A bit more world-building in this one, as well as some foreshadowing? Maybe. To some degree, I'm making up a lot of this as I go along, though there are major plot points I'm always aiming toward. This is also known as the basics of storytelling. Tune in later for Lesson Two: Using MS Word's Thesaurus to Ensure You Don't Repeat Words.

Chapter Text

“...in the ruins of our love, the ruins of the life that we have...left behind. The ruins of the strife that took...you from mine. In these ruins at least I...still have you....”

The music faded on a somber lone guitar tune, John Lennon's voice fading along with it, and Max found herself glancing over at Chloe in the driver's seat. Seeming to sense her gaze, Chloe smiled out of the corner of her eye and reached over to grasp Max's hand, giving it a little squeeze and lacing their fingers together while she drove with one hand.

“People of New Columbia and beyond, this is Three-Dog, aooooooo! Fighting the good fight, spreading the light, and always doing what's right! You just listened to Ruins (of our Love) by the Beatles. You heard that right. The Beatles. Apparently, their heads have been kept on ice for the past three hundred years, and guess who just recovered them from Vault 64 so they could croon again? That's right. New Colombia's own Lone Wanderer. Hey, kid. I hear these guys are writing a song about you next.”

“Jeez, even a global nuclear apocalypse can't stop them,” Chloe said, reclaiming her hand to wipe at her nose. “I used to listen to the Beatles all the time back in the day.”

“And I thought we had it tough,” Rachel said. “Imagine waking up after three hundred years to find out you're just a head.”

“Great way to get ahead in life,” Max said, and the truck was silent for a moment.

“Chloe, I'm gonna tickle her,” Rachel said.

“Go for it,” Chloe smirked.

“No, don't you—ah! Hehe, Rachel!” Max squirmed away from Rachel's probing fingers, jolting as they found her hips and tickled her. “Stah...stah-hop!”

“Nope, that pun is a tickleable offense!” Rachel insisted. Max bumped against Chloe, causing the truck to swerve, and the blonde quickly shoved Max back against Rachel.

“Alright, alright, see that the punishment is carried out without running us off the road, please?” she asked, peering over and snickering when she saw that Max had all but landed in Rachel's lap. Max felt her face heat up, but Chloe didn't seem upset, and Rachel just sort of steadied her as the truck pitched over a bump in the dirt road leading toward Stadium City. The roads weren't paved, but there had at least been an effort to flatten out dirt paths leading to the major areas of the Commonwealth, and judging from the tire tracks worn into the dirt, theirs wasn't the only vehicle that frequented them.

It was strange, she mused, to be taking a familiar road toward a familiar place but have everything feel so foreign to her. She had reconciled herself to the fact that this was probably not some coma fantasy or nightmare as well as she'd been able, but still, the naked truth of the vast change that had been wrought on the world had seemed pleasantly distant at the Red Rocket station. Hers had been a simple existence of day-to-day tasks done for Al, almost like a homesteader working on the family farm out in some remote rural location. Now, she was driving off into the vast, unknowable landscape that had become Postwar America. Everything that she had known about the United States was gone, either from nuclear fire or the simple passage of a great deal of time. Once again, she was struck by how alien everything had become, how dangerous and unforgiving the world was now, hardened by decades, centuries of nuclear devastation and a lack of human presence to bring it in check.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Rachel said, and Max peered over at her, realizing with a start that she was still in the blonde's lap.

“Oh! I'm sorry,” she said, quietly shuffling away, but Rachel simply held onto her, running a hand up and down Max's arm.

“Don't worry about it,” Rachel told her. “You alright? You look a little...melancholy.”

“It's all gone,” Chloe said, stealing the words right from Max's mouth. “The whole world, everything's completely different. You can only push it down for so long, right?”

“Yeah,” Rachel said, her hand moving to gently rub slow circles on Max's back. “But we have each other, at least. Right?”

“We do,” Max said with a small smile. “I think I'd have lost it completely without you two.”

“Same,” Chloe said. “If I had to go through all this bullshit without you guys, I'd probably have just gotten eaten by that deathclaw on purpose.”

“I definitely wouldn't be here right now without you guys,” Rachel said, giving Max a squeeze. Max wondered for a moment if this was a little too affectionate to be with Rachel, especially with Chloe right there in the cab of the truck, but Chloe didn't seem to care, looking over at the two and smiling.

“Aw, just look at you two,” she said with a wink. “Rachel, you trying to steal my woman from me?”

“I don't see why we couldn't share,” Rachel told her with a smirk, and Max felt a set of lips smooching her on the cheek, causing her already warm face to heat up to dangerous levels! Rachel!

“I just got her, let me have her to myself for a little while, at least,” is all Chloe said back, which did not help matters.

“Can we please change the subject!?”

…...

Past noon, as the sun was midway down the western half of the sky and casting long shadows in front of them, they passed through a rocky, hilly area where the road itself was the only flat land, dirt packed down tight into a raised cement foundation about as wide as a two-lane highway. Left and right, jagged rocks and massive boulders—some of which looked to be centuries old chunks of brick buildings worn smooth by hundreds of years of rainfall and wind—dotted the terrain, interspersed with the gnarled boughs of trees both alive and long-dead. As they drove along, Max became increasingly wary of the surroundings. It would be almost impossible to get the truck turned around, and there were way too many places to hide and plan an ambush.

Of course, her suspicions proved correct, as three armored figures climbed onto the road several yards down, giving Chloe ample time to slow down rather than simply run them over. She peered over at Max as they slowed, and Max climbed from Rachel's lap to peer closely at them.

“What's the plan, Max?” Chloe asked. “Any future sight to offer?”

“Not this time around,” Max said.

“Huh,” Rachel noised as the truck came to a stop. “So we're in the alpha timeline right now. Weird. I might be rewound and never actually remember living out this particular combination of moments.”

“Alright, just stop with that hypothetical timeline shit, I hate trying to wrap my head around it,” Chloe said before rolling down her window and peering out. “What's up, fellas?”

Three men stood near the front of the truck, all of them wearing body armor that looked like someone took military issue infantryman armor and combined it with a feudal Japanese samurai or something. The general shape favored feudal Japanese armor, with large square shoulder pads, huge thigh guards tied around the waist, and tall kabuto helmets. The coloration was almost completely black but with ornate yellow designs on the shoulders, and Max also saw yellow clothing worn under the armor. They also carried long swords strapped to their hips, in addition to heavy guns slung over their backs. Currently, the guns were out and held in a ready position.

“We are the shogunate,” the lead man said from behind an ornate face mask. “We represent the will of the shōgun and of our emperor Yazu Kotobuki. Step out of the vehicle and submit to an inspection of your cargo, or we will open fire.”

“Since when do you guys own this highway?” Rachel asked. “Al said this area belongs to Chiselton.”

“Yeah, what even is a sheldon-knotty?” Chloe added with a curious cant of her head. “Sounds like a sex thing.”

“Submit your cargo to an inspection, or we will open fire!” the guy repeated.

“You can submit your fucking face to my ass!” Chloe said, reaching for her gun, and Max held her hand out to grasp at the time stream. As always, a rush filled her ears, and the world shimmered before her as everything began to retrace its steps. The three shogunate guys back away from the truck as it rolled backwards, and soon, they'd left them in the distance, retracing their tire tracks until the men had nearly reached the edges of the highway. Giving them a couple of minutes of warning, Max took a deep breath and set things back on their course.

“..ny future sight to offer?” Chloe was asking, watching as Max swiftly began to move through the small cab of the truck, reaching through the tiny access window into the back to the cargo hold and fishing out her laser musket. She had recently affixed a high-powered scope to it (with night vision, to boot) with a little help from Warren, and she herself had figured out how to over overclock the capacitor, allowing her to crank a higher wattage shot with each use. The stock had also been replaced, though that had simply been due to a minor gripe of shoulder cramping. She was much smaller than Preston.

“It seems you have a plan?” Rachel asked plainly.

“Keep your speed,” Max said, reaching up to where a sliding hatch had been added in the roof of the vehicle. “If I tap twice on the roof, speed up, okay?”

“Kiss for good luck?” Chloe asked with a little smile, and Max rolled her eyes and leaned in for a smooch. “Rachel, too.”

Max turned and saw the blonde echoing her roll of the eyes, but she did scoot in and peck Max on the cheek.

“Go kick some ass, cutie,” she said before Max climbed up on the seat and perched herself with her upper torso sticking out of the roof. She winced a bit at the wind as it whipped her hair around, reaching down and fishing a pair of goggles out of her pocket. Of course, they hit a bump and she succeeded in dropping them over the side of the roof, but a quick rewind retrieved them before she managed to get them over her face, shielding her eyes from the worst of the slipstream. Cranking the capacitor of the rifle, she was rewarded with a loud, rushing whirring noise that she could hear even over the wind. She placed it against her shoulder, sighting up one of the shogunate soldiers.

K-chnk!

A lance of red light flew toward him, and he staggered as his helmet flew off of of his head. Max cranked again as the trio scattered, carefully rewinding now that she had another shot readied. It was a good thing this laser musket didn't use actual ammo. Once she fired a standard ballistic bullet, it was lost, Max herself entering some sort of quantum stasis field while rewinding. But the laser musket generated its shots with every crank, meaning it was the perfect weapon for her. She resumed the normal time stream once her target's head was fairly close to where it had been before, but not quite to where his helmet was back on his head.

“Inspect this.”

K-chnk!

Max was rewarded with the distant sight of his head popping like a balloon, and she recoiled, wincing a bit. Yuck. Cranking the capacitor again, she watched the remaining two start to hurry away from their fallen friend before rewinding once more, bringing them back.

K-chnk!

Crank. Rewind.

K-chnk!

Crank. Rewind. Two down.

K-chnk!

Crank. Rewind.

K-chnk!

Three down. Max took a moment to catch her breath, reaching up and feeling a slight dribble running out of her left nostril. She took her finger away and saw red. She was pushing herself a bit with all of the rapid rewinds. But maybe her power was like a muscle. Maybe she needed to tax it sometimes to get better.

Well, she mused, looking off to the right and seeing a jeep of some sort cresting a nearby hill, she would get certainly be able to test that theory. She slammed a couple of times on the roof of the car, feeling a jolt and lurching a bit as Chloe sped up. The jeep rolled toward them, and through her scope, Max saw three more shogunate guys piled in it and gesturing their way.

Fuck. That wasn't good.

…...

“Fuck,” Chloe cursed.

“This isn't good,” Rachel agreed, peering out of her window. Beyond her shoulder, Chloe could see the jeep zooming toward them. There were three more of the mysterious armored dickheads in it, and Chloe saw one of them going for the gatling gun bolted to the rear. “Chloe, this really isn't good. Look.”

She pointed at Chloe's window, and Chloe turned to see another two jeeps on their left. No, no, Max couldn't handle all of that by herself. Her legs were already beginning to shake; she'd probably been rewinding like crazy judging from that burst of laser fire from earlier. Taking a deep breath, Chloe tried to remember all of the weapons they had packed. Maybe one of them could be of use, even against a an armored jeep. Actually, she distinctly remembered packing a missile launcher along with a crate of the missiles themselves.

“Rachel,” she said. “Take the wheel.”

“What?” Rachel asked, staring askance at her.

“Take the wheel!” Chloe said, already beginning to scoot away. Rachel climbed over her, and the truck briefly swerved as she settled in, leaving Chloe to climb into the back as Rachel took over driving. There were several hatches along the ceiling in the back, the same as the one Max was currently using as her vantage point, and Chloe yanked one open to let some light in, illuminating her path to her goal. The missile launcher sat on a shelf along the wall of the truck's cargo bay, and she snagged it up, along with a few missiles. Packing them into the magazine, she climbed up the ladder that led to the open hatch on the roof of the truck.

She emerged into blinking daylight , her eyes taking a moment to adjust before she saw Max taking aim. There was a strange moment where her girlfriend blurred and shifted, twitching like a video that had gotten stuck in the reels and was going back over the same moment a few times.

K-chnk-chnk-k-kchnk!

A burst of red laser fire flew from Max, and the occupants of the jeep on the truck's right fell, the jeep itself banking sharply right, too sharply, before rolling over and tumbling down the hill. That was one taken care of, at least, though that left two more. Chloe fixed the missile launcher onto her shoulder, watching as Max twitched and faded a few more times while she took aim.

“Chl-Ch-Chloe-Chloe! Just a little to your left!”

Chloe shifted a hairsbreadth to her left and fired, a loud popping sound filling her ears as a missile burst from the launcher and arced through the air, leaving a smoking trail behind before it collided with one of the jeeps. A burst of smoke plumed into the air, the remaining jeep swerving to avoid the wreckage. Chloe took aim at the last vehicle, but when she looked to Max for instruction, she saw her girlfriend swaying and slumping against the roof of the truck.

“Max!? Max, are you okay!?”

Chloe dropped back down into the cargo hold, stuffing the missile launcher back onto the shelf and slamming the ceiling hatch shut before hurrying to crawl back into the cab of the truck. Max's legs were shifting and dangling dangerously, the girl herself looking catatonic as Chloe carefully guided her back into the cab. Her nose was positively leaking blood, and her eyes searched fruitlessly for a moment, looking unfocused before settling on Chloe.

“Chloe...?”

“It's okay, Max,” Chloe said, holding her girlfriend tightly. “I'm here. We're okay. We got the bad guys.”

“But there's one more....”

“We'll take care of it,” Chloe insisted.

“Max, you did great,” Rachel added. “You were a total badass.”

“D-don't...tell them...we have guns,” Max said, her eyelids fluttering and drifting shut for long moments before snapping back open to focus on Chloe. “Don't let them know...we have weapons....”

“We won't,” Chloe said as a thudding noise filled the air. She cradled Max into her as she looked around for the source of the noise, spotting a vertibird growing larger on the skyline, drawing closer and closer before it was swooping in right over the truck and hovering over the remaining jeep. Chloe saw a power-armored figure bringing a minigun to bear against the last of their attackers, a stream of gunfire spewing out and colliding with the vehile. The dickheads in the jeep fought valiantly but only briefly before the last vehicle joined its fellows in tumbling tires over roof down the side of a steep hill and landing with a crunch against a boulder.

“What the...?” Rachel slowly brought the truck to a halt as the vertibird arced around and drew in on them, descending to a landing in a clearing that was barely big enough for it. Chloe found herself slamming the roof hatch shut against the noise and dust it was kicking up, glad that the windows were already shut against the encroaching winter chill. “Who are they?”

“I'm gonna guess trouble,” Chloe said, peering down at Max. “C'mon. We should set up camp here anyway. At least until Max wakes up.”

“Okay,” Rachel said, nodding out the window to where four figures were disembarking from the vertibird as the engines powered down. “What about them?”

Chloe sighed softly, watching two power-armored figures leading the way, followed by to women in the sort of combat BDU jumpsuits Dad had often worn in field engagements. They were definitely some sort of military-style group, though that wasn't extremely reassuring. Chloe's step-dad had been in the military as well, and he'd been, to put it plainly, a douche-bag.

“Max told us not to tell them about our guns and stuff,” she said. “If there was more to warn us about, she probably would have.”

“Unless she zonked out before she could,” Rachel added.

“I'm trying to think positive, here,” Chloe said. “Why don't you stay in the car with her? I'll go check these guys out.”

“Just be careful,” Rachel said. “We don't have Max to rewind if one of us gets hurt.”

“When am I ever not careful?” Chloe asked as she opened her door, and Rachel snorted.

“If I had a week, I wouldn't be able to list all the times you weren't.”

“Eat me,” Chloe said before hopping to the ground and shutting the door behind her. She ambled toward the edge of the highway, arms to her sides in a rather nonthreatening gesture as she watched the armored folks draw closer. Upon closer inspection, Chloe saw that they were wearing T-60 sets painted in a gunmetal gray scheme with red accents that really worked well to give an intimidating look. The two females in the BDUs had color schemes to match as well.

“What's up, fellas?” she called out as they paused within general raised-voice range. Chloe wasn't quite close enough for a normal conversation, but at the very least, she could communicate. “Thanks for the help!”

They were silent for a moment before the armored figure in the lead jolted slightly and turned to regard the one flanking her, which simply nodded. The lead turned back to Chloe and spoke in a distorted but noticeably female voice.

“Happy to help, citizen,” she said. “It looked like you had it pretty handled there, though. That was some fine shooting.”

“That was our friend,” Chloe said with a gesture back at the truck. “She's not feeling too hot, though.”

“Does she need medical attention?” the other armored one asked, his voice evidently male. “Perhaps Wagner can help out?”

“I was just about to say that,” the female said defensively. “Scribe Wagner, would you please check on the civilian?”

“You got it,” one of the girls said. She had dark hair and wide, blue eyes that seemed to be perpetually mildly surprised. She hurried past Chloe toward the truck, and Chloe saw Rachel gesturing toward Max.

“Introductions, though,” the armored girl said, reaching up and pulling her helmet away to reveal close-cropped blonde hair in a pixie-like cut and bright green eyes that regarded Chloe with an almost angry intensity. “I'm Knight-Commander Victoria Chase. This is Paladin Everett Danse, Knight Taylor Christensen, and you've met Scribe Courtney Wagner. We're with the Brotherhood of Steel.”

“I'm Chloe,” Chloe told them, peering at them all in turn as she was introduced. Paladin Danse tugged his own helmet away to reveal close-cropped black hair and a neatly-trimmed beard. Taylor Christensen stepped closer, and while her hair was tucked up into a large flat military hat, Chloe saw blue eyes and a round but pretty face. “That's Rachel and Max in the truck. Max is a little worn out. She gets nosebleeds sometimes. We were gonna make camp and chill out for a bit.”

“What are you three doing all the way out here with this big huge truck?” Victoria asked, sounding almost unduly curious. “Where are you coming from?”

“There's a little settlement west of here called Concord,” Chloe explained. “We're bringing some supplies from there to...Tenpines Bluff?”

“Yeah, Tenpines Bluff,” Rachel said, making her way over. “They've been having issues with raiders or something, so we're bringing supplies, but we might just pack them in here and evacuate them.”

“You three sound like a helpful bunch to have around,” Paladin Danse said. “We were planning to touch down and reconnoiter the area anyway, so how would you like to camp with us while your friend recovers?”

A bunch of people armed with hi-tech laser weaponry and two massive suits of power armor?

“That sounds great.”

…...

Rick was not having a great day. Waking up in a strange vault only to find out that it had been taken over by psychotic cultist bastards had been bad enough, but finding out that it had been two-hundred years since the world had decided to press the thermonuclear reset button was just the shit-flavored icing on a great big cake made of ass. At least he had the pleasant company of the girl, Erin Combes. And the curious critters of the Commonwealth were always happy to get to know travelers in their homeland.

“Son of a goddamn communist shit-sack!”

A burst of gunfire tore through the tough hide of what had to be some kind of mutated bear as it reared up a meaty paw to swipe at him. God, the thing was ugly, though, with mottled, purplish skin and only a few scant patches of fur. Didn't stop it from being as mean as any prewar bear, though, and it only seemed more territorial than the ones Rick had read about.

“Nraaaaagh!” it bellowed at him.

[Playing: eaglecry.htp]

“Tseeer!”

“Go back to Russia, you communist furball!” Rick cursed the creature, spinning to blast at it with a bolt of plasma that popped and sizzled as it collided with the beast's forehead, melting a hole right through its skull.

“Oh, God,” Erin said as the bear crumpled to the ground. “Gross.”

“Avert your eyes, citizen,” Rick instructed her. “And if you can...hold your breath. That's gonna smell to high heaven in about two minutes. Now, where to?”

“I...I don't know,” she admitted, looking around the countryside full of browning grass and ancient, gray trees. There were a few spruces here and there that were managing to sprout new foliage, but for the most part, Rick saw only death and decay. “It's hard to get my bearings. I was in a truck most of the time they had me.”

“We'll get ya home, don't worry,” Rick told her.

“Yeah, except I'm ninety-five percent sure my parents sold me to those assholes, along with a bunch of us girls,” she said. “Anything to keep them from being pillaged and killed.”

“Well...we can handle them when we meet them again,” Rick said, a low growl in his voice. “What's this place called, again? I have a map of the greater Boston area programmed into my noggin, maybe it'll sound familiar.”

“City Eighty-One,” the girl told him. “It used to be a vault, actually. Fifty years ago, they opened it up and started expanding onto the surface.”

“Vault 81?” Rick asked, slowing to a stop and doing a slow circle on the spot. “We're going in completely the opposite direction, girly. That's east of here.”

“I'm not going back there,” Erin insisted. “I'm gonna save my friends, and we're going to Stadium City.”

[Searching database.... No matches found to “Stadium City”.]

“What's Stadium City?” Rick asked. “Never heard of it.”

“It's where Boston used to be,” Erin said. “The old baseball stadium. I guess it was built like super sturdy as some advertising gimmick claiming it could survive a nuclear war. It's still there, and they've made a pretty good-sized city out of the ruins around it. I'm gonna save the girls, and we're off to the city. You can come if you want.”

[ALERT: New Objective (1)]

[Objective 1: Rescue American citizens from communist scum.]

“Then we have our mission,” Rick said. “I can't float idly by while Americans are in need of help. I'll accompany you, ma'am.”

“Oh,” Erin said, glancing over at him in surprise. “Oh, hey. Cool.”

Rick was about to speak when they heard a spattering of gunfire in the distance, Rick spinning and moving in front of Erin so as to shield her if need be.

“Stand back,” he told her. The gunfire sounded again, and Rick shifted so his laser rifle was at the ready, his center eye stalk zooming in on the direction the noise was coming from. He spotted two figures on the horizon, one looking gaunt and draped in rags, the other running from him at top speed. As they neared, Rick made out armor similar to the ones worn by the commie scum in the vault on the one apparently being pursued. He was one of them. The man pursuing him was hooded and shambling along behind him, a rifle raised and spitting gunfire in his general direction. He was shouting something at the top of his lungs in a grating scrape of a voice, but Rick couldn't make out the words until they were mere yards away.

“...ticks sucked at the bloated festering flesh of the very corpse of the world! Trekking and trudging under the gnawing sky and slurping at the rotted pustules dripping their effluence into the world, killing it slowly even as it clings to the last dregs of its life!”

A few bullets struck the runner, who fell to the ground, and Rick watched as the crazy guy drew closer, still bellowing as loud as he was able.

“The earth beneath you is dried, dead, parched of life, thirsting for every quenching drop of oozing black blood it can sup from the dregs, the drooling runoff from the bomb that ate the world! Feed! The! Earth!”

The last three words were punctuated by bursts of gunfire from the man's weapon, the fallen bastard lurching at each squeeze of the trigger. Rick made sure Erin was covered, but at the same time, his scanners had picked up the glint of dog tags and were running a cross-reference against the military database saved to his drives.

[Scanning...match found: SSG David Nicholas Madsen (Ret.)]

A military man. Well, he'd certainly seen better days. And a lot of them. Over eighty-seven thousand, by Rick's chronometer. How in God's name was this man even still alive? Rick's biometric scanners were picking up alarming levels of radiation, like this man had been dipped in and soaked to the bone. He turned to face the pair, and Erin gasped. If Rick had lungs, he'd probably have done the same; he was definitely the worse for wear.

Staff-Sergeant David Madsen's skin was pulled tight over his head, shaped to the bones or simply burned away in some places. From the way his clothes hung limply like a tent over his angular body, Rick would take a wild guess that the same applied to the rest of him as well. His eye sockets looked hollow, only a telltale black glint indicating that there were still eyes in there somewhere, and his lips were chapped and pulled away from his teeth, giving him a frothing lisp and a perpetually ghoulish grin. He wore tattered rags sewn and shaped into lumpy clothing that was only given any actual shape by the belts and straps that were holding them in place.

“A metal approximation,” David Madsen said. “And...a sheep, wandering where there are only wolves, a single flower floating awash in a sea of blood and hatred.”

“David Madsen,” Rick said, attempting to get the man's attention.

“I walk a constant pilgrimage, a wandering, meandering journey to the promised land, but the promise is broken, the land torn asunder. Forty days and forty nights, forty days and forty nights. Forty thousand days, a yawning chasm of time and space, the dark, seeping ooze of my brain overflowing with emptiness, filled to the brim with longing. Every day the day before, every night sleeping shrieking into the void to give back... Blue.... Blue is the promise of regret, blue is the – “

“SOLDIER! Face front!”

At once, David was silent, his body going rigid before he stood straight-backed, blinking his deepset eyes a few times and giving a vigorous shake of his head, like a dog shaking loose a bug. He looked around and seemed to notice the pair for the first time, his gaze darting between Erin and Rick, who made sure not to let the girl get too far from behind him in case David relapsed into whatever madness had taken hold of him.

“Soldier?” Rick asked, and David's expression hardened.

“Orders,” he requested.

“Standing orders are as follows,” Rick told him. “Protect the American people from the constant threat of communism. Currently, we're search and rescue. A number of civilian females have been taken by hostile forces. Objective is recovery of the girls and extermination of all scumbags. Understood?”

David was quiet for a short moment before reaching for his gun and holding it at the ready.

“Hooah,” he growled.

…...

Krack-KOOM!

Max's eyes shot open to a loud popping sound, one that she was all too familiar with. That was the sound of an atomic bomb going off nearby, the selfsame sound she had heard moments before being tucked away into Vault 111. She quickly wheeled around on the spot, stumbling a bit to realize that she had been standing, and saw familiar surroundings. The lighthouse, the bench, the overlook with a stunning view of Arcadia Bay. This was the same spot she had dreamt of previously, her favorite spot to meet up with Chloe back in the day. It was a picturesque day, the sky a pristine blue and the sun casting long shadows in the morning glow. The ambiance was perfectly ruined, though, by the sight of a mushroom cloud blooming in the distance, carrying a massive cloud of dust along with it. An impact wave rippled across Arcadia Bay, tearing up the hill toward Max, and all of a sudden, everything was clouded in brown and gray, the dust and dirt so thick that Max could barely breathe, coughing dryly against the thick choking clouds.

And she wasn't alone.

“It's not fair, is it?” a voice asked, the dust settling and thinning a bit to reveal Chloe as she had been appearing in Max's dreams, young and vibrant, though so full of melancholy as well. She was there so suddenly, Max would have believed that she had materialized out of the soot. Max watched her friend meander over to the bench overlooking the Bay and settle down into a seat, and she simply followed behind and sat with her, though while Chloe stared out at the water, Max watched her.

“I always thought you'd come back to me,” Chloe said, her eyes never leaving the waters down below, though there was a faraway look in her eyes that told Max she wasn't really seeing them. “We'd be reunited, and it'd be like you never left. Just us taking Arcadia Bay by storm and picking up right where we left off.”

“I'm sorry I never got a chance to come back,” Max said with a sad smile out at the blasted out Bay. Down below, most of the city was covered in ash and dust, and a massive wave was heading for the shore, threatening to drown half the city in water. There had probably been another impact out at sea, sending up a massive tsunami, as if bombs weren't bad enough. “It really was a beautiful city. But we can still go and visit. It'll take longer now, and maybe it's not...there anymore, but I promise we can go back.”

Chloe turned to her with a sad smile, reaching up and gently cupping Max's face. Max found herself settling into the warm touch of her friend's soft hand before Chloe spoke, her voice sounding soft and distant.

“Don't make promises you can't keep, Max,” she said.

And Max's eyes snapped open again, this time taking in the sight of the night sky. A much gentler popping sound came from nearby, the crackle of a wooden log in a fire, and a trail of sparks soared into her vision before floating up into the sky. All around, the night was alive with the sounds of crickets, distant bird calls, and the rustle of wind in the trees that surrounded them. Max sat up and peered around to see that a makeshift campsite had been set up. In the distance, the truck loomed in the darkness, large and silent, and not too far away, it looked like someone had landed a vertibird in as large a clearing as possible. There was a fire only a few yards away, surrounded by six figures all hunched over and warming themselves. A pot hung over the fire, wafting a gently spiced scent of stew, and Max's stomach gave an audible growl. One of the people around the fire, an older man with a beard and close-cropped hair, started at the sound, reaching for his gun before spotting Max and just chuckling at his own jumpiness.

“Looks like your friend's awake,” he said in a deep voice to Chloe, who spun in her seat (a large log no doubt dragged from nearby) and hopped to her feet, almost tripping in her haste to get to Max.

“Max,” she sighed, dropping to her knees and pulling Max into a hug. “Jeez, I was starting to get worried.”

“No kidding,” Max giggled softly as she snuggled into her girlfriend's arms. She dropped a small smooch to Chloe's lips. “Sorry to worry you. Did you make camp with our new friends?”

“Oh, um...that's Paladin Danse, Knight-Commander Victoria, Scribe...Courtney? Courtney. And Knight Taylor. They're with the – “

“Brotherhood of Steel,” Max said, slowly standing and fighting off a small wave of dizziness as she got her bearings. She spoke, quietly enough that the rest probably wouldn't hear. “They got that much out before I rewound last time. Then you told them about what we had in the truck, and they got super interested in inspecting it. I didn't know if they were gonna try to take it, but I didn't wanna risk it.”

“I don't think they would've have taken it,” Chloe said ponderously. “They seem alright. But we can keep it on the down-low. How are you feeling? You were pretty amazing taking out those shogun guys.”

“I'm alright,” Max smiled. “Pushed a little too hard, but I think I'm getting better at this thing.”

“One step closer to being Super-Max,” Chloe winked at her, and Max couldn't stop herself from snagging one last kiss before they headed over to the fire.

“Everyone, Max,” Chloe said, sitting down. Max set gingerly next to her and raised her hand in a short wave to their new friends.

“Hi,” she said.

“Feeling better?” the one called Victoria asked, studying Max with apparent interest. “You didn't look too good when we found you.”

“I get stressed out really easily,” Max said with a shrug. “Lightheaded, nosebleeds.”

“You picked a rough line of work, then,” Everett Danse said. “Rachel here tells me you three are...couriers?”

“Yeah, long-haul stuff,” Rachel said. “We just got into the business, but it's nice to help people.”

“Always a noble goal,” Danse said with a nod, leaning forward and scooping some stew out of the pot, doling it into a bowl and holding it out to Max. “Brahmin stew. You lost some blood and should eat some red meat.”

“Oh, thanks,” Max said taking the bowl and the spoon handed to her by Taylor. “So, um...what's the Brotherhood of Steel doing out here?”

“We're pursuing an old foe of ours,” Danse said, peering toward Victoria, who was leaning against the vertibird. She nodded, standing and moving toward the fire.

“Several weeks ago, we received word from the Linesmen, a faction of the Brotherhood of Steel that split off from us years ago,” she said. “The Linesmen decided that preserving the technology of the old world should be second to protecting life and liberty in the new one. It was a righteous cause, and back then, when the East Coast Brotherhood was run by Elder Lyons, it was reason enough not to burn any bridges. We let them do their own thing. But recently, they've come under attack by a mutual enemy of ours, the Nippon Empire. You ran into their attack dogs, the shogunate. Their mission is to collect and amass all of the technology of the old world for the use of the upper echelons to rule with an iron fist over the commoners. It flies in the face of everything the Brotherhood of Steel stands for, and it must be stopped.”

“What do you guys stand for?” Chloe asked, canting her head to the side.

“We believe in preserving technology, in collecting everything we can from the old world and keeping it out of the hands of those that would do wrong with it,” Victoria said with a brief sneer before she schooled her expression.

“Sounds an awful lot like what the sheldon guys are doing,” Chloe said, and Victoria scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“I wouldn't expect a civilian to – “

“Knight-Commander Chase,” Danse said calmly, his voice level but brooking no disregard in its hardness. “Civility.”

Victoria visibly stiffened before taking a deep breath and speaking much more calmly, though with an obvious effort to do so.

“The shogunate and the Nippon Empire would use technology to subjugate and enslave the masses,” she said. “They want to use the secrets of the old world to rule. The Brotherhood of Steel wants to preserve the old world's achievements, to keep them away from those that would use them to retread the same mistakes that were made by prewar society. The Brotherhood of Steel is about learning from the sins of the past and never giving the world a chance to walk them again.”

“That's...fair, I guess,” Rachel said with a sidelong glance at Max and Chloe. “I mean...look what happened when you gave the world nukes. They went and blew each other up.”

“Alright, but is indoor plumbing still an option?” Chloe asked. “Because I can't abide a world without toilets and a good shower.”

The Brotherhood contingent snickered at that, even Victoria cracking a small smile, and Danse chuckled as he spoke.

“I don't think that would be a problem,” he said. “No one ever killed each other using a toilet.”

“You'd be surprised,” Chloe remarked.

Later that night, when the fire had burned down to coals that glowed orange-red in the darkness and the only light came from the full moon above casting the Commonwealth in a bright white glow, Max lay awake, staring up at the night sky. She wasn't terribly tired, having gotten a rest of a sort from her earlier episode, but there wasn't really much else to do. She would have to look into the postwar Commonwealth's book selection at some point. A good book always did wonders when she had trouble sleeping before, though she would also have to invest in some sort of portable lamp, as this was hardly adequate reading light.

It was amazing, she mused, how one could become so accustomed to her creature comforts. Chloe's offhand mention of indoor plumbing was just one example, but in this post-apocalyptic new world, many things she'd never given a second though before were now considered luxuries. A Nuka-Cola and some McDonald's, a leisurely Sunday drive, even a simple walk in the woods was a dangerous prospect without at least some measure of protection. She had mused earlier that without mankind as the dominant species, the world had grown wild over the last two hundred years, but that statement was truer even than she had realized before.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Chloe whispered into the darkness, doing a strange sort of shimmy rolling motion to bring her sleeping bag closer to Max's and ending up face-down in Max's chest. “Well, hello there.”

“Hey,” Max giggled softly, reaching up to run her fingers through Chloe's blonde locks. “I can't sleep.”

“Well, you probably had your fill,” Chloe said, shifting onto her side so her blue eyes were peering up through the semidarkness at Max. “I barely sleep at all after this apocalypse shit, so I'll keep you company.”

“Hm,” Max noised softly. “So...what do you remember about...the Great War? I mean...were you in the vault when the bombs dropped, or...?”

“Um...” Chloe trailed off, looking a bit puzzled at the line of questioning, but she just shrugged and let her eyes drift shut as she remembered. “Rachel and I hopped a plane to Boston, and...I think we were just getting into the vault when we heard that bomb had gone off. I knew you were probably somewhere in the vault, and...well, the last thing I remember before I got frozen was that I couldn't wait to give you shit about how it took the literal apocalypse for us to see each other again.”

“Oh,” Max said with a bashful laugh. “I mean...when you put it that way, it does sound bad.”

“Relax, I'm just messing with you,” Chloe said, opening her eyes and reaching up to tousle Max's hair. “I just...couldn't wait to see you again. When I found you after...all that bullshit went down with the cryopods, I remember thinking that at least you made it. At least I had you. In all this, I'm just...hella glad you made it. I never wanna worry about you like that again. And you're making that super hard, actually.”

“I'm sorry,” Max pouted, hunching her shoulders and hiding her face in her pillow. “I'm a bad girlfriend. I make you worry all the time.”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me,” Chloe told her, crawling over her and planting a smooch on her lips. “My sexy master of time.”

“Hm,” Max hummed again, smiling up at Chloe, who looked...hella sexy framed in the moonlight. “I love you, Chloe.”

At that, Chloe simply flumped on top of Max, snuggling into her and nosing against her neck, her warm breath puffing softly on Max's skin.

“Love you, too, Max.”