They didn’t get very far. Soon Dogmeat was running into a parking garage and smelling around inside. Nick followed him into the building, and Marian was as close behind them as she could manage.

Dogmeat was smelling around in circles again. Marian started wondering if he had lost Lisi’s scent again, then she started thinking of Lisi wandering around the garage. Lisi liked collecting coffee cups, but they were small, and they could be found anywhere.

Marian decided to look around herself. She looked through every door she could see. There was one area that looked like a control area with a burned-out terminal, a burned book, and a rum bottle. Marian picked up the bottle to swirl it, only to find that it was empty. There wasn’t a coffee cup anywhere, but there wasn’t any sign that there had ever been a coffee cup in the room.

“I hate this,” Marian said.

“What’s that?” Nick asked behind her.

She spun around to find him right behind her in the room. How did she let him get so close? She was normally aware enough to be able to know where everyone around her was. She kept lowering her guard around Nick Valentine. He wouldn’t have let anything sneak up on her, but she wasn’t used to letting down her guard. Every time he was around, she seemed to do that.

“The lack of coffee cups,” she explained. “The closest thing we have to a clue, is the lack of clues.”

“Maybe that’s all we need,” Nick said in a reassuring tone. “Dogmeat still has her scent. As long as we don’t see any coffee cups, then we can be reasonably sure that your friend has been here.”

“So, we’re just trying to prove a negative,” Marian complained, looking around the small space she was in. “Doesn’t sound like the best way to find someone.”

“I know it can be frustrating, Doll,” he explained. “Trust me, I’ve had to search for people on little more than a vague description before. Do you know how hard it is to find a man who isn’t too skinny with an average height and brown hair who disappeared about a month ago, but maybe two months ago?”

The thought of Nick having to wander around settlements asking about that description made Marian snicker. She could picture the people around him looking at him like he was crazy trying to find anyone with that little detail.

She looked up at him, his caring look caught her off guard. She wasn’t having a break down, but he still was looking at her like he was worried about her emotions. She wasn’t used to anyone looking at her that way, especially as often as he did. It felt like he really did care, not that he was caring out of social obligation. Maybe, it wouldn’t hurt if she just let herself pretend that he did care. The thought that someone cared always felt good, and no one had to know.

“How did you find that person?” She asked, still trying to hide that she liked being cared for.

“That sort of thing didn’t happen once,” Nick corrected her. “If people had all the clues I need, they wouldn’t bother coming to me, they would get the person themselves. My job is to find the hidden clues. When we start working on other cases together, you’ll see what I mean.”

Other cases, right, she promised to help him work on more cases as a way to pay him back. He really wanted her to do that. Or at least he was still pretending that he wanted her to do that. He’ll probably change his mind last minute, she just had to wait until then.

“So, people always come to you with vague descriptions, and you still find who you’re looking for?” She asked.

“It’s not always like that. Usually, I will sit with the client for a while and see if I can get more information out of them that can help me find a clue. Occasionally, I have to go back to them for more information. I’m not always successful, but I like to think I have a pretty good track record.”

“What would you do in a situation like this?” Marian asked.

“What do you think I should do?” he responded.

Marian wanted to tell him she didn’t know. He was the detective, she wasn’t. But she had to try and play along until they found Lisi. If Nick didn’t think she would be able to pay off her debt, he may walk away for a paying client.

“I would search the area and see if there were any coffee cups. That’s our main clue right now. If there is one out in the open, then most likely she wasn’t here. If there is one in a strange place, then she would have just missed it. Why couldn’t she have stopped in a dinner, then we would be sure?”

Nick chuckled at her as he wrapped his arm around her and helped her out of the cramped room, they were in. “Then it would be too easy,” he quipped. “Don’t worry, you seem to have the knack. I’m going to make a detective out of you yet.”

Blood rushed out of Marian’s face. He was trying to make her into a detective. He was going to waste his time and energy on her. The first moment she had a chance, she was leaving The Commonwealth, but he seemed to be investing his energy into training her for…what? A full-time partner?

She stopped herself, she was making assumptions. He had to know she wasn’t planning on staying. Maybe if she explained that, he would understand that she was a lost cause for an investment.

“Nick,” she sighed, “I know I promised to help you with some cases to pay you back, but I hope you’re not expecting more. I plan on paying off my debt, but…after that, I don’t plan on staying around. There are people in The Capital Wasteland who need help getting out. Every day I’m here, that’s a day someone else lost the chance to get out that I could have given them.”

Nick’s concerned look came back to his face. He turned his body to face her directly. He kept one arm around her, and gently grabbed her arm with his free hand. She wanted to promise to stay in The Commonwealth. If only to keep him from looking so concerned and disappointed. She kept her mouth shut. She should figure out how to talk to people who care about her. Maybe she should learn, if only to figure out what triggered those worried looks.

“Sweetheart,” Nick seemed to take in a breath and sigh, “Marian. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, and I know it’s hard to sit cozy while people who are in a similar situation are dying. Believe me, until recently, being suspected of being a synth was a death sentence around here. But I was always safe. What I’m trying to say is that you can’t save the world. That’s impossible. But if you don’t survive, you can’t save anyone. Sometimes, you have to survive to help more people.”

Marian couldn’t bring herself to look in Nick’s eyes. She couldn’t understand how he could be saying something like that after he was willing to risk his life for people as often as she did. The only real difference was people went to him for help, while she would go to people who couldn’t find a way to get to her. Of course, he had to have an office, that was the only way people would know how to find him. If she stayed still, she would only have destruction follow her.

“I’m not afraid to die,” she finally told him.

“I’m not saying you should be,” he said. He cupped her cheek and moved her face, so she had to look at him. She looked into those eyes and felt herself wanting to stare at them. “I’m saying it’s okay to not try to die. Have you ever tried living?”

“I live all the time,” she said. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be alive! I was supposed to die over ten years ago when I left my family. They told me I wouldn’t last until sunset. But I’m still here.”

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“And you’ve done nothing but survive ever since,” he muttered. “There’s more to life that not dying, Sweetheart. Have you thought about exploring that?”

Marian broke from Nick’s embrace and walked away. She wasn’t a coward, and the fact he implied that she was felt insulting. How would he know about what she had and had not explored? Her life was about survival, and helping others survive. She did more. She read books, explored philosophy. She had hunted through condemned buildings to get sheet music for Crow. She had ran messages between battling settlements to help them begin peace talks. She had held the hand of a scavenger in the wasteland as he died, and then carried his crying child to a nearby settlement for adoption.

The life she had led had its downsides, but she had lived in a way few people could imagine. Her life wasn’t one that she would have been able to live if she was ever afraid of dying. And now Nick Valentine was trying to convince her that being a coward was a virtue. Maybe for people who only cared about the length of their lives, but that wasn’t something that ever mattered to her. She just didn’t want her death to be anything like a suicide. The only way to do that, was to make killing her as hard as possible.

She walked down some stairs, still looking for cups. There was water flooding the underground area. But it didn’t look that high. She saw piles of dirt, and a fenced off area. She could get to the bank and use that to get into the other area. See if there was anything that would show rather Lisi had been there or not.

She reached into her right pocket and popped a Rad-x before wading through the water towards the mudbank on the other side of the room. She climbed up the mud and looked over at the wall in question. There was a doorway, with boards in the way. It was doubtful that Lisi would have moved the boards, and then moved them back into place. Marian couldn’t imagine her diving under the boards to get some ceramic cups that may not even exist. She felt foolish for even checking.

“Marian!” Nick called out, “Dogmeat has the scent. Come on, Honey. We have to move!”

As she tried climbing down the mud hill, she lost her footing and found herself sliding under water. It filled her ears before she was able to get her feet under her and resurface. She made her way back to the stairs and hurried up them, grateful that Nick didn’t see her slip. She wasn’t sure if he would have laughed or worried, and neither option sounded like a good one to her.

He was at the entrance when she got up the stairs. They exchanged nods before he ran out to catch up to Dogmeat. She hurried after them both before she found Nick standing near a road that leads to the peninsula that Croup Manor rested on. Marian didn’t visit that settlement often. Few people wanted to hire her to take them there, but she knew why Nick wasn’t hurrying to follow Dogmeat.

“Can I say something and still keep my head?” Nick asked as she walked up to stand next to him.

Marian sighed. She was always snapping at Nick, but he did seem to like frustrating her. “I know there isn’t any place to sleep until we get to Croup Manor,” she told him. “I know that will be several hours, and it’ll be very dark by then.”

“Are you willing to find a place to sleep tonight, and wait until tomorrow to pick up the search for your friend?”

“It’s better than fighting in the dark,” she turned around and went off to the ruined house walls that were nearby. She knew where a bed was.

Nick soon joined her, as well as Dogmeat. She petted the dog as he joined her on the bed. Nick pulled out the remaining stingwing filet.

“Give it to Dogmeat,” she told him. “He earned it.”

“You need to eat too,” Nick said.

“I’m fine! This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve survived with two meals in one day. It’s a feast day for me when I get more than one.”

Nick didn’t argue anymore, he gave the meat to their companion. Dogmeat ran from Marian to Nick and ate the food greedily, then returned to Marian as she did her best to inspect Faenus without anything to help her clean it with.

“If you think I’m going to apologize this time, you’re wrong,” Nick finally said.

“Don’t worry, I don’t expect one.” Marian responded.

Nick stuttered for a moment. Marian was worried this may be another glitch he didn’t mention. She sat with her legs crossed, waiting to see if he was okay. “I really wish that you would consider what I said,” he finally told her.

“Why,” she looked down as Dogmeat crawled into her lap, she moved Faenus out of the way so Dogmeat would have space. “I don’t understand why it matters to you so much. I keep telling everyone that I shouldn’t matter. That the moment I disappear they shouldn’t expect to see me again, but you seem to refuse to listen to me when I say that.”

“I guess I’m just stubborn,” he said quietly. “There are a lot of people in the Commonwealth who care about you. The Commonwealth has a way of getting to you if you let it, I’ve seen it make a lot of monsters out of men. People like it when someone like you shows up, someone who will protect them from the monsters. They want someone like that to stick around.”

“Then they get to know me, and they learn I was a monster all along and they find they have to choose between killing me, or just shunning me,” she countered as she played with Dogmeat’s ear. “I’m not sure which one is worse.”

Nick was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “I’ve heard you call yourself that before, but I always thought it was self-deprecation. You really think you are one, don’t you?”

Marian thought for a moment before responding. “I was born one,” she finally explained. “I thought I was better than everyone else because of what I was, and what my family was, all the way back to before the great war. I was looking forward to growing into my place in the family and be just as great as my ancestors. Then one day, I realized that I was a monster, surrounded by monsters, and worshiping the dead monsters who came before me.”

“You left your family, you may have been a monster then, but that’s not what you are anymore.”

“I left when I was seventeen. On my birthday. The monsters who were seeing me to the door told me I could come home whenever I wished, and that I should hurry up and come home because I probably wasn’t going to live to watch the sunset. I was given a new set of clothes, and that was it. No weapons, nothing to carry my stuff in, not even food. I had spent five years watching the people around me do horrible things. I promised myself I would live out of spite and left.” Dogmeat nuzzled Marian’s hand until she went back to petting him.

“Why aren’t your still trying to live now?” Nick asked.

“I am,” Marian said, “and I’m not. Ten years is a long time to be spiteful, and I’m tired. I never expected to live this long. I keep trying to do bigger things, take bigger risks, help more people,” Marian sighed. Dogmeat rolled off her lap onto his back. He wiggled slightly and made low ruffs until she rubbed his chest and belly. “You’d think I’d figure out how to get myself killed by now, but when I do small things, I survive. When I do big things, I plan so I don’t let the people I’m helping down, and I succeed too well. Some days I just find myself staring at Faenus, wondering if a bullet in the head hurts.”

Nick was silent. He just sat there, looking at her. That worried look that he had so often. It was almost like she just told him she was going to shoot herself. “You do a lot of good here,” Nick finally said. “The monsters you left in the Capital Wasteland; they are back in the Capital Wasteland. Why don’t you stay here, and let yourself be a person?”

“There are a lot of people in the Capital Wasteland who need me,” she finally said as she played with Dogmeat.

“There are a lot of people here who need you,” Nick countered. “Your past is there, why not let your future be here? Can you do me a favor?”

Marian looked up at him. The sun must have been setting, his eyes were much easier to see than his other features. She could still smell the stale cigarettes from where she was sitting, normally she hated that smell, but it worked on him.

“Try living,” he finally said. She started opening her mouth to protest. “I don’t mean forever. Just for when you are working with me. I know you’re big on paying off your debts, and you can’t pay it off if you’re dead. I like having your around, and I don’t think Ellie would ever forgive me if I came home with your corpse.”

“Why does Ellie still like me?” Marian asked. “I was so mean to her.”

“She knows what she did hurt you,” Nick explained. “She and Yefim knew that you wouldn’t be happy if you found out what they were doing, but they both like you, so they took the risk.”

Two people risked having her around, risked having her angry. “I keep telling people I’m a monster, but they still act like I’m a hero.”

“A monster shows what they are by their actions,” Nick explained. “You haven’t done anything to prove that you are one. You may have been a monster once, but trust me, you’re far from being a monster now.”

It had been so long since she realized what she was. She had been so afraid of doing something that she thought was right that ended up hurting other people later, which she did a few times after she left her family. Her family was still in the Capital Wasteland, they weren’t going to follow her here. They weren’t going to kill Nick because she smiled too big when she was with him. They weren’t going to kill Hancock because she spent too much time with him. Maybe, the people around her could be safe. Maybe she really should have left the Capital Wasteland ten years ago. How many people would be alive if she had?

“I’ll try it your way,” Marian conceded as she finished petting Dogmeat. He rolled onto his paws and started running around again. “I’m not sure what you mean by living, but until I pay off my debt, I’ll give it a try. You’ll have to show me how, though.”

She was hoping he would get overwhelmed at the promise for the extra work. But she really wasn’t sure what the difference between living and surviving were. Maybe he can show her.

“Don’t worry, Doll,” Nick answered. “I’ll be very happy to stay with you as long as you need me to.”