The door was so close. All MacCready had to do was walk out that door, run down the street, and enter Nick’s office. He may not have the medicine his sister still needed, but he could still say “goodbye” to her. It would be so easy, he was so close, but the bars to his cell were in the way.

He stood up and walked to the bars. He grabbed the metal, wishing he had Strong to pull them out of the wall. “Hey! What if I paid a fine? Can I see my sister then?” He shouted to a passing guard.

The guard looked at him. His helmet hiding his face. “You know the deal; I’m not going to disobey Sullivan’s orders.” He then continued walking on.

MacCready lowered his head until it rested on the bar. “Please, just let fu…. Let me see her,” he begged the empty room.

The door opened again, he looked up to see if it was another guard, or if it was Sullivan ready to escort him out of the city. Either way, he didn’t care, any hope he had was gone. Instead, he saw Nick’s secretary, Ellie.

Hancock had insisted that Ellie was his main point of contact in Diamond City when it came to helping keep his sister in the Commonwealth. The ghoul wasn’t even bothering to keep secrets anymore, he was laying his whole plan out to MacCready. The younger man guessed that the mayor had lost hope as well.

The secretary’s skirt swayed slightly as she walked up to the bars of his cell. MacCready pulled back slightly, giving her some sense of normalcy.

“How did you know I was here?” he asked her.

“You’d be surprised how many friends Marian has who are in the Diamond City guard. One of them disobeyed orders to tell Nick you were here. Did you really punch Danny Sullivan?”

MacCready looked away for a moment. His face went flush with the guilt that the punch was what lead him to being kept away from his sister now that she needed him the most. “Yeah,” he admitted. “They were wanting to pat me down for medical supplies. Hancock told me that there was an embargo and that two caravans returned unable to get anything in. So, I thought I could do what they weren’t able to and sneak some in. I don’t remember exactly what happened, I just know that I tried not to get inspected, and when they grabbed me, I found myself fighting back.” He touched a bruise on his eye that he got from the fight. It was still tender, but he had worse experiences. “I guess my swing went wild and I hit the head guard. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground being cuffed.”

“You were lucky,” Ellie told him, “with the city guard being on the edge right now, they could have killed you without thinking about it.”

“If you can call it lucky,” he said. “Hancock told me that Marian is dying. Now I can’t even see her one last time.”

The secretary let out a sigh. “Hancock was right. She is dying. She got badly injured in the attack yesterday and lost a lot of blood. Nick brought her home, but she hasn’t woken up since. Even if you got to see her, I don’t think she would know you were there.”

MacCready slapped a bar with the palm of his hand. “Motherfuckers!” He blurted out before pacing the cell. “I mean….”

“Don’t bother,” Ellie interrupted, “Nick is swearing too. Heck, I’d probably match both of you if I was in the habit to swear right now.”

He took off his hat which had been stripped of its bullets and threw it at the wall of his cell. “Did you hear that? She’s dying and you’re keeping me here you…you brahmin turds!” He couldn’t think of an insult that didn’t harken back to his days as a mayor. “She’s dying and you won’t even let me see her!” He leaned back, resting his spine between the bars of his cell. He lowered his face into his right hand. “She’s dying and you won’t even let me see her,” he said quietly.

He wanted to cry. The ‘goodbye’ seven years ago didn’t feel real. He was so young he was just starting to see her suicidal tendencies as more than impressive moves from someone who should be worshiped as a living comic book hero and instead realize that what was happening was a tragedy that he was witnessing. Her walking away was more like a relief from that tragedy than the loss of a friend.

He didn’t get to say ‘goodbye’ to Lucy either. Her death was so sudden. Her screams still haunt him at night. One day he was going to get the courage to tell his friends from Little Lamplight that he married the doctor. One day he was going to get the courage to tell them that she died because he couldn’t save her.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

He couldn’t let Isabel die like this. He couldn’t lose her without doing something. Even if that something was reading one of her stupid boring books while she faded away. He just wanted to say ‘goodbye’ even if she never heard the words. He would go to The Capital Wasteland tomorrow to get Duncan. He would do anything to end his own guilt.

He felt Ellie’s hand touch his shoulder. “Is her name really Isabel?” she asked, breaking through his thoughts.

He raised his head from his hands and looked at her. “What? How did you get that name?”

“She had some holotags sent to Nick after the fight. He said the tags had the name ‘Isabel’ on them.”

“Yeah, her name really is Isabel. She sometimes played a game where she would come up with what her name would be if it wasn’t Isabel. Every few weeks, it was another name, but she always told people her name was Isabel. When she first told Nick that her name was something else, I thought she was just letting him in on her game and would correct him later.”

“So, she really was a member of…”

“Yeah,” he cut her off. He didn’t want anyone listening to them to know the truth. Not that anyone listening wouldn’t have figured it out by that point. “Her family had been in since the bombs dropped. She never got along with them and left as soon as she was old enough.”

They were silent for a bit. All he could think about was her lying on a bed, dying. It reminded him of another time when he was wondering if she was going to die.

“She came through this before,” he finally said.

“What?” Ellie asked.

“When we were on the caravans together. She had this thing where she liked climbing buildings. Sometimes I went with her. The taller, the more fun.” He licked his lips, remembering what happened. “The last time we did that, she and I were friends, but we hadn’t adopted each other yet. The Brotherhood of Steel had just figured out how to make Vertibirds, so no one was surprised to see them. We were climbing this really dilapidated building. It was stupid of us, but it was fun. We were standing on the edge, watching the sunset when the Vertibird came. I didn’t think anything about it not at first.”

He was silent, remembering what happened. It never felt real. The pain was real, but everything else felt almost like it happened to someone else. In a lot of ways, it did, it happened to Isabel.

“I didn’t know what was happening. All I knew was I was falling from the building suddenly. Before I realized she pushed me, I heard a minigun go off. I landed wrong and broke my leg. I don’t know if the Vertibird was gone before I hit the ground or after. I just remember laying there, wondering if she was still alive.”

“But she was,” Ellie said.

“Barely,” MacCready corrected. “She showed up after it was really dark. She had used up all of our stimpaks surviving the attack. Somehow, she was able to help me limp to Rivet City before she passed out herself. I told Doctor Preston that I was her brother just so he would let me stay with her while she healed. I guess that’s when we became brother and sister. She told me later that it was her real brother who shot her, she saved my life by pushing me off that building.”

Suddenly, the realization that through the years he was never able to protect her weighed down on him. He let that same brother hurt her every time he asked for something from her. He let her run around the Commonwealth on her own instead of helping her get her footing like she did for him when they were younger. Now, she was dying because he didn’t do anything to protect her, he couldn’t even save her.

“I need to see her,” he said again.

“What is your bail? Maybe I can help pay it.”

“It doesn’t matter. The bail is to leave Diamond City. I won’t be allowed back for at least a month. By then…”

“I know,” Ellie said softly. She chewed on her lower lip, obviously thinking of their options. Then she finally sighed. “I need to get back to her. I came to see if I could get you out.”

“isn’t Nick with her?”

“I don’t know where Nick is. After the guard left, he said something about not being able to sit and wait any longer and stormed out.”

Nick Valentine was showing how he really felt about Isabel, and it was pissing MacCready off. “He just left her? I thought he liked her! But he left her to die alone?”

“He left her with me,” Ellie said. “I don’t know where he is or when he’s coming back, but I don’t think he left her to work on a case. I’ll keep an eye on her. Go back to Goodneighbor. I’ll call Hancock and let him know what happened. If anyone can figure out a way to save her, it’s him.”

“Or Nick,” MacCready pointed out.

“I’m going to let Hancock decide rather we should trust Nick on this,” Ellie said. “I never doubted him before, but I just don’t know where his mind is anymore. One moment he’s fawning over her, the next he’s throwing a fit. I don’t know if his luck will hold out this time. Maybe they both can come up with something. Either way, we need Hancock.”

The thought of apologizing left a bad taste in MacCready’s mouth, but Ellie was right. He couldn’t rot in prison for a month. He had to get home in case his friends needed him. He was doing nothing for Isabel.

“Okay,” he agreed.

Ellie didn’t say anything more. She turned around and ran out of the room. Hopefully, Isabel was still waiting for her. It didn’t matter, he had to get home. Maybe Hancock could think of something for him to do.

“Hey, guard!” He called. “I’m ready to apologize. For real this time.”