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They end up in Sanctuary.
Well, eventually, they end up in Sanctuary. Eventually, the great General Nora Greene and her Colonel Garvey butt heads once too often, and eventually, Nora decides that her time is better spent outside the fortress. And eventually, well, a thousand other things.
But, first things first.
And first, Nora stands in the middle of that dusty courtyard and kisses Gage like he's come to piece her world back together. Her hands clutch at the back of his neck, dragging him down to her lips. The stench of the rotting heads at his feet and the red glare of the laser sights boring into his chest fall out of Gage's mind, as he falls deeper into Nora.
The first and only thing she says is a whispered "Porter" into his ear, which says so much more than just his name. And just like that, Gage knows he's made the right call. When they part, she wastes no time in grabbing his filthy hand in her own and leading him into the fortress. She pauses only to give a slight nod to the scowling man in the weathered white coat, and then tugs Gage onwards.
"The fuck is his problem?" Gage grumbles as they stumble through the stone halls, as though he doesn't know.
She doesn't answer, doesn't breathe another word, just grips tighter at his hand and takes her steps that tiny bit faster.
At a bend in the stone hall, she pushes him through a pair of splintered doors and into the dark room beyond. She doesn't bother with the lantern; only the mote-filled streaks of light that spill through the doors' cracks illuminate the room. The air is damp and smells of dirt and age. Somewhere, a muffled drip echoes off the stone. Years from now, Gage won't remember any of those details - only the scent of her as he buries his face into her neck, the taste of her as he draws her lower lip between his own.
The doors have barely closed before she's pulling off his armor. His rusted yellow chest piece clatters to the floor. He kicks off his boots and, with his gun and knife still at the fortress walls, is left standing in only his frayed shirt and pants before her.
She, in turn, shrugs out of her spotless coat, tossing it over the back of a chair. Her hat follows, resting on the seat cushion. When she notices his hesitation, she takes his hands in her own and leads them to her belt, placing them over the buckle.
Gage can't help but think back to the last time they were together - when he crossed a line, and she led him back from it; when he didn't deserve love and forgiveness, but got it anyways. So now, with her very explicit invitation, he helps her undress. Hat and coat are soon joined by the rest of her clothing, until she is bared before him.
In the dim light, he can't make out the details of her, only the pale curves of her ivory skin against the grey stone. Only now does he let his fingers brush her skin, somehow softer than he remembers. He trails them up her side, tracing over her ribs in the way he knows will make her shiver. When her head tilts back, he buries his face into her neck, licking at the taught cords there. With her hands running up his back, her breathy sighs echoing in his ears, he drinks her in.
"Don't stop," she whispers.
This is it. This is what he's given up Nuka-World for: his too sweet, too perfect, Nora. It's been two weeks without her. Two long weeks trudging around the Commonwealth with only a bag of rotting heads for company. And now he has her and he's never letting go. How he lived a full life before her, Gage will never know.
He falls to his knees before her, pausing only to rip off his eye patch and toss it aside. Bringing his face to the apex of her thighs, he rubs his nose into her dark triangle of hair, breathing deep into the scent of her. His blood runs hot enough to singe his veins.
Tossing one her legs over his shoulder, he grabs her hips and angles her back so she's braced against the wall, and then his mouth is upon her, licking and sucking at her soft folds. Has he ever tasted anything sweeter?
Above him, her gasps and pants pierce the silence of the dark room; she's crooning a sweeter song than any he's heard from the radio. Her hands roam over his head, through his streak of hair, and then back to the wall behind her, seeking but not finding purchase. He can feel the shake of her thigh upon his shoulder. But it's not enough. Gage doesn't just want her to want him. The demanding voice inside his head wants her to crave him, as he does her - the softer voice simply wants her to be pleased with him.
When he finds her swollen clit, and draws it between his cracked lips, her cry and shudder of pleasure is a sign that maybe he's on the right track for both. He keeps at it, his strokes long and full until at last she's coming apart around him. Her whole body tenses and shudders as she calls out her release.
Gage's kisses wander over her thigh and belly, stopping now and then to lick at the jut of her hip. When Nora quiets, the tremors slowing and her grasping breaths calming, he wraps his arms about her waist, rests his forehead against her abdomen, and just holds her there. His cock is hard and straining against his pants, but it can wait. Gage lets his eyes fall closed, as he marvels at the softness of her pale belly.
Eventually, her pounding heart settles, and she lifts her leg from off his shoulder, and leads him to the bed. With a shove, she pushes him back down on it so that he's laid out like a sacrifice before her.
She admires the view for only a brief moment before throwing a leg over him and straddling his hips. His hands fall to her thighs, his fingers squeezing into the firm flesh there, urging her to ride him. When she does takes his straining cock in hand, stroking it up and down a few times in her soft palm, he nearly spills all over himself. Two weeks - it's only been two damn weeks since he felt her touch upon him, but holy hell, it feels like a lifetime ago.
As she slides down onto his length, slow and steady, Gage suppresses a shudder. She's hot and wet and so damn tight about him that Gage has to remind himself to breath.
Still relaxed and satisfied from her earlier release, Nora takes her time. Her pace is slow and teasing to start. Beneath her, Gage becomes impatient. He wants to kiss her, wants to feel the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest, but when he braces to sit up, she presses a palm into the centre of his chest and pushes him back down. So Gage settles on his back once more, letting her ride him as she will. If that's what she wants - anything for her.
His hand moves to cover her own as she settles into her pace, rising and falling and grinding against him.
She leans back into a beam of dusty light.
She's white fire in the darkness.
When her fingers press against his lips, Gage parts them and grants her entry. He rolls the digit about his tongue, scrapes the pad against his teeth, and she smiles down at him. The sway of her breasts, the smolder in her gaze is hypnotic, and Gage doesn't even try to resist as she pulls him deeper under her spell.
When her head tilts back, Nora at last gives herself over to the pleasure. She grinds faster against him, squeezing tighter. Gage's control starts to slip as he thrusts up to meet her. His eyes fall closed as her beauty overtakes him. He's certain he'll leave dirty fingerprints where he grips at the milky white of her hips.
It's too good.
He isn't going to last.
"Nora," he groans, begging her.
Whether she hears him is unclear. Gage gathers his resolve as he tries to hold off. He licks his thumb before moving it to rub tight circles about her clit, driving her onwards. That does it. At her first flushed shudder, her first strangled shriek of his name, Gage lets himself go. He squeezes her hips so hard he's sure they'll bruise, pulling her tight against him as he pours himself into her - as he loses himself in her.
As he comes, she quivers and trembles about him. She glows brighter and brighter still.
It is only later, as they lie together in the cool silence of her quarters, their heartbeats slowing and sweat drying, that Gage can't help but notice: her bed is too small.
~~~
Those first few days at the Castle, Gage loves her thoroughly, desperately, making up for the days he has lost tracking her across the Commonwealth, trying to carve out the doubts she still might have, making up for the hurt he knows he caused.
He has her in every which way he can. In a keep full of Minutemen, Porter Gage has little to do except fill his hours with Nora. The days flow together as he loses track of the future and gives himself over to the now. No schemes. No plans. Only Nora and the way she shivers as he runs his finger tips up her spine, the way she sighs his name so sweetly.
But then, the man in the fucking stupid hat says, "General, with all due respect, you don't belong with a man - a raider - like that," one too many times, and so they leave.
Sanctuary is just that: safe, friendly, easy. It's Nora's homestead and where most of her collected friends have taken up. Bunkhouses line the main street, leading up to the newly erected town hall. Crops grow in tidy rows beside what must be the cleanest river in all the Commonwealth. There are even actual goddamn white picket fences there.
The settlers could not be further apart from Nuka-Worlds' raiders, and so for the sake of his sanity and Nora's happiness, Gage gives them a wide birth. Even as he falls into something like a routine there, there are still days where he finds himself staring at the pastel panelled houses, the bushy flowers in the window boxes, the children playing the streets, and wondering how the fuck his life has come to this.
Apart from the settlers, her friends run the spectrum from tolerable to the sort of folks that Gage wouldn't mind shooting. The self-righteous ex-Brotherhood synth prick? Yeah, that guy can go fuck himself. With the Institute gone, Gage doesn't give two shits about who's a synth or not, but a prick is still a prick and former-Paladin Danse is a prick through-and-through. The way he tries to hide staring at Nora's ass certainly doesn't earn his any favours either.
On the other hand, MacCready's fairly tolerable. Kid's a good shot and not too judgey about peoples' pasts. Unlike so many of Nora's soft-hearted companions, his only real concerns are making caps and looking after his kid; there's a selfishness in that Gage can understand.
The point is, he's tried. Porter Gage isn't a good man, but he's given it a shot anyways for her - only for her. He's done shitty things all his life, and he sure as hell doesn't deserve her, but he tries. So he doesn't growl at the settlers. Doesn't nick whatever's lying around. Doesn't shoot the Paladin prick.
It helps that she meets him halfway. She doesn't ask much of him. She knows he's a raider at his core and she doesn't expect him to play nice with others, and she sure as shit doesn't ask him to help with the crops.
So while she leads the settlement and farms and fusses, Gage does his own thing. When he left his parents' homestead decades ago, it was because he was damn tired of being pushed about by raiders. Gage has no intention of letting history repeat itself here in Sanctuary. He mostly takes solo guard patrols, more than happy to take potshots at any dumb fucks thinking of creeping unwelcomed into town.
He slakes his wanderlust by clearing out nearby raiders dens and Gunner posts. Sometimes MacCready or Cait will come along, but mostly he goes alone. On the rare occasions when Nora joins, it feels like the old days clearing out the parks. The chaos. The gun fire. Her at his side. It gets him going something fierce. Maybe she feels it too, because just when it's become too much to bear, she pulls him into a back room and has him there. He lays down in the dirt so she stays clean.
But those days are rare. Mostly, it's the same-old same-old: him on guard patrol, her in her office or in the fields.
He doesn't get why she's so determined to fuss around with the crops. A nice little surprise he learns in Sanctuary is that Nora's loaded. She's got a mountain of caps that could buy-out the whole Upper Stands if she wanted. She has enough to never worry about growing her own food again. But that's her call: her caps, her house, her Sanctuary. Gage is just along for the ride.
Gage isn't good at feelings. Sometimes when they're - thankfully - alone, Nora will ask if he's okay. If he's happy. If everything is alright between them. He's fine, he says. They're fine. Everything's fine. Sometimes he'll pass it off as a shit joke, ask if she 's jealous or something. But he doesn't say the words and she doesn't force him to.
Maybe his lack of direction does bother him, just a little bit. For the first time in a long time, he doesn't have a plan. Ever since leaving his parents' homestead, he's had a plan. First he would join some caravan. Then some gang. Eventually, once he got in with Connor, his plans grew ever grander and more detailed, until eventually, Nuka-World was born. But now, he's got nothing.
For a few months, things go well enough. It's a bit surprising that he falls into the domesticity of it all - in fucking suburbia no less - but Gage manages to make a life of it. He still misses the high of the raider's life: the shooting and the carousing and the thrill of living in the moment. And, yeah, Sanctuary is damn boring sometimes, but he manages to keep himself entertained. It's not the life he wanted, but any future without Nora just ain't worth considering, and so Gage comes to accept the terrible stability of it all. It could be worse, really.
And then one day, Nora starts puking and doesn't stop.
It was sort of inevitable really, given the sheer amount they'd been fucking. Sure, Gage pulls-out most of the time, but every once in a while, when Nora's lookin' extra beautiful, sighing and shivering in his lap, making him feel like a horny teenager again, well, sometimes things just get out of hand.
He tells her he'll find a road doctor to take care of it.
She tells him to go fuck himself.
Children weren't ever a part of Porter Gage's plans. He'd be a shit father; he ain't got a paternal bone in his shit-spined body. But, for some reason that he can't even begin to understand, Nora wants to keep his kid. And, if it's her caps, her house, her Sanctuary, it's sure-as-shit her body, so there really ain't much for Gage to say on the matter.
And so the days go by. For the most part, nothing changes. Nora doesn't talk about it and that suites Gage just fine. There are changes here and there - the room down the hall is cleaned and painted, some of the settlers start to fuss over Nora near as much as she fusses over them - but for the most part, things stay the same. She keeps to her crops, and he keeps to his patrols, and together they keep on keepin' on.
~~~
It all changes when she has a close call near the end. Nora's out in the fields, digging and fussing over the crops, when something goes wrong. She feels a twinge in her belly, and then a stab, and then she's doubling over in pain, collapsing in the dirt. In the end, it's fine. She's fine. They're fine. Curie manages to patch Nora up enough for them both to survive.
Though he doesn't show it, it scares the ever-living shit out of Gage. When he comes back from a guard patrol to find Nora in the infirmary, pale as a ghost, a pile of bloodied linens on the floor, his heart nearly falls out of his chest. He almost lost her once before, but this is something else entirely, something permanent and terrifying, and utterly beyond his control.
Curie puts her to bed with a stimpack and warning to take it easy for the rest of the pregnancy. Nora nods as she pulls up the blankets, settling in, but Gage knows that flicker in her eyes. The way her brow twists for a moment as she's thinking far and long ahead from where they are now. Even as she nods, she's counting crops, planning trades, setting meetings.
So when, three days later, he finds her shuffling about in the toolshed, he scoops her up, carries her back into the house and deposits her firmly back onto the bed. "Your ass doesn't leave this bed, you hear me?"
They argue. He wins.
He leaves her in bed, sulking that the crops will fail without her constant attention, that the other settlers already have too many duties to pick up her slack.
And so, because he loves her, because it's anything for her, Gage spends the afternoon digging in Nora's bullshit dirt patch, muttering to himself about the bullshit settlement and its bullshit settlers with their bullshit tools. It's not like he doesn't know how to farm - he spent his childhood on a shitty dust bowl just like this one - he just hates it. It dredges up all sorts of shitty memories of seeing his family get pushed around, beaten down, and eventually starved out.
And yet, when he comes home that night, stomps into the bedroom, kicks off his muddy boots and tosses his clothes on the floor, the anger goes with it. By the time Gage hits the sheets and pulls Nora into his arms, it's all soft touches and gentle kisses again. She has his eyepatch off within seconds, her fingers stroking over his cheekbones, her lips soft against his own. He runs his fingers through her hair. She's let it grow longer now, and even with only the pale moonlight, it seems to shine in the dark. He buries his nose against her temple, breathing in the scent of it: the flowered soap she uses, and something deeper and headier and uniquely Nora.
She pulls their bodies closer as his hands wander up her sides and to her breasts - pregnancy has done goddamn amazing things to her breasts. He rolls one in his palm, enjoying its weight. They won't risk doing much else, not with Nora in her condition. Without much else to do, they go to sleep: Nora smiling against his chest, Gage grimacing at his untended hard-on.
~~~
Piper comes to visit and Gage makes a run for it. There's a lot things he'll tolerate for Nora, listening to the nosey Diamond City reporter gossip like a goose all afternoon is not one of them.
When he returns several hours later, the low afternoon sun pulling long shadows behind him, Gage finds the pair still chattering away in Nora's sitting room. Despite his disdain for gossip, he finds himself pausing just outside the open window, listening in on their conversation.
"... and for a boy?" Piper asks.
"I was thinking 'Liam', after my father. 'Liam Nicolas Greene'."
Gage grimaces at the Synth detective's name.
"Not 'Liam Nicolas Gage'?"
There's a short silence before Nora mumbles, "We're not married."
It's the first time he's heard real displeasure in her voice in a long time. Sure, sometimes they fight: some anger, some shouting, a few harsh words. But not hurt. Not doubt.
There's a long silence as spoons click against ceramics, teas are sipped and eyes are averted.
The fuck has he done to deserve her doubt? He's here, isn't he? He's out in her fields, digging in her dirt. He hasn't shot a single damn settler. What else does she want from him?
"I'm not sure that he'll stay," Nora adds at last.
Piper sputters, shocked and outraged. "What? Why? Did he say something?"
"He didn't ask for this."
"Come'on Blue, no one asks for anything anymore. I didn't ask to raise Nat on my own. You didn't ask to get frozen for two hundred years. But we make do with what we've got and find the best in it anyways."
That's not true. Gage has asked for lots of things. He asked to leave home. He asked to join the raiders. He asked for Nuka-World.
He begged for Nora.
But yeah, they're right. He didn't ask for a kid.
Nora sighs. "He's not happy here. The settlers are all terrified of him - you should see Jun shake when they cross paths. And Mama Murphy won't stop talking about storm clouds and dark horses." She gives a cold laugh. "He ran away from home so he wouldn't have to be a farmer, and now I've made him into a miserable farmer again." She sounds guilty, like she somehow managed to force a man twice her size out into the fields.
When she speaks again, it might only be to herself. "Sanctuary and Porter Gage? They just don't fit."
Gage has learned quite a lot more about Nora since moving here. When they first got together in Nuka-World, he'd had a fleeting sense of guilt that she was so much younger than him, like he taking advantage of her youth or some bullshit. Turns out that couldn't have been further from the truth.
The irony in her past became less amusing as he learned more about her old life, about who she was before the bombs fell. Her old robo-butler has tried to explain what the fuck a "prosecutor" was, but the best Gage can figure is that she was something like a mayor or a sheriff or something, but with none of the guns and twice the rules. But, long story short, she put bread on the table by putting criminals behind bars. And, well, he's a raider who until they met, didn't give two shits about Law and Order. There's really no denying it: they're not a good fit. Not really.
The way she dashes around the settlement, making plans and settling disputes and just generally caring about it all, well, Nora is Sanctuary. And Gage is the rotten stump in the centre of town, gnarled and blackened, with no place among the pastel houses. Every day the settlers look at them both and think: wouldn't the town be just that much nicer, that much tidier, if they both were gone?
And with that, Gage comes to decision, one he hadn't even realized he was considering.
With Piper in town visiting for a couple days, the timing is as good as any. While the two women continue to chat in the sitting room, Gage packs a bag, tucks Nora's fancy rifle at his side, and takes the road south, away from her Sanctuary.
Since arriving in Sanctuary, he's has been adrift. Here, in Nora's home, he's just been treading water, willing to let the tide carry him where it may.
But now, he's setting his own course.
~~~
When he returns, the guard at the southern gate stares at him like he's seeing a ghost. What? Stupid asshole thought Gage was gone for good? That he could walk away from something as good as Nora and just carry on with his life like normal? Not a fucking chance.
This was the same lesson Gage learned when he left Nuka-World: yeah, shit is against them, but pushing her away ain't the answer. He's got to dig in his claws and then laugh like a fucking mad man in the knowledge that he's pulling off this con.
So, three days later he's back in Sanctuary, dragging a sputtering Pastor Clements behind him. When he dumps the priest in Nora's bedroom and demands that he marry them, Gage is forced to admit that this probably isn't the smartest way to show his devotion, but what's done is done.
Oh, she's pissed. Nora apologizes profusely to the crotchety old bastard, has Piper take him to the mess hall for some refreshment, and then lays into Gage for all she's worth.
Even as she's screechin' and hollerin' at him, Gage can't help but notice the shine in her hair, the bright blue of her eyes, the pink flush in her cheeks. He notices, as he's noticed every day that they've been together, that she's the most goddamn beautiful thing he's ever seen.
When she finally quiets down long enough for him to get a word in, Gage crosses his arms and leans back against the door frame. "You wanna be my wife or not?" he asks like he doesn't care either way. Like it won't be a kick in the gut if she says no.
She's stunned into silence. Her mouth opens and closes a few times, like she can't believe his gall to even ask right now.
Whatever. Gage soldiers on. "Because I ain't going nowhere, one way or the other. It's you, and me, and...," he swallows at the sudden dryness in his throat. "And the kid, Boss. In Sanctuary or somewhere else - don't matter. Wherever you are, I'm there too." He gives her a hard stare, making damn sure she's listening, like she's really going to hear what he's about to say. "That's what I'm askin' for. "
And just like that, her fury melts away. When she looks up at him, she's back to being his too sweet, too kind, too beautiful for this world, Nora again.
"Do you love me, Porter?"
She's breaking their unspoken arrangement: she doesn't make him say the words, and he plays nice with the locals, he doesn't act like a raider, he doesn't shoot Danse. Porter Gage isn't a man for feelings. He ain't some soft Diamond City boy. He ain't a poet.
But it's anything for Nora.
His chest feels tight when he goes to answer, like he can't quite get enough air. He takes a deeper breath and manages to speak, "You're the only thing I've ever loved."
He takes her smile as a 'Yes'.
~~~
And so there is a wedding after all. Sure, the priest stares daggers at Gage, but as soon as Nora puts on that pretty smile and asked oh so sweetly if he won't forgive the rough handling and marry them today anyways, the pompous fuck folds just like that and marries them at sunset. Even with those Diamond City assholes, it's anything for General Greene.
Except, she ain't General Greene any more - Porter smirks to himself - she's General Gage now.
Gage never thought he'd care much about marriage one way or another. It was always something other folks were free to do, but served no purpose to him. Two years ago, he could have never even imaged wanting to stay with one woman. But Nora's changed all that, just as Nora's changed him.
And for all that there ain't much of a Law anymore, it still feels good knowing she's his.
It's nice. Damn nice.
The way she stands there in her prettiest dress, holding a bunch of carrot flowers, and swears to be his for all time? Nicer still.
And so, that night Gage goes to bed a happily married man.
When Nora curls in the crook of his side, a smile turning the corner of her lips, Gage lets his arm fall oh so perfectly into place around her back. Her lips press against his neck, their fingers fold together.
Any doubts he's had fly out into the night. Fuck'em. He pulls Nora closer, soaking in her light.
They're a perfect fucking fit.