Z's Journal After The Nuclear Ending

I was looking back to reflect on why on Earth I joined the Brotherhood of Steel when I was already appointed General of the Minutemen, and how, after everything I've experienced, I gave it all up.

I can see how easily I overlooked the unforgiving black and white view of the world of the BOS by focusing on the power for good they offered the Commonwealth. And, let's face it, vertibirds swooping down, with miniguns blazing, on man-eating mutants or butchers and torturers of the innocents like raiders or Gunners is nothing less than breathtaking! The gleaming weapons, glorious power armor and clean, well-fitting field uniforms just seemed to instill confidence and resonate righteousness, law and order. Adding to their glamor, their terminology was the stuff of romance too. Knights and Paladins, Lancers, Scribes and Elders. Everyone is your brother or your sister which gives one a powerful sense of acceptance, appreciation and belonging to this military family. The difference between right and wrong were presented as clearly as the contrast between black and white. (I can see how that would prove irresistible to an orphan boy, as Danse was, struggling for survival.) I was managing to still lead the Minutemen, too, with starting out or helping settlements get established and setting up defenses against the dark. And this new post-atomic war world can be very, very dark.

These times bring out the very worst in men, but they also bring out the best. And to me, the best was personified by Paladin Danse. Here was a man, a strong, beautiful man, who ran towards danger, not away. A man who would sacrifice his life for any innocent settler and for any of his military comrades - literally without any hesitation. After running a few missions with him, I started emulating his mad dashes towards the enemy too. Of course, power armor helps in the courage department. Except for mini nukes, or direct missile strikes you can take several hits and not slow down. As Danse says, "Give me a laser rifle and my power armor and I can take on the world." It really feels that way and stimpaks are miraculous. They stimulate the body's natural healing response and amplify it up to an amazing rate of speed, so you can be healing up devastating wounds as you're still in battle.

I was a fighter with words in the courtroom, and, now, I am as at home with a .308 or plasma rifle as I used to be with a legal pad. There is no hesitation now, no terror, just a deep need to protect my people in the most direct way possible. And they are my people. Something has changed deep within me, from civilized lawyer to fierce warrior. I will never be what I once was.

I will always respect and care for Preston, too, but with Danse it was, I think, love at first sight for me, which is admittedly crazy. Well, maybe not, considering what I was to find out later.

I still and will always love my husband Nate, murdered in cold blood by Kellogg under the direction of the Institute. To me, this was only 8 months ago, but in reality it was over 6 decades past. Yet, although less than a year ago, my previous life has become a distant, hazy dream, that seems to belong to someone else, and has been completely displaced by a waking nightmare populated with poison air and water, dead trees, monsters and evil men and women.

Yet, into this nightmare, changing it into something I can live with, came the good men and women, like Danse and Preston, Piper, Nick & Ellie, Hancock and Curie...the Minutemen and Scribes and Knights of the Brotherhood, settlers, farmers and families, and so many I have met on my travels through the Commonwealth, who fight back against the nightmare, the dark tide that seems to replenish itself endlessly.

My Shaun, a dying gift from my son, says, "Can't you feel it, Mom? There's hope in the air, a feeling that everything's going to be all right.".And, yes, child of my heart, I do feel it.

The nightmare is losing to this new dream, where life persists in this arid wasteland, and life-long friends are made and where I have found a love I thought only existed in romance novels or fairy tales. Maybe the intensity of this life I now lead - facing death daily, the adrenaline rushes, - make my emotions so unbelievably heightened, but I love Danse so deeply that I am left trembling with the intensity of feeling. And, amazingly, he appears to reciprocate this crazy, mad love in depth and in passion.

And, so, here I write my journal, and whether it disappears and is never shared or is passed down to my children's children, doesn't matter really. I need to write this down for my own sake. It is my hope and prayer that the world to come will be a kinder place and not so deadly and that my children and their children and on through the ages might have a chance for decent, happy lives and I would wish that they have just half the luck in love I have had in my own life, and that will be rich and beautiful enough for any one lifetime.

I lost a Provisioner today. The deathclaw went after him, as I was reloading my missile launcher - I was too slow. He was a good man, from Coastal Cottage. I will have to let his people know. And see if anyone is willing to take his place. I need more battle-hardened settlers, as the Provisioners need guardsmen as they travel these roads. I will not send these brave folks to their deaths without protection again!

Looking back...again...

My first mission with Danse was a test, I'm sure, of my worthiness for the Brotherhood. I guess I passed with flying colors, because he told me I had good instincts and he was glad to have me at his back. After Danse and I fought through three dozen or so Gen 2 synths at Arc Jet and retrieved the deep range transmitter Scribe Haylen needed, we we're both exhausted and too far from Cambridge to make it there in one night. Danse suggested we bivouac before we were too worn out to defend ourselves. He said it was a tactically sound practice. He showed me how to tie up our tarps, and line the bottom of our makeshift shelter with shrubbery, leaves and branches to insulate it from the frozen earth. We ate a simple meal, and Danse, to my delighted surprise, produced two cold Gwinnett Stouts to salute our success. Then we retired for the night, having set up simple trip wires all around the entire perimeter, removing the fusion cores from and posing our armor to look like watchmen on post.

Laying there, my Ultra Thin Camp Blanket wasn't doing its promised job and I started shivering. I wasn't generating enough body heat to keep warm. My shivering became more pronounced And was not letting up. It felt like an eternity, but was probably only 20 minutes, and then, my teeth started chattering. After fighting off super mutants and glowing cockroaches the size of dogs, I was going to die of hypothermia on a camp out.

Danse must've heard me, because he rolled over to look at me sleepily and said, "Soldier, get yourself over here. I'm cold."

My eyebrow raised. He didn't seem or sound chilled to me. Looking back, I know now this was typical of Danse. He is innately kind. Wanting to live through the night and get some much needed sleep, I obeyed with alacrity.

"Common practice in the field," Danse assured me.

Having been a happily married woman, I know how to snuggle. It involves a lot of wriggling to get as much body contact as humanly possible. And Danse was deliciously warm, providing a lovely relief to my bone deep chill. My front was to his, my head on his chest, and I pulled his arm to encompass my still cold back. He smelled of rich male musk, dried sweat and warm flesh. I imagined his skin would taste of salt. He covered us with both of our UTC blankets, and, after several minutes, the inner freeze started to thaw. I sighed with the pleasure of it. My shivering slowed, then finally stopped and I quickly fell into a contented, exhausted sleep.

I woke up with my back snuggled into Danse's front, spoon-style, still toasty warm. Something hard was poking me ...a stick or tree root? I wriggled a little, away from the protuberance so rudely poking my rump. I was only half awake, barely aware of my surroundings, when was I startled awake by Danse's sudden lunging up and out of our little shelter and tearing off into the woods.

Oh. It hadn't been a tree root after all.

I prerended sleep when he came back in a few minutes and eased himself back into our little nest, his back to mine. I didn't want him to be embarrassed. I smiled to myself. I lazily lingered on the idea that Danse wanted me. Fraternization with civvies or BOS under one's command was forbidden by the Elder. Tell that to my traitorous body, which was now informing me that it was ready for some fraternizing! I withheld all body movement, holding very still despite my very strong desire to snuggle up against his warmth again. I felt his body soften in relaxation and his breathing slow down as he fell back asleep. After awhile, so did I.

The sunrise roused me. I inspected the trip wires and checked for signs of unwanted visitors. Our site was undisturbed as far as I could tell. After checking out the area as best I could, I came back, gathering, as I went, an armful of dead wood and kindling, prepared a small fire, boiling some purified water and making tea out of dried mutfruit leaves. Not coffee or black tea, (would I ever taste them again in this life?) but I have developed a taste for mutfruit leaf tea. I heated up a couple of stingwing filets, the smell making my mouth water.

Me, eating bugs. Yup. Hell has frozen over and pigs are flying.

I was so deep in thought, that when he touched my shoulder, I startled, spilling hot tea over my hand. I yelped, a distinctly feminine sound. And Danse's brows went up at the very un-warriorlike sound I made.

I shrugged, embarassed at being caught off guard, and diverted attention by handing him a mug of tea and then his breakfast.

He gave me a smile and his thanks.

Well, I told myself, watching him surreptitiously as he wolfed down his stingwing and drank his tea with obvious appreciation, just because a man has a natural, physical response to a female, doesn't imply anything personal or emotional - it just a biological reaction.

I needed to get my mind back on my own personal mission - finding Shaun, first and foremost and cleaning up the Commonwealth on the way.