Chapter Text
There was a thick, heavy blanket of slightly radioactive dust settled on everything in Vault 22, but Lucy supposed that’s what happened when there the outside blast door was ajar. Dust and dirt wasn’t exactly something that she was a stranger to, not anymore.
It was quiet and still. To the left of her there was a RobCo terminal that she would’ve tried to log into if the screen weren’t smashed, and on the ground beside that was a dirty, discolored mattress. It didn’t look like it had been used in years.
Even through that blanket of dust, there was a rather large stain of undetermined origin, kind of a disgusting rust brown. Ugh. Still, Lucy considered it briefly, though she knew it wouldn’t compare to the beds in Vault 21.
There was a nuka-cola machine tucked against the wall furthest east – busted – and an elevator, you guessed it, was also out of service. Someone had even gone to the extent of smashing the cap reservoir in the cola machine to scrounge those, too.
“I don’t think there’s anything on this floor,” Lucy observed, taking in empty shelves, undisturbed dust, and lack of any sort of proof of life.
This vault must have been picked clean a long time ago. Lucy thought, dark eyes taking in the new surroundings. The shelves were all empty without so much as a mark left behind in the dust.
“What do you think, sunshine?” He asked, rolling out their bedrolls out on the floor of the elevator. He was glad to be away from the hustle and bustle of the city. He preferred quiet starlit nights with Lucy to being in a vault, especially after sleeping in one for two nights in a row, but they decided it was as good of a spot as any for the time being. He figured they could knock exploring and scavenging out in a day or so and get back on tracking Henry MacLean.
Lucy thought that it didn’t matter how uncomfortable the sleeping arrangements were – open waste on the hard ground, barely standing buildings, and cool, wet caves – none of it mattered as soon as Cooper wrapped his arms around her. She melted and nuzzled against him, the tension in her shoulders leaving her body.
Even far before they were actually having sex – fucking, as per Cooper – she’d grown used to sleeping with their limbs tangled together. She almost liked that as much as the sex, to tell the truth. It was intimate in a way that she’d never felt with her cousin and it still flooded her with oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin every time.
“It’s a little eerie,” Lucy smiled a little apprehensively, sitting cross legged on her bedroll beside Cooper’s. It felt good to rest after walking from the Strip, legs aching from the hard baked ground beneath her.
She grabbed her bag and pulled it into her lap, the little metal sign that she’d attached to her bag reading Cooper Howard making a soft clink against the zipper it was tied to. “Kinda feels… wrong.” She’d never seen an empty vault before.
She was starting to feel like a real wastelander, though, collecting little trinkets and mismatched armor. Most people on the surface seemed to carry what they owned on their back and Cooper and Lucy were no exception.
She pulled a shiny apple out of her bag and handed it off to Cooper. He broke it in half with his hands easily and passed her back the other half. A treat before bed. It was the last one they had, for now, and it gave Lucy something to look forward to.
Fresh fruit and vegetables, but the former more so than the latter.
“Do you think… your wife and daughter could be here?” She asked tentatively, carefully picking out the apple seeds and putting them in a napkin to dry. She would put them in the envelope that was tucked away with the rest of her seeds for later when they found a suitable place to hunker down for the long term.
Well, she hoped he would settle down with her somewhere, but there was doubt at the back of her mind. What if he wanted his ex-wife more than he wanted her? What if this was just a fling or she was just convenient?
“I don’t know,” He said honestly, though he didn’t have much hope that they could be here. It wasn’t a control vault, not one of the “good vaults”, not with the warning message that had been painted outside. It made her wary. “If they were, and your Daddy got here first…” There was something dark in his voice but his shoulders went up and down in a carefree shrug.
They had only seen the top two floors and it was just a cursory glance at that.
The landing directly inside the vault with the elevator where they were sleeping was the entrance level, below that was oxygen recycling, according to the metal signs that were still mounted to the walls.
They had to dispatch more mantises on the second floor down, including a small nest that Lucy almost felt bad crushing. She still didn’t like killing anything, but she had to do what she had to do up here. Luckily, Cooper and Dogmeat had no qualms while she stayed back to offer support most of the time, only getting involved when It was unavoidable.
Giant bugs were the easiest and ghouls were the hardest. Even the ones that were so feral they were nothing but gnashing teeth and bones.
The little juvenile mantises were almost cute, bright green like the larger ones but with bright pink and blue wings. They had a nasty bite too; almost as bad as the gecko bite but less radiation damage. She had, unfortunately, learned that information first hand.
Fortunately, though, they didn’t find anything beyond the irradiated insects that lurked, letting her breathe a sigh of relief.
There were at least three more levels below but both sides of the stairs leading down to the lower levels were blocked with heavy metal lockers and tables. At least they didn’t have to worry about anything getting the jump on them while they were asleep, she supposed.
Lucy felt confident that they would be fine, though. It was a vault after all. Even if it hadn’t been touched in a decade, it was a vault. They had three walls surrounding them In the elevator, and Dogmeat would alert if something crawled out of the depths. The dog could easily take most of the creepy crawlies out; radroaches, radscorps, mantises…
They ate their midnight snack in silence. Tomorrow, they would work more on the second level, really looking for supplies and anything else that might tip them off to another vault. Cooper knew of some, even one of the control vault simply called Vault 0 but that was far in the Cheyenne Mountains, nearly two states away.
Dogmeat was draped lazily across Cooper’s legs and Lucy smiled, leaning over to scratch behind the dog’s ears when she was done with her apple half. She couldn’t help but give a contented sigh, smiling inwardly. Fed, tired, surprisingly comfortable all things considered.
“What’s on your mind?” Cooper turned those intense eyes onto her. He could always tell when she was in a pensive mood.
“You two just look really great together.” She thought affectionately of A Man and His Dog filmed all those years ago. Rosevelt was his dog’s name, she remembered that from the credits. “I… bet you were a really good Dad too, Cooper.”
“Well… thank you, darlin’.” Cooper’s face softened and he smiled, lovingly stroking Dogmeat’s fur now. Her tail thumped happily against their bedrolls beneath them. He was almost afraid to admit happy he was in this moment. Lucy at his side, getting closer to information about his family…
“This vault is …different.” Lucy said after a moment of silence. “It’s different than 4 and it’s different than 33.” Obviously, it was different than 21, too, but that one had also been very similar to her own so she didn’t really want to count it. “…have you been to many vaults?”
“No, darlin’, never liked them much.” It was the truth, more or less. “Most time I spent in one was when I was still the face of Vault-tec… it was a lo-o-ong time before the bombs dropped. Always made feel real claustrophobic.”
“Oh.” Lucy got comfortable beside him, scooching closer to Dogmeat and Cooper. She wasn’t quite pressed up against him, but close enough to feel his body heat. She listened.
“Mostly filmin’ those advertisements.” There was a beat and he clicked his tongue. “Used to feel like I sold my soul… and it wasn’t even for that much money.” He said the last part quietly. “Feels like being on a damn hamster wheel.” He could see the confusion on her face, so he elaborated on it.
He wouldn’t admit it out loud but he enjoyed teaching Lucy about the world, or what was left of it. He liked being one of the last bastions of knowledge, aside from the Brotherhood of Steel, but they weren’t exactly about free flowing information.
“Before the war, we used to have these little rodents…kinda palm sized.” He opened his hand, palm to the roof of the elevator, Lucy’s delicate finger a stark difference against his own. “They would live in small cages, and you would give them a plastic wheel to run in and get exercise. Could run forever and still be in the place you started, no way to make real progress.”
“That seems cruel.” The corner of Lucy’s mouth pulled down as she thought of a small rodent in a small cage with nowhere to run.
“Now you’re gettin’ it, sunshine.” He winked at her.
Lucy was silent for a moment to digest that. It wasn’t the same as being in Vault 33, she had a pedal exerciser, not a hamster wheel, but…
“I’ve been thinking about what you said about each vault having a different experiment.” She said, suddenly and Cooper reached over and gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.
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Lucy awoke sometime in the wee morning hours, though she had no idea what time it was. There was no sunlight filtering through the open vault door. Cooper slept soundly beside her, hat drawn down over his eyes.
When Lucy went to investigate, carefully tiptoing down until she found Dogmeat on the second floor below, barking and growling at something she couldn’t see. Lucy’s hand went to her knife, sleep still heavy on her mind as she – carefully – hurried down to the next level.
“Girl? You down here?” She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, trying to look for the dog, her hand still clasping her knife. “You find something? Come back to bed…”
There was a sound like grass moving before Dogmeat padded out of the next room, tail high. She wagged it, looking up to Lucy. She had something stark white in her mouth.
“What’d you find, girl?” Lucy bent down to see what the Malinois had in her mouth. She realized after a few long seconds, it was a bone.
It looked human.
Lucy shook Cooper awake. Her hands were shaking.
“Coopercoopercooper, Cooper, please, wake up,”
“S’wrong?” The Ghoul made a grumbling sound and sat up. But he was quick to the draw, his gun being drawn before he was up and scanning the area for threads.
“No, Cooper, look,” Lucy pointed to the bone in Dogmeat’s mouth. She really hadn’t wanted to touch it or try to take it out of her mouth. Dogs had teeth and she was no exception.
Cooper’s shoulders relaxed and he yawned.
“Come back to bed… ‘course there’s human bones in a vault, what do you think happened to the people who lived here?” He said flatly, sitting back down and stretching a bit. The elevator was cramped for his legs, but he appreciated the extra cover.
“I guess I’ve…never thought about it.” She wilted, watching the dog chew happily on the bone. “I thought they all would’ve left, with the door open…” There hadn’t been bones in any of the other vaults. This was a total system shock and it made her skin crawl even thinking about it.
She laid back down, grateful that Dogmeat was laying right outside of the elevator even if it was with her new chew toy and tried to sleep a few more hours. She needed as much rest as she could get.
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Lucy was outside before the sun rose, heating up water for a second cup of tea. She was exhausted, deep dark circles under her eyes. She’d only gotten a few hours of sleep before Dogmeat had woken her up and she’d been too dysregulated to fall back asleep, listening to the smacking sounds of her tongue against the found bone.
It was a small change in routine, but she didn’t seem to mind at all. She hoped the caffeine would help as a little pick-me-up before they got started on the lower level in earnest.
Beside the scratched up, metal kettle sat a real cast iron pan that they used to make most meals, the beans currently simmering in a mixture of honey mesquite with water to round out the recipe. She liked it with jalapenos, too, but they didn’t have any of those on hand.
She enjoyed the sunrise while she drank her first cup of black tea. She preferred the sunsets, but sunrises were a close second place. The stars were her favorite, though, especially when there was a full moon.
The sky had less stars here, still close enough to the constant light pollution from the strip. She’d had fun staying there, but it really was a waste of resources that made her heart ache if she spent too much time thinking about it. She knew so many people further away from the strip needed the resources more.
At least the old witch had wanted to improve people’s lives with the fusion core. She took some solace in that after trekking across what was pre-war Los Angeles.
“Mornin’, darlin’.” Cooper joined her at the campfire, built just a few feet from the lush blanket of plants.
“Good morning.” She smiled, feeling a bit sheepish. “I couldn’t go back to sleep, figured I’d start breakfast.”
“Pinto beans?”
“Pinto beans.” It was an unspoken rule that as long as they had pinto beans (and they almost always had pinto beans) that’s what they were having for breakfast. “Oh, and there’s some toast from the cafeteria. Better finish it up because it’s getting a little dry…”
Cooper stirred the beans, making sure none were sticking to the bottom, and sat back. His hand dipped inside his coat to pull out his inhaler. There was the sound of the canister being pushed down followed by a puff. He pulled out a whiskey bottle next, taking a few swallows and then offering her some.
She declined.
“You’ve never told me what that inhaler is.” Lucy mused, though she supposed she’d never asked. She knew it prevented him from turning feral, though she’d overheard whispers that it was more of a genetic marker thing and the strange chem could only delay it. She shivered and hoped Cooper didn’t notice. He didn’t seem to. “It’s important enough that you sold me for parts for a six month supply.”
It looked like jet, using the same outer casing, but it wasn’t. Jet came in a red canister, opaque and solid metal like it was
“Darlin’, don’t worry that pretty little head o’ yours. I ain’t gonna turn feral on you.” He’d take himself out first.
She was only able to give a weaker than usual smile at him before she turned back to the rising sun. Trying to get information from him when he didn’t want to give it was frustrating and she didn’t have the energy for it today.
The sky streaked with different shades of orange, the sky lightening from an inky blue to a much lighter tone. The clouds from a few days ago had dissipated entirely, meaning no chance of another rainstorm.
“I really want to do a deeper search of the second floor today.” She said suddenly, turning back to look to him. Her face was serious, brow furrowed. “If there are anymore… bones, or remains left we need to make sure to give them a proper burial.” It made her feel a little ill to think of how many skeletons might be in Vault 22.
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Lucy stood at the top of the stairs that led down to the oxygen recycling level. It seemed to stretch on forever, so she took a deep breath and took the step. Cooper put his hand gently on her lower back; it much easier to feel through the thinner clothes as opposed to the vault suit. It felt like a lifetime ago she’d left it behind in the correctional facility.
Dogmeat went first, happily bounding down the stairs, she was sniffing around for more treats. Lucy hadn’t realized how dark it was, a solid half of the lights overhead flickering or burnt out. They burned her eyes nonetheless when she came down to investigate.
She was… scared? A different kind of fear than she’d ever felt before. Dread sat low in her core, impending doom weighing down her shoulders. Maybe it was just knowing this was the final resting place of the people that had lived in this vault, but it felt entirely different than it had last night, half-asleep and with Dogmeat by her side.
“You okay, darlin’?”
Lucy breathed in and nodded, slowly breathing out. Steeling her nerves. Then she nodded one in the affirmative.
“Okie dokie,” She said, stepping off the last step and onto the landing. Her ears strained and it was quiet, aside from the clear sound of the dog rustling through whatever she could find. Blech.
“Sorry darlin’, I know you still think pretty highly of Vault-Tec, but…” He trailed off, considering telling her what he’d heard when he eavesdropped on Barb and the rest of the executives. “Some of these tin cans weren’t meant to keep everyone alive. I know there was at least one that was over-populated and under-stocked.”
Lucy frowned, her darting around the room. She looked at him. The gears were running in her brain.
“What do you mean, like they intentionally starved the people in that vault?” It was barely above a whisper, nearly dying immediately as it left her lips. She was scared to know what the answer was, thinking back to the horrors that her Dad had told her about the corn blight.
Cooper gave her a sympathetic look. He knew it was hard for her to find out everything about the company she looked up to was a lie, but she deserved to know the truth. He knew she would probably have to sit with it for a while.
There were bones, though way less than either of them had expected. They didn’t seem to be full skeletons and some of the had some sort of strange, green fungus on them. There were bones rib bones and a jaw bone that were nearly entirely covered in the lichen.
When she felt confident that nothing could jump out and surprise them, she started to actually take in her surroundings. She’d thought originally that the large leaves and bright orange and pink flowers were silk until she brushed up against one and found it’s petals.
It was alive, despite the incredibly dim lighting and not a single ray of sunshine.
“Do you think these are special ights?” Lucy craned her head up to look at the lights. They had a strange, blue almost violet hue to them, not yellow like the faux sun in her vault.
“Hmmm.” Cooper stared at them for a long minute. “Ain’t got a clue, darlin’.”
Lucy snorted, nearly falling over as she bent to inspect the leaves. They seemed healthy enough, but she noticed some of the strange green growing up the stalks of the plants here, too. She didn’t know enough about plant diseases beyond the various blights and corn smut (which, despite it’s name, was not sexy in any way). This wasn’t something she was familiar with, so she shrugged it off.
There was a science kit in one of the other rooms that she would’ve been able to tinker with (and maybe even make some stimpaks) if it hadn’t been smashed. More of those strange lights with the purple hue, she noticed. All but one was broken.
“A lot of people on the surface don’t care much about the golden rule.” She mused. All of these things would have been helpful and it seemed like nearly everything that could’ve been useful was destroyed or missing.
There was a working RobCo terminal on this level. She didn’t even have to guess the password, it was just…unlocked. She was thankful to see the familiar dark green screen with it’s bright neon text, and she quickly pulled up the main screen. It looked like some of the files had been corrupted.
“What’s that say, sunshine?” Cooper asked, turning over a canvas sack that looked like it’d been emptied of it’s contents a long time ago.
“There’s just one entry that’s accessible. It’s something about a noise complaint on this floor…says ‘I can have other people back me up on it this time, too.’…” Maybe Dogmeat had heard something last night and that’s why she’d come down to check it out. “This is weird,” She admitted, starting to get the creeping feeling that something just wasn’t quite right.
“I think they’re all weird, darlin’.” Cooper’s mouth turned upwards in a small smile. Lucy didn’t see.
Just beyond that desk with the terminal on it were a set of two rooms that were obviously meant for growing food. Small square pots lined stainless steel shelves, some with sprouts growing but the majority empty. There were drainage grates underneath her feet and other various things one would need to grow food.
Despite her uneasy feeling, it did seem like it could be a great place to fix up. With so much space to grow food, they would be able to produce a lot of needed food. Lucy remembered the hungry kids in Freeside just before the gate to the strip. They had been so desperate for food that she’d seen them dress a giant rat.
Fresh vegetables and maybe even fresh fruit - strawberries - would do a lot of good here. She had all of those seeds that had been gifted to her from the woman back in Novac and being able to grow them underground meant scavengers couldn’t get them.
Human and animal scavengers.
It was late afternoon according to Lucy’s pipboy when they stood at the top of the stairs that led down to the third floor. There were several rows of junk between them and the next floor down. After finding those bones
“What do you think is down there?” Lucy asked, just a bit softer than she meant to.
“I dunno, sweetheart. Don’t tell me you’re scared.” His mouth pulled up into a smirk. “Brave girl like you? C’mon.”
Lucy snorted this time. She didn’t want to admit that she was a little bit worried, the dread in her gut at a low but steady simmer. She didn’t know if any of it was thanks to her short captivity in the fiend’s care. Or lack thereof.
The air on the third floor had visible pollen and detritus floating in it, shades of pink and yellow. Cooper went ahead first, hunting knife in hand. Maybe fifty feet from the last step down, the greenery abruptly stopped, like it had deliberately been pruned and cut back. There were vines and more of that green lichen climbing up the familiar steel walls of the vault. It looked like if she breathed on it too hard it would crumble.
“How are there so many plants?” She wondered aloud, though Cooper didn’t have any more of an idea than she did. They seemed to be growing straight out of the layer of dust that had settled.
They were big, broad plants too, somehow healthy and strong despite being several stories underground with no sunlight. They were vaguely fern like, she noticed.
“Afraid I don’t know that either, darlin’.”
“They’re even growing out of the vents.” She didn’t realize that meant the air wasn’t circulating and that detail would prove to be devastating in the near future. But for now, she shrugged it off.
There was a long hallway ahead of them with plenty of greenery lining the hallways. There seemed to be even more plants here than the first or second floors. She was just in awe.
The room to her immediate right seemed to have trees stretching impossibly high. They disappeared into the darkness of the industrial looking ceiling above them. There was a table made of wood and metal and unused equipment lined the walls. Some of the various control panels and electronics seem to have been modified for an unknown purpose.
It was cooler on this level. She didn’t know why. Maybe the oxygen recycling.
There was another working Rob-Co terminal which Lucy dug into while Cooper was clearing it. This one didn’t have a password either, but the screen was flickering every thirty seconds. Two of the entries were corrupted and a bright green message warned of the system’s security being compromised.
>> Vault 22 Expedition, Entry 3
>> Corrupted
>> Corrupted
“They were studying atmospheric effects on plants for a higher oxygen yield.” Lucy murmured, eyes darting up to him and then back to the screen. “There were problems that ‘these’ vaults were known to have… Did the author of this entry mean all vaults?”
Cooper kicked at some large, white cap mushrooms in the corner, some of them bigger than his head. He didn’t want to risk eating them, he didn’t know enough about mushrooms to know if these were toxic or not.
“I don’t know that either, darlin’.” He knew a lot of them, not all of them though, were cruel experiments for the fat cats on the Vault-Tec panel.
Lucy explored the rest of the room. There wasn’t anything that stood out to her.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” She smiled sheepishly. He could read her so well. “I – uh, it’s just that I feel uneasy.”
He followed closely behind as she turned to check the other rooms.
Lots of ivy and what looked like marigolds were growing on this side of the vault, and another round room meant exclusively for food production. It made sense, considering the name of this level.
“I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine, you’ve handled your own for a long time now.” He reminded her.
Lucy snorted. It hadn’t even been two months, even if it felt like a million years ago.
“I know.” She plucked one of the deep yellow flowers, tucking it behind her ear. “…can we take a lunch break soon? I’m exhausted.” She thought another cup of tea might work.
Cooper’s mouth turned down in a frown. She rarely complained that she was tired, especially after less than eight hours of work. They had spent so much time walking across New California and New Nevada and she still had energy to talk his ear off at dinner time.
“Sure, sunshine. You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, just tired.” Lucy nodded, despite the mild aches starting to begin in her chest. She blamed it on the dust that had compiled in the hallways.
“We can have an early dinner, get some extra rest tonight.” He offered, taking one last look around before they climbed back up the stairs.
__________ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ __________
Lucy settled into her makeshift bed after dinner, pulling one of the books she’d taken from Vault 21 out and pulling out the dried grass that she’d been using as a bookmark to set beside her.
Cooper was still up, burying the bones they had found in the vault. He didn’t bother digging six feet down, though, burying them about two feet down. He filled the hole in and tamped down the loose dirt.
The moon in the sky was crescent shaped tonight, he noticed.
Dogmeat, who hadn’t wanted to give up what was left of the bone she’d gotten the night before, was curled up across her legs. Lucy liked that, it made her feel safe and secure.
The brunette only stopped reading when Cooper came back, marking her book again and shifting over just a bit for him to have space.
“That was quick.”
“Not much to bury, darlin’.” He said solemnly. It was the first grave he’d ever dug, usually unearthing them to grave rob, at least prior to now.
There was a strange ache in her chest for a moment, unable to not imagine that these were her family’s and loved one’s remains. But she nodded.
“Thank you, Cooper.”
Cooper groaned as he lowered himself to the bedroll. His old bones ached, too, so out came the bottle of whiskey. He offered it to Lucy who held up her palm to signify she wasn’t interested again.
“No, thanks.” She’d had her fill for quite a while.
“Sin city catching up to you?” Cooper asked, the bottle of whiskey being set to his left side against the wall. “You’re never this tired this early.”
“I know.” She agreed, putting her book down too and shifting a bit to get more comfortable. Dogmeat huffed a little, standing up to curl up between them. “I’ll feel better tomorrow.” She assured, petting Dogmeat as an apology for disturbing her.
“I’m gonna hold you to that.”
Lucy hoped she was right.
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Unfortunately, Lucy didn’t feel better the following day. The ache in her lungs had gotten worse and she had an unpleasant taste in her mouth. She’d been sick so infrequently growing up in the vault that this was miserable.
She laid beside Cooper silently for thirty minutes, her head throbbing. It hurt to swallow and her hands felt clammy. Her blanket was soaked from her sweating and she was somehow managing to freeze at the same time.
“Woah, darlin’. You look worse than you did last night.”
Lucy sniffled and then sighed, that only serving to make her head throb further.
“I feel worse than I did last night.” She admitted softly, her voice raspier than normal. She didn’t want to spend the day exploring, she wanted to sleep for at least fourteen hours. “it might be all the dust.” It was still radioactive dust, even if it wasn’t enough to make her pip-boy’s rad meter go off.
But she took a deep breath, giving an ‘okie dokie’ to give herself the strength before standing and rubbing the last sleep out of her eyes, getting ready for another day of combing through the long empty vault.