Because that’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?”
Too smart for her own good sometimes. Made him want to put a bullet right between those doe eyes at times. Her only saving grace was he liked her for some unknown, ungodly reason. Certainly he admired her resilience. Oh I’m you, sweetie went through his mind. It wasn’t quite true, though, once he thought about it. She was better than him in so many ways. Maybe not at surviving this hellhole of an Earth...not yet. But she was getting there. And not to put too fine a point on it, the automatic ‘we’ – on both their parts – had just kicked him in the gut. Maybe in a good way, although it was too soon to tell.
“She likes to break things.” He dragged on the cigarette and let the smoke trickle from his nasal cavity. It no longer made Lucy’s face squinch up all adorable, but she still seemed fascinated enough to watch. He hid a grin around the filter. “Big things.”
He finished his smoke and counted how long it took for the next question to come. He had a feeling he knew what it would be.
“What’s the favor you owe her?” Lucy asked, right when he reached six. He looked down at her, at the brightness of her gaze, the indomitable optimism. The General had probably been like that once, he assumed. He wouldn’t know. By the time he met her, the wasteland had already hardened her. But Lucy had the same spark she did. The kind that turned a lump of soft human flesh into pure steel. Maybe that’s why he put up with her nagging and slowing him down with her morals and do-goodery.
She’d asked cautiously, anticipating his bark of ‘none of your business’. And well, it wasn’t. But things had been shifting between them of late. Since that day she’d decided to throw her lot in with his on this likely fruitless quest. She’d come out the other side of a number of life changing assaults on her humanity since leaving the Vault, and she was still here, still fighting. Fighting him sometimes, too. Hell, she’d gotten him to tell her his name, and he didn’t do that for just anybody. Aside from the high-pitched noise she’d made when she put that particular equation together – ohmygosh, the actor!? – she’d taken it in stride and managed to swallow down most of the inane babble about it. Mostly. Maybe it wouldn’t kill him to let her have this little piece of his more recent history. Let her make of it what she would.
He fixed his hat so the sun didn’t get under it and started walking again. “She let me live.”
Lucy stewed on that for a good half mile, he figured, before the next round of questions came. But by then, he wasn’t listening. He was remembering. Almost ten years. Had it really been so long?
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2288
Some bounties weren’t worth their trouble. The Ghoul had learned that over the years. He preferred to keep his hide intact rather than make a few measly caps, especially since being ‘indentured’ to Dom Pedro. He’d have to put an end to that one of these days. But this bounty, oh it was too big to pass up. And he figured it would be easy work, some soft Vault dweller making waves throughout the region known only as the Commonwealth these days.
So he took his chances, since he was on that side of the country anyhow, the better to stay out of a coffin. He hitched a ride with a caravan up from the Capital Wasteland to the ‘Wealth and found a place to lay low to figure out his next move. There were a few places that welcomed him, zombified face and all. That should have been his first clue, really.
He ended up in a little town calling itself Goodneighbor, where the beer was actually cold and the singer in the bar was a pretty thing that was not opposed to a good time, to put it genteelly. There were more ghouls than humans, and every single one of them gave their loyalty to their Mayor.
Now, the Ghoul remembered when he was an actor of that caliber, regardless of his feelings on it now. But he doubted even he could pull off that colonial getup half as well. Mayor Hancock was a benevolent tyrant, apparently. ‘Of the people, for the people’ or some such bullshit. But he backed it up with a double barrel and a wicked knife. He had a reputation for intolerance towards bullies, of any size or stripe. Brave man, the Ghoul thought, or an idiot. And then he didn’t pay much more mind. He kept his head down, his business to himself and he watched.
And lo and behold, the bounty came walking into the town all by herself. The sketch didn’t do her any justice. Her hair was a rich chestnut brown, tidy and well kept. Notable all on its own in a place like this. She was fit, well fed. Well muscled too, if the way she moved was any indication. She wasn’t wearing the jumpsuit, but she was still sporting the Pip-Boy. At her heels was the healthiest dog he’d seen since the bombs dropped. And on her back she wore a rifle so shiny with oil and good maintenance it reflected the sun.
From his position in the shadows of the shopfronts, he heard her being hailed by name. Nora. The old ghoul who ran the general goods chatted with her like they were old friends. And then the Mayor himself was there, leaning against the doorframe, a smile on his shrunken lips.
“Daisy, stop hoggin’ the General. Hello, sunshine,” he said when the bounty turned away from the shopkeeper.
“Hey, babe.”
The Ghoul watched as this pristine woman went over to the red coated ghoul and kissed him, before God and the whole town. No mere peck, either. Hancock’s arm slipped around her waist like it belonged there and he would put caps on there being tongue involved.
Well, this job just got more...interesting.