She planned on avoiding Diamond City. Nick didn’t want to see her again, and never entering Diamond City again seemed like a good way to respect his wishes. It was really her fault, she didn’t respect him enough to tell him the truth, but he would have kicked her out if she had, but she should have been brave enough to tell him anyway. Should haves ran through her head.

It shouldn’t matter, she was going back to the Capital Wasteland in one month. She just had to wait for Hancock to get the resources together. She just had to wait for RJ to get his affairs in order and his boyfriend a goodbye kiss. She had to admit, the twins were cute, and she had looked at Knock Knock, but she just wasn’t in the mood for a relationship, even for the sex. Instead, she was just looking for small jobs to keep her busy and away from Diamond City until everything was ready. Running books to the library for Daisy seemed like the best option.

The two of them had been discussing a service to pick up and return books to the library. A small pleasure that probably would have made other people happy. Maybe when she got back, she and Daisy could make it more long term, but then she would have to look at those green walls, and remember she wasn’t welcomed in Diamond City anymore.

She was moving around the building, remembering how He taught her the safe way to enter, when she heard the gunshots. There were a lot of them. It wasn’t her problem. It shouldn’t be her problem. But people would get hurt and die. She had friends in the guard who would get hurt. If the attackers got inside, how many of the people would get hurt?

Giving into her nature, she opened the library door and laid her backpack inside. She shut the door and ran to the fight. It didn’t take long to see what was going on. Raiders, and a whole bunch of them. This was a coordinated attack. How many months did they plan this attack? It didn’t matter, what mattered was stopping it. Large groups have troubles recognizing individuals quickly, and she capitalized on that.

Pretending to be a raider, she moved into the group. She was a raider, and she had bad aim. Each shot managed to be a head shot, too bad for her fellow raiders she wasn’t hitting any members of the Diamond City guard, only raiders with really good armor.

Soon, other raiders in the back realized that those hits weren’t accidents. Maybe after the third leader had been taken out. Instead of fighting to get into the city, they were now fighting to kill her. And she was fighting back. She threw a few grenades into the crowd that surrounded her as she fought, but she was surrounded, and out of stimpaks.

Why didn’t they shoot her in the head before running off? Maybe it was a kindness she didn’t deserve. She laid on the ground, waiting for the guards to find her. Lucas found her, her vision and hearing were blurry, but she knew her friend. He gave her a med-x and carried her to a bed. He was arguing with someone about her getting a bed, but she didn’t care, she was beyond caring. She was dying and knew it.

Lucas knelt beside her. He said some nice things, but she knew he was full of bullshit. He was breaking her rule and caring about her death, something no one was supposed to do. It didn’t matter, she was going to use him one last time. She took the holotags out of her pocket and unlooped the chain from her beltloop. He just had to take them to Nick. They had to do with one of his cases.

With no one looking, things we easy. All she had to do was close her eyes. For the first time in her life, she stopped fighting and felt herself fade. Nothing mattered anymore, she never mattered.

Fading was easy, maybe the easiest thing she ever did. Thoughts and words disappeared. Her identity disappeared. Everything was disappearing. Until she heard his voice. Emotions hadn’t disappeared yet. She felt safe at the sound of that voice. She wanted to hear it some more, she fought to hear it. Even in the silence, she fought to hear the voice for a few more seconds.

But fighting had become so much harder, she was still fading, she was losing the fight to hear Him. It probably wasn’t him; she was probably imagining it. She stopped fighting, but fading was becoming harder. She was between fading and fighting, not really wanting either. She didn’t want to stop fading, he hated her, but she needed to hear him just a little more.

She got her wish, she heard him. He kept talking. It probably wasn’t real, but it sounded so real. It sounded sad. Thoughts were becoming easier as she tried to decide if he would be happier if she finally died. But she couldn’t, she missed her chance and now there was nothing to do but fight.

She could hear him. She could feel all around her. She woke up and saw that she didn’t dream him, he was sitting next to her, looking down at her, holding her hand in his.

“Nick?” she asked, not sure if it was really him.

He moved something from his lap before shifting his body towards her. He still held her left hand but reached out with his free hand to touch her face. “It’s okay, Doll,” he said quietly. “I’m here.”

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She had to be dreaming. He was calling her “Doll” again. He was rubbing her cheek again. She smiled up at him before looking around to see where they were. She expected to be in Dr. Sun’s hospital. Instead, she was in a new location.

“Where am I,” she finally asked.

“You’re in my home,” he told her. “I brought you here when I heard about what happened.”

She looked up at him. She understood what he was saying, but it still wasn’t making any sense. “I don’t get you, Nick,” she said. “You almost got rid of me.”

He suddenly looked like he was in pain. He pulled his hand away from her and sat up, looking down at his lap. The thought that she insulted him scared her. She wanted to comfort him and let him know that she wasn’t mad at him.

“Nick!” She said moving to sit up. “I’m sorry, I AUHHH!” Her injuries made themselves known as pain shot through her. She found herself wrapping her arms around his arm as she tried to ride out the pain.

His hands gently grasped her shoulders as he helped her lay back down. “Easy,” he cooed. “It’s okay. It’s just been a while since the last time you got some med-x.” She felt a sting on the inside of her elbow before the pain faded into the background. “There you go. It’s okay. I deserved that remark.”

The sensation of all her pain disappearing was disorienting. She almost wished that she had some pain to remind her that it was there, because she knew it was.

“I’m sorry about what I said the other day,” Nick said as he rubbed her forearm. Just having him so close made her feel comfortable, like she didn’t have to fight to sit up she could just lay there and be safe. “I made assumptions and jumped to conclusions instead of considering…well anything. You’d think that I would know how to get to the truth, but the fact is, it’s hard to really look into things when it’s about someone you care about.”

“I don’t get you, Nick,” she said feeling her lungs protest at her trying to talk louder. “You almost got rid of me. You didn’t have to care about me.”

Nick looked down at her. His expression was that worried expression he showed her so often. She wanted to take back what she said, or push things harder, something to make him feel better. “You almost convinced me not to,” he said.

With his free hand he reached into his pocket and pulled something out. The chain from the holotags hung from his hand, so he really did get them. “Then I got these. They confused me for a minute. I couldn’t figure out why you would send them to me if you knew I was mad at the idea of your brother being a member. Don’t worry, I’m doing my job now and found out the truth. Either way, I had to wonder why you would send me something you would think would make me you more.”

She was quiet. If she knew she was going to live she wouldn’t have sent them to him. If she hadn’t sent them to him, she wouldn’t have lived. “I think I should have had them delivered after I died,” she said.

“I think the reason you sent them would have come true if you had waited,” Nick said. “It took me a moment to figure it out. I forgot how you think, where things connect that no one else would see. You were trying to protect me, weren’t you?”

The thought of what she was afraid of hit her. She could feel tears welling in her eyes as the fear of Nick’s mortality ran through her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t want you idolizing me after I died. I just wanted you to hate me enough that you wouldn’t mind forgetting me.”

Nick looked down at her. “So, you sent me evidence that you were a member of the Brotherhood of Steel so that I wouldn’t miss a diagnostic check on your account,” he finished. “That’s what I figured. I’m so sorry for how I treated you. You deserve so much more than me.”

She disagreed, she deserved worse than what he did, she deserved to be ran out the Commonwealth, but she knew that arguing would fall on deaf ears, so she laid quiet. Instead, she found her hand wandering, and soon she was holding his again. “I was never mad at you,” she said looking at his hand.

“I know,” he responded. “There is one thing I can’t figure out. Everything you’ve said implies you hate your past with the Brotherhood. What little information I can find supports that. But you keep these on you all the time. I’ve seen the chain; I know you have them in your pocket. Why?”

She never really asked herself that question. There was a reason when she first left home why she didn’t just toss them into the river. “I knew when I died, someone would find them on me. Eventually they would have gotten to my mom. She would have known the truth.”

“I thought you hated your family,” Nick said quietly.

“Sometimes…sometimes…it’s different from someone caring about you being around, then they care about what they like about you. Rather you give them protection, or services, or just a good conversation. But, sometimes, it’s nice to pretend there’s someone who would care if you died. Those tags helped me pretend.”

Nick let go of her hand. Before her doubts started screaming, he placed his hand on her cheek. “You don’t have to pretend, Isabel,” he said. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

She reached up and grabbed his tie in one hand and placed her other hand on his cheek. She smiled shyly at him. He smiled back at her and leaned down and kissed her lips. The hand on his cheek went to his back as she weakly held him in place, kissing him back.

It was one thing wanting someone to not die, it was another wanting them around long term. Nick was probably just wanting to give her a reason to live, but she appreciated that he was willing to pretend that it was the former not the later. She would pretend that she couldn’t tell the truth as long as he was willing to pretend a lie.

When he broke the kiss, he smiled down at her, kissed her one more time, and then sat up. At some point, he had placed her tags next to her pillow. “You’re probably tired,” he said. “I’ll clear out and let you rest.”

He grabbed the book next to him and started to stand when she grabbed his hand. “Nick,” she said. “I know this sounds weird, but I think hearing your voice is why I’m alive. I don’t want you to go yet. Can you just read to me for a bit? At least, until I fall asleep?”

Nick smiled down at her before sitting back on the bed. “Only if I get another kiss,” he bargained before kissing her again. Then he opened the book and started reading about how Walter Hartright helped walk with Anne Catherick one late night.