Marian wasn’t sure if she was following Nick Valentine, or if he was following her. They were heading more North than East, but still towards The Crater House, in hopes that Lisi had simply lost track of time and showed up too late. Marian was hoping that was the case. She was praying that Lisi was fine. Nick would point out how she wasted his time, and he would tease her for it. He would bring it up every time he saw her, and things would go back to how they should be.

She really didn’t want things to be the way they should be.

She had been bringing customers to his office regularly again. Her anxiety around people often peaked, and then she would remember how stupid it was, and walk among them again. She was stupid for being more afraid of their words and their judgements than the of the mirelurks and deathclaws.

Every time she brought someone; she would let them stay in Diamond City until the next day. Often it was on her cap. Her debt with the Bobrov Brothers was getting worse, even with the new steps she was taking to help pay it off. Every time she visited; Nick insisted on buying her food. She thought he would be insulted by her demanding that he pay her for bringing people to his office, instead, he paid her even when she didn’t provide him with business. She wasn’t sure how he always knew she was in town, but before she was able to get out, there he was guiding her to Takahashi.

She should bark at him and insist that she wasn’t a charity case. She should remind him that she could take care of herself and get out of the city as fast as she could. But she never did. He always sat there and listened so intently when she talked, like he actually wanted to hear about her opinions on The Three Musketeers.

Maybe it’s just that he wanted to make sure she was reading her books right. He did seem to correct her a lot on the history behind the books. Not that she minded, it was interesting thinking of what happened in history to inspire her books, and Nick seemed very knowledgeable.

She shook her head, she needed to focus on what was around them, not on the synth who seemed as starved for a book as she always felt.

“Is everything ok, Doll?” he asked. Of course, he saw her shake her head, nothing she did got past him.

“I’m fine,” she lied, “just some flies.”

He didn’t say anything more, but he did slow down and walk beside her. She needed to get to The Crater House as quickly as possible. If Lisi was there, Marian would escort her home and pay Nick back later. If not…that’s what Nick was for, he would find her, she needed to trust Nick.

“Elizabeth Lavenza!” A man’s voice announced suddenly. “Is that you?”

Marian tensed. She may have a tendency to reuse names, but only one group knew her by that last name. She turned towards the settlement that was completely enclosed by a brick wall with turrets and barbed wire over it. She saw a well armored man coming toward her.

“Alan!” she called back trying to sound enthusiastic but non-committal. “It’s been years!”

“And yet, you’re still looking good. You look like you age at the same rate as those ghouls you’re always hanging around,” the guard said. When he approached Marian, he wrapped an arm around her. “Welcome to Covenant. I’m sure you’re hungry. Why not come inside, it’s almost dinner time.”

Marian politely disentangled herself from Alan. “I just ate,” she excused herself. “What happened to the people who were living here?”

“Funny thing,” Alan went on. “Vance wanted to have us set up in the sewers across the river, but after we found out that this city was just a front for torturing people, Vance decided that they didn’t deserve a place like this, so we took over.”

“That’s…great,” Marian responded. The Family always made her skin crawl, but she was normally able to barter information with them and use them to help her take out smaller groups of raiders. She really didn’t want to find out what happened to the citizens of Covenant.

“Vance would like to see you again,” Alan insisted.

“I’ll make sure she stops by when we have the time,” Nick interrupted. “But we are in a hurry.” The synth wrapped an arm around her, placing his hand at her waist before leading her away.

“It was good to see you again,” Alan called after her as she was led away.

After they were out of earshot, Nick muttered, “Friend of yours?”

“Something like that,” she told him. “They are a group who fancy themselves ‘ethical cannibals’. They try not to kill more than absolutely necessary. If we go inside, I’m sure about half of the settlement is locked up somewhere waiting their turn for the slaughter.”

“Do you want to go back?” Nick asked hesitantly.

“No, if the citizens are as bad as Alan described,” Marian started.

“They are,” Nick told her.

“Oh,” Marian said. “Maybe, they deserve what The Family is doing then. They prefer focusing on problematic targets, like raiders.”

“So, they won’t be a problem for,” Nick gestured at the Tafington Boathouse.

“No,” Marian reassured him. “If anything, they will be very happy to intervene during raider attacks. They don’t like causing trouble, but they aren’t afraid to end it. Just make sure they know where the not so innocent people are, and they will stay out of everyone else’s way.”

“And you’re okay with this?” Nick asked.

“I never said that,” she admitted. “It’s just, I’m not the judge and jury of the wasteland. I just want to harm as few people as I can until…” Suddenly, the thought of putting the idea of her dying into words was hard to do. She wasn’t sure why. It was a reality she accepted years ago. No, she knew why, and his hand was at her hip.

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She turned, letting Nick’s hand slide off of her as she faced him. “Look, I don’t know rather the Family is right or wrong,” she insisted as he turned to face her. She found herself laying a hand on his arm, making sure he continued to look at her. “They have always left me alone, and they have even helped me out at times. I do find what they do gross, even abhorrent, but that doesn’t make them wrong, it just means I don’t agree with them. I just don’t have the energy to explore the morality of what they do, and since I didn’t expect to live this long, I never thought it was something I would be able to explore.”

“You never questioned the morality of protecting ghouls,” Nick pointed out.

“That’s different,” Marian said before she turned and started walking past the boathouse.

They weren’t very far before exhaustion finally hit her. She felt her world spin for a moment. She stumbled against nothing and was busy trying to regain her balance when she felt Nick’s hand under her arm.

“Easy,” he insisted as he helped her balance. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

Marian found herself resting her head against his shoulder. It suddenly weighed too much. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was so tired.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, he probably was surprised at how weak she was. “No, it’s my fault,” Nick told her. “You ran several hours to get to me, and then I had you walk for more hours almost right away. I should have known you were going to be fatigued. Do you want to stay here?”

“There is an abandoned campsite nearby,” she told him. “I normally go there if it’s not too dark.”

She then felt an itch on her scalp. She wanted to ignore it, but she knew why she was getting that itch. Ignoring it wasn’t going to make it go away. She pulled away and started scratching the spot on her head that had been touching Nick’s trench coat.

Nick looked at her with that gentle concerned expression again, but he did let his hand drop. “I guess we should pay attention to where we’re going,” he finally said.

Marian could have slept standing up with her head on his shoulder. The way she felt so relaxed when she was around him. She should be more on her guard when he held her, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. That was how she was going to die, letting her guard down near him.

“You’re right,” she finally admitted. He really was, but it seemed like he should want her to not pay attention. That way he could finally get rid of her. He could wash his hands and not worry about loosing any more money to making sure she was fed. Then again, maybe he saw feeding her as an investment. She did bring in a lot of business for him, and he did seem eager to make sure she ate whenever he could buy her food.

They turned off the road and moved through an abandoned playground. Marian got ready for a fight. She was used to having to clean out the area before resting when she was near the Boathouse.

“There really is no way to ride a seesaw with dignity,” Nick said.

“I thought the purpose of a seesaw was to lose as much dignity as possible,” Marian countered. “Preferably by singing a song that sounded like a drinking song that was outdated a century before the Sino-American War.”

Marian wasn’t sure if Nick was going to respond, they heard what she was expecting.

“Bloodbugs,” she growled, lowering her voice so only Nick could hear her clearly.

He pulled out his revolver and they began firing on the giant insects. She was careful with her aim, trying to hit them before they got to her. Nick was wilder, firing over and over again.

“One shot, one kill,” she said under her breath as she hit a second bloodbug.

Nick pulled out a molotov cocktail and threw it at a bug. “Grenade!” he announced as he threw it.

Another bloodbug got past them and latched onto her. She could feel herself growing weaker as it sucked her blood out. She pushed it away, only to have it spit her own blood into her eyes.

Marian shouted in shock, pain, and disgust as she tried blinking out enough of her own blood to be able to focus her eyes. Nick moved around her and fired on the bug. Marian watched the red blur that she identified as the attacking bloodbug drop.

“Are you okay,” Nick asked quietly as he gently moved her to face him.

Between his calm tone and the lack of a buzzing noise, Marian decided they must not be dealing with a threat from the giant mosquitos anymore. She was still trying to blink out the blood from her eyes, but Nick’s brownish-grey form, and his glowing yellow eyes were unmistakable. It looked like he was looking at her with that usual concerned look he always had, but she couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll be alright,” she said. Her vision was already clearing. She reached into her right cargo pocket to get a stimpak.

“I got this,” he said gently before stabbing her with one of his own stimpaks while keeping his other hand on her arm.

She couldn’t stop him, she felt the strength slowly returning to her body, but she wondered if that really restored her blood. She decided not to think about it, instead she forced herself to look at Nick’s tie.

“Thanks,” she said quietly and turned to continue walking toward the campsite. “I…I don’t have the money to pay you back,” she said. She was ready to tense. Nick always seemed able to read between the lines when she talked. He didn’t just hear what she said, but he always knew what she meant. Including she couldn’t pay him for the job.

She could feel a hand gently rest between her shoulder blades. It moved up and down, relaxing her. He knew how to get her to lower her guard. Now would the time he should yell at her, tell her how disgusting it was for her to waste his time by having him do a job she knew she couldn’t reimburse him for. He should abandon her at this moment and let her find Lisi on her own.

“It’s okay, Sweetheart,” he said, “we’ll work something out.”

Marian didn’t know what he had in mind, but any price was worth Lisi’s life and safety.

The campsite was on the other side of the drain system. Marian wanted to go straight to the tent and sleep on the mat it protected, but she had too many years of discipline to be able to do that. She had to take care of certain things before she could sleep, starting with cleaning Faenus. She started moving towards the picnic table, ready to pull out her cleaning supplies when it hit her.

Nick’s hand was between her shoulder blades. Her backpack wasn’t in the way. There was no weight on her shoulders.

“What’s wrong,” Nick asked.

“I left my backpack in your office,” she whispered. She wanted to berate herself and point out how stupid she was for forgetting something so important.

“Don’t worry, I have some healing supplies,” Nick said. “How are in with ammo?”

Marian thought about it. She filled up several magazines the night before. Two of them were in her left cargo pocket.

“I have about three drums worth, minus our last fight,” she admitted.

“That should be enough to last us,” Nick said. “If you get down to your last magazine, let me know, we can pick up some more.”

She thought about her need for food, but that seemed marginal. She was an experienced scavenger; she could survive off of almost nothing for weeks if she had to. “I guess I will just go to sleep. Will you be okay?”

“Don’t worry, Doll,” Nick insisted. “I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

Marian thought about rather to trust him. Once she went to sleep, he could just walk away and leave her vulnerable. She couldn’t help but sleep tight when he was around. Yet, he didn’t walk away the last time she slept with him watching over her. He didn’t even have any reason to watch over her last time, and this time he had an investment to count on. She couldn’t pay him back if she was dead. He wasn’t going to let her die.

“You can smoke if you want. The smoke won’t reach me,” she offered.

Nick patted himself down for a moment and brought out a lighter and nothing else. “It looks like I forgot my cigarettes,” he said.

“We can swing by Finch Farm to get some.” She knew how much Nick liked to smoke, even if he normally refrained from doing so when she was around.

“Don’t worry about it, Doll. It seems kind of silly needing to smoke when I don’t even have lungs.”

Marian wanted to argue. She wanted to ask him why he smoked in the first place. She just wanted to hear his voice. But another wave of exhaustion hit her, and she felt the world spinning again. She had no more fight in her, and her curiosity was disappearing also. Instead, she laid down on the mat, pulled Faenus against her chest, and went to sleep. Nick Valentine would protect her, she needed to believe it.