The sensation of ease and calm was troubling. She normally only felt that way when waking up if she was in a clinic. No one killed you when you’re in a clinic. She tried to remember what injuries she got that caused her to get into the clinic. Before those memories returned to her, she started noticing the light behind her eyelids, it had to be midday with that much light. She started feeling the uneven ground beneath her. She was outside, she was vulnerable. Anything would walk up to her and kill her.
Marian brought herself to be fully awake and was standing up ready to fight anything that was near her. She looked around, to see Nick Valentine sitting nearby looking straight at her.
“Good morning to you too, Doll,” he said wryly. “Or should I say, good afternoon.”
Marian realized she didn’t have Faenus in her hands. She looked around and found her weapon against her backpack. Malta was laying on the mat she was standing on. They were in the restroom. She couldn’t remember going to bed.
“How long was I asleep?” She asked, rubbing her hair. She really needed to get it shaved off again. She leaned down to pick up the teddy bear.
“About thirteen hours,” Nick responded.
Marian stood up straight, facing Nick Valentine in shock. “How could you let me sleep so long? We could have been in Diamond City by now. You would be finished with your case and I’d-”
“You would be back out in the Wasteland, playing craps with your own life,” he interrupted her.
Marian walked over to her backpack and started strapping Malta down. The pack looked more filled out than she remembered. Even with the supplies Hancock insisted she take. He called it her fee for finding Nick Valentine. She called it an excuse to exonerate his guilty conscience.
“Well…yes,” She finally admitted. She couldn’t find a way to put a dismissive spin to her expectations. Normally people didn’t seem to care or didn’t catch when she did that. He always seemed to. He could catch everything she said and do in a frustrating way.
“You looked tired,” the detective pointed out. “I thought I’d let you sleep for a few more hours.”
“You let me sleep for half a day,” she cried, exasperated.
“Can you tell me you had slept for more than four hours at a time since our case?”
“You seem obsessed with that case.”
Nick scowled at her. She felt some guilt by making him scowl, but not enough to apologize. He did choose to sit over her for thirteen hours. Marian assumed he sat over her for thirteen hours. Then again, she remembered falling asleep in his arms. Did he hold her for the whole night? That really wasn’t any better.
“Did you watch me the whole time?” she finally asked as she started pulling a melon out of her backpack.
“I wasn’t going to let you get hurt,” her told her. “I promised you I’d look out for you. I plan to keep that promise.”
That’s why he was still there. His obligation. Marian realized she was hoping for something else, maybe something more. She could have kicked herself. No one should be that something more for her. Hoping for him to be that was beyond stupid. Nick Valentine was right to not want to have anything more than an obligatory relationship with her. She would convince him she was alright in a few days and then she’d be gone, and his conscience cleared.
“So, what’s the agenda?” Marian finally asked sitting on the ground and munching on the melon.
“We return Davey to Hangman’s Alley. Your friend’s kid was among the slaves, we can take her back to Diamond City with us. Then I want you to settle in. We can swing by the library after we give the girl to her mother if you’d like.”
“Do we have to return Davey?” Marian asked. “He didn’t seem to have a good thing back home.”
“Why do you say that?” Valentine asked.
Marian went silent. She picked at her melon. She forgot how hard it is to describe when things aren’t perfect. How you let things happen and become good at not letting anyone know. You hide the problems and the pain, because trying to tell anyone who never saw them or felt them would think you were overreacting. She was overreacting. She blinked back the tears that still threatened to expose her almost twenty years later.
Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder. How did he sneak up on her? She was going soft in his presence. If she went back to Diamond City with him, she’d be dead within an hour of leaving it. But, the idea of staying near him; feeling safe, the temptation was stronger than her.
“Hey, Doll, it’s okay. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Marian looked up, at his face. It was almost as if he knew what she was thinking. His smile was so kind it was almost painful to look at, to feel.
“How can you say that?” she asked.
“I know you,” he said, sitting down next to her. He wrapped his arm around her, like the night before.
She wanted to lay her head on his shoulder again. She refrained from taking such liberties again. She doubted he would appreciate it. He probably didn’t like it last night, but he obviously prioritized letting her sleep.
“But you don’t,” she told him. “You know what I show the world, it’s easy to be one way for a few hours before I can be a monster again.”
“Hey,” she heard him say. She looked up and saw that sweet, caring, concerned look on his face. “I know you. I’ve seen a lot of monsters in my line of work, none of them look anything like you.”
She couldn’t help but smile. She turned away, hoping he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a sunburn and a blush. She hurriedly finished her melon.
He patiently waited for her to finish eating before they went to Kingsport Lighthouse to pick up the kids. Marian stayed a closer to the meat packing plant than to the Lighthouse. Last thing she needed was for five people to compare notes on her different names. Nick seemed to accept her excuse of not wanting to be around people and went to get the kids himself.
The synth carried Ava in his arms, she couldn’t be any older than two or three. It was amazing a child so small could have gotten away from her mother. Davey trailed behind them, looking as despondent as Marian always felt when she was caught after running away. How could she tell Nick how much worst things were going to be for the kid, if he didn’t even know how bad they currently were?
She took point, leading the way to Hangman Alley. Her job was to take point and leading a group like Nick’s was not unusual for her. She took the safest route and started leading them back, watching and listening for danger.
After several hours, she couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself any longer.
“Davey, come here,” she called.
“Is everything alright, Doll,” Nick asked.
“It’s fine,” she insisted. “I just want to talk to Davey privately before he goes home.”
Davey walked fast enough to walk next to her. “I’m sorry,” Theo said dejectedly.
“You’re not in trouble,” she told him. “I have no sense of direction, so I need you to show me the best way to Hangman Alley.”
The kid looked over at her and smiled. “I can do that,” he insisted. He led them mostly in silence, but he seemed happier that he was contributing to their journey.
They were still far away from Hangman Alley before she began talking again. “I know what you’re planning,” she finally said.
“How do you know that?” he asked. “What do you think I’m planning?”
“I saw the waterfront. It’s tempting isn’t it? Dive to the bottom, take a deep breath, and not have to worry about anything ever again.”
Davey’s silence told Marian everything she needed.
“I tried that once. Turns out it’s harder to kill yourself by drowning than most people think. Let me save you some time and tell you, all it will do is give you a cold. Not even pneumonia, a fucking cold.”
Davey chuckled at that. “Did you try other things?”
“Yeah, here and there. Nothing took, obviously. I know you’re hurting. You think that you’d be doing the world a favor. That the people who hurt you, and the people who have failed to protect you, will see where they went wrong if you just left the world.”
“Yeah,” he sighed.
“It’s bullshit. The people who hurt you, they don’t care. They will just hurt someone else, and not waste their energy on remembering what they did to you. Your death means once again you are punished for what he did.”
“And my parents?” Davey asked.
“How many times have you pointed out the shit Jasper does to you? How often does he torture you right in front of them, and they still ignore it?”
Davey was silent again.
“They will cry, they will beat themselves up, they will spend the rest of their lives asking, ‘what did I do wrong?’ but they won’t learn anything. You could die, and be buried for five years, letting them beat themselves up every day as if you had just died. Then if you came back with a miracle, they would cry over you, and then nothing would change. They would still fail to protect you the very next time you needed it. They may care about you, but if they don’t see your pain now, your death will not illuminate it any.”
Davey bowed his head. Marian knew he was fighting back tears; she knew how much they wanted to come when she was that age. She remembered how many nights she silently cried when no one could see her. “So, it’s hopeless. I’m going to be a fuckup for the rest of my life. The only thing I can do right is…is…”
“I know, and that you have to stop,” she told him.
“But….”
“I know it will make things worse, but it won’t be as bad as you think. He has more to lose if you tell people what’s going on than you do. You will be safe from that.”
“I still want to die,” Davey admitted.
“So do I,” Marian agreed. “When I was thirteen, I lost my temper in front of my father’s soldiers. My brother had been picking on me for hours, but I was always told to just ignore it. I always tried, but always failed. My punishment was one-hundred pushups. Every time I got over fifty, my brother would walk into the room and trip over me, my dad made me start over. I did pushups for five hours straight. I wasn’t allowed to eat or go to bed until after I did the pushups. I think the only reason why he stopped tripping over me was because he went to bed.” Marian had to blink away tears. This shouldn’t be bothering her; it was so long ago. The kid needed to see her strength. “I got three hours sleep that night, because it was so late before I got to bed.”
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“That’s…that’s a lot like something Jasper would do,” Davey said.
“That night, I came up with a plan to kill myself. But someone who cared about me found out. He made a deal with me. I had to hold on until I was seventeen. He would pick me up on my birthday and take me to the Mojave where I wouldn’t have to deal with my parents and brother again. But I had to live until then.”
“What happened?” Davey asked. “Why aren’t you in the Mojave with them?”
Marian stopped walking to look straight at Davey. She saw Nick stop walking out of the corner of her eye. She wasn’t sure if he heard anything she was saying, or if he was just being polite, either way, she appreciated it.
“The world is cruel, Davey. He didn’t hold up his end of the deal, even though I held up mine. But I knew he wasn’t going to be there. I hung on because I knew nothing would be gained if I died as a kid. I decided if I was going to die, it was going to be worth something. Even if my life is worthless, my death will be my legacy.”
Davey seemed to think about what she said. “I don’t know, it just sounds like a complicated way to commit suicide. Wouldn’t it be easier just walking into a radscorpion nest?”
“You have to have rules, Davey. If you just kill yourself, it’s lost, it’s worthless.”
“Ok,” Davey responded.
Marian turned and started walking again. “You also have to wait until you’re at least seventeen. You can leave your family on that day, you don’t have to ever talk to them again, but you have to stay with them until then. Can you promise me that?”
Davey was quiet for a bit, “Okay,” he reluctantly agreed.
“Until then, take your time, decide what it means to make your death worth something. It’s going to be different for you than for me, but those are the two big rules.”
“I’ll do it,” Davey responded. “I will leave this place and never look back. Jasper can take care of our folks on his own for all I care.”
The two continued back to Hangman Alley. It was late afternoon when Davey entered with a new purpose. Marian wondered if she did the kid a favor.
Nick walked up next to her, carrying a now sleeping Ava. “Did you say everything you needed to?” he asked her.
“Do you want me to hold Ava while you talk to his parents?” she asked.
“No, Ellie needs to crunch the numbers to figure out how much they owe me. Normally I just show up enough, so they know I was the one who returned their loved one before letting them have their reunion. But I think I should take care of this other reunion first.” Nick gently bounced Ava.
The child mumbled a bit and moved her face, so the other side was resting against Nick’s jacket. Or was it still Ed’s jacket. It didn’t matter, Ed was no longer a problem. People were no longer going to become brahmin because of him. Nick can wear that jacket for the rest of his life, the jacket had nothing to do with how Ed and Hank enslaved people for money.
“I promised you I’d walk with you back to Diamond City,” Marian said as she started leading the way. Nick followed quietly.
The two settlements weren’t far apart, Hangman’s Alley was just hard to find. Diamond City was much much easier to find. The high green walls made the trip to the entrance simple. Marian saw Danny Sullivan and waved at him as the three passed through the entrance before shouldering Faenus.
“Go ahead and take Ava to your office,” Marian told Nick. “Let Ellie know everything is okay. I’ll go get Madi so you can hand her child to her and be a hero.”
“You should have that right,” Nick insisted.
“No, it’s okay. It really is,” Marian said. “My reputation is as a bodyguard. If people think I’m a detective too, I’ll never get anything done, and no one would be found. Go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
Before Nick could protest again, Marian turned right at the bottom of the stairs and headed towards the Dugout Inn. Nick was the detective, not her. She didn’t have a right to take his work from him. But she could bring people who need him to him.
She ignored the person eating outside the inn. She never had much time for him, all he really talked about was his disrespect for synths. She never had problems with synths, even when she knew she was talking to one, she never disliked them. At least, she didn’t dislike them because they were synths.
She entered the room and walked down the hall. It was obvious by the sound that the bar was full that day. She might have problems finding Madi in the group, but that would give Nick a little more time to catch up with Ellie and get ready.
Marian was surprised to see Ellie in the bar. It looked like she was talking to Yefim. Marian decided to talk to her first. She would let Ellie know Nick was home so she could have the moment of relief, and still save face for Madi. Marian walked up to the two talkers, ready to tap Ellie on the back.
“I still don’t like what we are doing,” Yefim said. “Holding on to her like this. It seems wrong to force her to stay.”
“If we don’t, she’s going to get killed,” Ellie said. “All you have to do is make sure you keep that ring.”
“But she’s starving herself to death for that ring. She may not get shot, but is it worth it if she dies by malnutrition? I don’t want her dying in the bar, even if it wasn’t bad for business.”
“I’ll see what we can do to work around that, just hold on. Maybe don’t encourage so many people to drink on her tab.”
Yefim looked up and saw Marian at that point. He went quiet, his face told her that they were talking about her. Ellie turned around and saw her, there was as much guilt on her face as on his.
The monster in Marian started lashing around. She put up steel walls to keep it penned in, but it was thrashing and throwing itself against those walls. It wanted out. It wanted free. It wanted to kill.
Marian looked over at Ellie, she stepped up to the secretary, feeling her movements as fluid as any predator’s. Her teeth showed like she wanted to bite someone. She wanted to bite. “Nick is home,” she said curtly. “You might want to go show your pleasure at seeing him again. You can tell him about how two faced you are.”
Ellie could hear the monster’s growl in Marian’s voice. It was obvious she saw the monster in Marian’s features. She was stupid for not realizing that when Marian said she was a monster, that was a warning, not an invitation. The other woman skirted around Marian before hurrying out of the bar. Marian watched her out of the corner of her eye. The monster lashed and snapped, but the walls were still up, even if they were dented.
She then turned her attention to Yefim. The Russian was physically larger than Marian, but she felt like she was towering him. He didn’t seem able to look her in the eye. Good, he was scared. Maybe now he would be willing to let her leave the Commonwealth.
“I don’t know who you two have been taking orders from,” Marian told him through her monster’s growl. “I don’t care. I will show you that I am the better person. I will raise enough money to get my ring back. You never should have worried about me. Once I have that ring back, you never will have to worry about me again. I won’t come back to the Commonwealth.”
She quickly did an about face as the monster threw itself against the wall again. She didn’t care about Yefim’s reaction. She just had to get out of there before the monster got loose.
She glided out of the bar and hurried out of the city. She needed to satiate the monster. She needed to hunt, to kill. She knew the best place to find easy prey from where she was.
Marian turned left, and ran through the streets, towards the library. When she got there, she went to the front entrance and invaded the tunnels. Super mutant after super mutant charged at her. She yelled and screamed and shot each one. The monster roaring its defiance at the mutants as it was let free to kill.
She reveled in each kill, each death she caused. Was free, the monster was free, and they were the same. When Faenus ran out of bullets, she shouldered it and slashed at each super mutant with her hunting knife. Letting her rage take over her and letting the blood splash onto her. She didn’t count the dead; she didn’t care if they were dead. She just wanted to kill.
Soon she was in the library, without any super mutants left to kill. She made her way to the stacks, hoping to put the monster back to sleep with the calmness of the books. But when she got there, she was still the monster with nothing left to kill. She grabbed ahold of Malta, with nothing left to take her rage out on, and threw him.
The bear flew through the air, bounced on the floor, before sliding to a halt. That’s when she saw a shadow near the bear. She didn’t want to be seen; she didn’t want to be near anyone at that moment. She started backing away, planning to disappear into the stacks before slipping out.
Then she saw him walk into view. He was wearing his trench coat again, but he hadn’t changed out his fedora, it still had her blood on it. The synth bent down and picked up the bear and looked over at her.
“Now what did he do to deserve that?” Nick asked.
The monster went quiet. It backed itself into its cage and curled up. Marian was left without her rage to carry her through another encounter, especially not one with him.
“He didn’t want to travel with me, anymore,” she told him.
“That’s too bad,” Nick said pocketing Malta. “I thought he would enjoy your company, that’s why I gave him to you. Apparently, you’ve decided to try and convince several people that they didn’t want to be in your company recently.”
“Is that a problem?” Marian asked.
“I walk away from you, and less then five minutes later Ellie comes running into the office almost in tears. That is the problem. Marian, what happened?”
“You can ask Ellie,” she said, looking away.
Nick walked up to her, placed a hand on her arm. “I want to know from you,” he said calmly.
Marian closed her eyes. How can she put into words how trapped she felt? How people were dying, and she was doing nothing about it? It didn’t matter, her problems shouldn’t matter to anyone else. She’ll just tell him what happened, he’ll chastise her for overreacting, and then realize that having her for a partner was not a good idea.
“It seems there is a conspiracy to keep me in the Commonwealth,” Marian said. “I just…I thought I was stuck here because of decisions I had made. That once I fixed my mistakes, I could go back to The Capital Wasteland. Instead, it turns out that other people are trying to force me to stay in the Commonwealth and letting me deal with the guilt of mistakes I never made.”
“I don’t think that’s what’s happening,” Nick said.
Marian looked up at him, glaring. How could he know what it felt like to survive while others died in her place?
“I think what’s happening is that you have friends who want to protect you, but don’t know how. They just know that if you go back home, you’re guaranteed to be killed. So, they are trying to convince you to stay. I don’t think the way they are doing it is right, but I can understand why they would do it.”
“Why would they care?” She asked. “I keep telling everyone not to care about me.”
Nick wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer. The trench coat must be new, the smell of cigarettes was faint, but it was still more powerful than the smell of motor oil. She rested her head against his chest, enjoying the feel of him encapsulating her. This man was going to get her killed. “You tell people not to care while you run around and help them. You wave at them. You show concern for them. Don’t you think people would care about someone who does that for them?”
Marian thought about how she had to honor ever whim of her parent’s or brothers, or even the other kids around her. If she didn’t and they retaliated, it was her fault for not making them happy. She should have been nicer. “Isn’t that what’s expected to be accepted, how else can I ask someone to buy me a meal when I’m starving if I never did anything for them?”
Nick placed a hand on her chin and lifted her face, so she had to meet his eyes. He looked as pained as she felt. He shouldn’t care, but that look of concern. “People care about you, Marian. People take care of those they care about. Ellie, and Yefim care about you and want you to be safe, but you’ve shut them out, so they don’t know what else to do. I want you to be safe.”
Marian was speechless. Nick Valentine really wanted her to live? Why? How? And yet, the way his arm was around her shoulder. The look in his face. His hand was still cupped under her chin. It all felt so calming. His thumb moved to her lips; he gently rubbed her lower lip with the metal thumb.
Every nerve in her body was primed for every sensation. His metal thumb felt cold on her lip, the smell of the decaying books, the cold of the drafty building. She was aware of it all as time slowed down. All she wanted at that moment was for him to kiss her. She wanted to know he felt the same way about her that she had tried to stop feeling about him.
“I care about you,” he mumbled as he lowered his head. He moved his thumb out of the way long enough to fulfill her wish.
His lips pressed against hers. She had kissed smokers before, and often they put too much force into their lips, as if they didn’t realize how much smoking was working out those muscles. He didn’t, his lips had give, more than she expected from the plastic and rubber he was made out of. She could taste the rubber and wanted more.
She kissed him back, with as much passion and pressure as he showed. He stood up straight, pulling her in. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling herself closer to him. She took off his hat and held it as she kissed him, it was just in the way.
Her tongue pushed past his lips, and he let it. His mouth was dry and tasted like plastic and stale cigarettes, and she didn’t care. She couldn’t get enough. His arms were both above and below her backpack, holding her up as she pulled herself with her own arms.
She needed this, she wanted him. This wasn’t another meaningless fling. This was him. This was Nick Valentine. This was-
Marian lowered her face, breaking off the kiss. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Marian, what’s wrong?” Nick asked, resting his forehead against hers.
“I…I can’t do this, not to you.”
“You’re not doing anything I don’t like. I like you, Marian.”
“You don’t even know my real name.”
“I want to get to know you.”
“You say that because you don’t know me. When you do, then you will regret it, but there’s no taking it back. Once you have that knowledge, you’re stuck with it, and you will want to kill me. You’ll be right to wanting to kill me.”
“I don’t think that’s possible, Doll,” Nick told her.
Marian broke away from Nick and backed up a few paces. She looked up at him. She needed him to understand that he couldn’t like her, that he shouldn’t like her. She was a monster, and he needed to know that, just not what kind of monster she really was.
“Just, please, go back to hating me,” she begged.
It would be easier for him to hate her again than for her to hate him. She had tried going back, she had tried finding anything she could, but what little there was to hate, wasn’t enough to keep that hatred going. He would have enough to hate her for years, even without knowing everything.
“Why do you want me to hate you?” Nick asked. “What could you have done that was so bad?”
She couldn’t tell him, not yet. She had to wait until she was ready to leave. If he knew now, she could never reenter Diamond City. “I promise to tell you before I leave the Commonwealth,” she said. “You’ll just have to hate me on something else until then.”
Marian turned and left the stacks. She exited the library through the side entrance, avoiding the tripwire. Nick was smart, he would find something to hate. He was better off that way, he would be happier with anyone else.