Chapter Text
After all these years, after all he’s given up to be here in this very moment, with hope holding his heart afloat no matter how much he’s tried to deny it was the only thing keeping him going… after everything has played out and led him here, this is what he finds.
Nothing.
Maybe worse than nothing.
Pods with Barb and Janey’s names on them hang in front of him with nothing inside. No bodies, alive or dead, and no belongings of any kind. Not a goddamn thing. Only evidence there was a place for them which tells him all of jack shit. He knew that from the beginning. Now he finds himself alone, kneeling before these open, empty pods, back at square-fucking-one.
Fuck.
“You’ve been searching all this time,” Robert House’s voice comes to life from the Pip-Boy on his wrist, somber and reverent as though he’s still human enough to give a shit—as if he ever was. “You’re still living in a world of fiction, Mister Howard, a world that isn’t real. The probability they would be here was only one in—”
“Fuck you, House,” Cooper snarls at the unwelcome voice spectating his heartbreak.
“Tsk tsk. Harsh words for your only ally, Mister Howard.”
A fresh growl crawls up his throat past the bile, past the hurt, past the feel of his heart shattering and the crushing disappointment sitting on his chest, squeezing the breath from his lungs.
“Ally, my ass.” He’s already unclasping the device as too many realizations are flooding through him, warring with every emotion he has left in his bitter, rotted body. “You knew from the moment I stepped into the fucking vault they weren’t here. You found their pods, you opened the doors...” He tears the Pip-Boy from his wrist, spinning the screen around so he can see Robert House’s placid expression. “You knew there weren’t any signs of life in either of their pods from the second you found them and you didn’t bother to tell me, you son of a bitch.”
Robert’s green face responds with a single, slow blink, his long digitized lashes still framing those too perceptive eyes exactly as he remembers them. “And if I had, Mister Howard? Would you have believed me? Or would you have had to still see it for yourself?”
God, he was a fucking idiot.
“We’re done here,” Cooper grits out, uncaring of the tears slipping down his cheeks.
He drops the Pip-Boy at his side, snatching back up his saddle bag and getting to his feet.
“Where are you going, Mister Howard? The other player is still out there! The Enclave! We still have business—”
“Not with me you don’t.”
House’s voice yells after him for a time until he’s far enough out of earshot to be left with the horrors of his own head.
He’s done being everyone else’s pawn—being a stupid little soldier to move around a board for their own means. Deals and trades and bargains, each and every one of them was just a facade for their larger plans to make him feel like he was doing anything but running in place. Every goddamn one of them was a big fucking liar and him their stooge, just playing into their games.
Not everyone…
His feet stutter to a halt, eyes unfocused behind tears when Lucy and the look of utter betrayal etched into each gentle feature of her face imprints itself in his vision like a sunspot that refuses to fade away.
Not everyone. But the only one who gave a shit about you after two-hundred some years, you bargained off for this bullshit lie you knew was too good to be true in the first place.
He didn’t want to betray her but what else was he supposed to do?
She would’ve helped.
He had no choice.
She wanted to help you.
His back was against the wall.
She’d probably even help you still. Even after what you’ve done, because that’s the kind of person she is.
Desperate thoughts he has no right having.
After what he’s done… he should’ve died on that post.
Couldn’t find his family.
Couldn’t trust his partner.
Couldn’t even take his licks properly and die right.
Sorry, darling… I’ll owe you one…
“STOP! LET GO OF ME!”
Cooper’s head whirls in the direction of the scream.
“Lucy?” Her name slips past his lips even though there’s not another person anywhere in sight.
“GET. OFF!”
A loud clattering and the sound of struggles echo down the hall, joined by a placating voice he hadn’t heard since the observatory.
“It takes only a minute, Sugarbomb! You’ll feel better right away. You won’t even remember any of the pain.”
Hank.
At once, he’s booking it down the hall past several sets of labs and apartments, the sounds of Lucy’s frantic cries pitching higher and higher the closer he gets.
His heart is in his throat. The rushing of blood is in his ears. He’s not sure what fresh horror he’s going to see when he rounds that final corner and busts through that very last door but, at his core, Cooper knows it doesn’t matter because the partner he so carelessly traded away for false hope is here and real and not a lie and she needs his fucking help.
The moment he steps through the doorway leading to an interior balcony, he clocks three people clustered at the railing where it overlooks the vault’s main interior structure: Lucy, clad in some bright yellow dress, sobbing and screaming her throat raw, some massive beast of a man behind her, holding her down, and Hank MacLean, bent over his daughter’s neck where Cooper sees rivulets of blood trailing down pale exposed flesh.
Cooper has seconds to react.
His hand goes to his knife and it’s freed from the sheath and flying through the air in the blink of an eye. A dead on hit through the big man’s dome, the weapon embeds itself all the way through his skull and earns a gasp from both remaining figures when he collapses dead to the floor. His pistol comes next, the body barely beginning to cool before his fingers wrap around the grip and he has it aimed at Hank’s head. This shot is clearer than the other, less likely to put a hole in Lucy as much as his main target.
Except his few seconds simply aren’t enough.
Hank is quick on his feet and as soon as the body falls, he doesn’t linger. Where Lucy hesitates in shock, he swipes a desperate hand for his daughter, hauling her in front of him. Cooper can see her tear streaked face and wide panicked eyes clear as crystal when Hank’s hand clamps over the front of her throat and he hides behind his daughter like a human shield.
It’s enough to still his hand.
“Fucking piece of shit,” Cooper snarls.
Unfortunately, for Hank MacLean, he seems to know his daughter not at all because despite the small tool he has digging into her neck, his little killer’s instincts kick back in.
Lucy claws into the hand holding her firm, ripping through her father’s skin to tear it back in curls of flesh. He tries to get back hold of her but her booted heel comes down hard on his instep, sending him reeling, flailing and loosening his hold more. She wastes no time in twisting around like some sunshine clad ballerina of pain, aiming the heel of her palm at his nose, connecting with a loud CRACK and it’s Hank who’s screaming now.
The chaos that breaks loose next happens so fast, he can barely track it.
Lucy is trying to reach for him but Hank pulls her back, knowing the second Cooper has a clear shot, it’s all over.
Cooper tries to close the distance but the moment he does, a new novelty enters the ring when Hank frantically produces a small black box with a big red button from his pocket as though he might blow them all into smithereens. He doesn’t actually know what it’s for but he doesn’t need to with the way Lucy lunges for it with a shriek.
And then Hank’s falling.
Cooper isn’t sure if the man leaned back too far over the banister trying to keep it from her or if it was Lucy that ultimately knocked him over the edge, but one second Hank was there and the next, he was not.
“NO!” Lucy’s reaching over the edge after his trailing scream.
If there’s anything decent he can do for her now, he hopes it’s to keep her from seeing her daddy’s insides take the path of least resistance out when his body hits the concrete. He finally closes the space between them, hand clamping around her wrist to pull her from the banister and spin her back around. A resounding thud that must be Hank’s end reaches his ears but it’s Lucy’s sharp gasp and how deathly still she goes immediately after that concerns him.
For all the things he practiced saying to her if he ever saw her again, Cooper has no clue what he’s supposed to say to her now.
So when she doesn’t move and she doesn’t speak, he lets the silence hang for one moment. And then two.
“Vaultie?”
She remains still beneath his hand, her gaze lowered and off to one side of where he stands.
“Vaultie, you alright?” Then, “Lucy?” he says her name as softly as the last time he’d spoken it to her when he was breaking apart everything they had.
Her lashes flutter.
Her gaze sweeps up from his bloodied vest to his ragged collar, finally landing on his solemn, regretful face. Those dark eyes are glassy and unfocused, tracing over the lines and the scars and the wretchedness of the man who sold her off—not once, but twice—and when they lock with his, she smiles a smile far too pleasant and gentle for the way they left each other last.
“Sorry, sir,” she says politely. “Do we know each other?”
He thinks he’s misheard her at first.
Perhaps it’s some kind of very unfunny game because his Vaultie, if there’s anything he learned on their travels together, is very weird.
But when he opens his mouth to voice his question, he can’t choke out the words.
The answer is right there in her blank, shining gaze.
The world beneath him drops completely out.
‘You won’t even remember any of the pain.’
Cooper’s attention darts down to the thin line of blood that’s wrapped itself around the front of her shoulder from her earlier struggles and a horrible understanding starts to settle into place.
The black boxes from Vault 24.
The tool Hank had been using to threaten his daughter with.
The cut on the back of her neck…
That fucking son of a bitch.
Movement from the corner of his eyes snaps him free from his mind, readying himself for another new threat to stack itself on top of this one but it’s just Lucy, reaching for his cheek, her head tilted to one side, concerned frown on her face.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I…” Her words trail off. Brow furrows.
Lucy looks around them, scanning the sights, taking in the details of the walled structure around them but as she does, she gasps again.
She stumbles, anchored only by the hold he still has on her wrist, reaching for her head with the opposite hand.
“I’m sorry,” she says again.
Blood leaks from her nostrils.
“M’sorry…”
Her knees give out and for once in his foolish, long life, he’s actually where he needs to be to save someone.
~ ~ ~
When Lucy wakes she’s in a vault apartment.
She recognizes it, although she’s not sure how.
She tries to place it but her mind is fuzzy and it hurts when she thinks too hard, so she decides to just not. Instead, she groans and shuts her eyes, allowing thoughts to bubble to the surface as they see fit.
And bubble they do.
A memory.
Her vault.
Her wedding.
A… a groom, but she can’t place his face.
Lucy shifts, cracking open her eyes again to look for a ring on her finger only to find it missing.
Her stomach twists.
Bile rises in the back of her throat.
She feels ill—it must be because she lost it.
How did she lose it?
Where could she have—
“Lucy?”
Lucy. Yes. I’m Lucy. Who’s there?
She sluggishly seeks out the voice, finding its owner standing in the doorway to her bedroom, looking stricken.
A man. A burned man. A burned man without a nose.
Lucy’s head throbs.
She doesn’t remember anyone like that from her vault… but she did just have a wedding. A trade from another vault.
Another memory surfaces—one of him.
They were talking, but she can’t remember what about. She only remembers their closeness, their physical proximity. He was in her space, standing toe to toe, eyes boring into hers, upset about something.
His eyes—she remembers his eyes.
Yes… she knows him.
His presence in her doorway makes her feel… safe.
Lucy blinks and he’s at her bedside, her heartbeat ratcheting up when he nears. She knows she’s safe but the way her chest constricts when he reaches her side, the sob is already out before she has a chance to think about stopping it.
The man freezes, backs away half a step with his gloved hands up in surrender.
“Don’t be scared, sweetheart. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
Lucy shakes her head, brows scrunched together at the strange set of words he’s strung together.
Why would she be scared of him?
“Just wanna talk to you about what’s happened.”
Of course. This is why it took so long for her to be married off in the vault. She’s no good with keeping up with these kinds of things even though it’s what she was born to do.
What an awful way to start everything off.
She needs to apologize.
“I lost it,” she says past a sob.
He seems surprised but doesn’t move any further away when she admits it.
“I’m so sorry, I don’t know how it happened. I-I’m sure I had it—that I just had it, but… I—I don’t remember—ah!”
A sharp pain stabs at her temples, doubling her over until it dulls into a rhythmic throb.
“Easy now,” the man’s gentle whisper reaches her ears as he’s righting her, guiding her back to the stack of pillows propping her up at her back. “You’re alright. Shh… you’re alright.”
She can’t see past the pain but the soft touch of a thumb, skin to skin, sweeping tears away from her cheek gives her the strength to seek out his eyes.
She loves his eyes.
Lucy catches his hand as it’s trying to pull away. The anxiety, the stress, all the tension eases from her shoulders when she has her fingers curled around his palm and his palm pressed to her cheek.
“I lost my wedding ring, already,” she croaks out more plainly. “I’m sorry I’m so bad at this.”
Her heart skips a beat when he goes stiff beneath her touch.
The thought he could be so upset with her—
“Wedding ring,” he repeats, some incredulity in his voice although it remains just as soft as the thumb that’s returned to stroking her cheek. He takes on a teasing tone, saying, “Really living up the Vegas lifestyle while you could, huh, darling?”
She scrunches her face in confusion, not understanding the humor. The vault doesn’t have the resources to craft new rings so there’s a finite number of them that need to be shared and recycled throughout the course of their lives. He should know that.
“I fail to see what’s so fun—OW!” Lucy hisses through her teeth, hand flying to the back of her neck where it feels like her skin is hot and shredding, but she barely makes it halfway there when his strong grip is at her wrist to stop her.
“Nah-ah, you leave that be.” All gentleness is gone with this sudden command. “You hit your head something nasty and passed out. Best to leave that alone and not irritate the injury or risk making it worse.”
Lucy doesn’t question it.
She trusts him.
Deep in her gut, she knows she can.
He settles her into her pillows again, brushing loose hairs away from her face and looking so, so worried.
She must have hit her head really hard.
That must be why everything is so fuzzy.
Certainly, it’s why she’s having trouble connecting things.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
Lucy tries to recall.
She tries to think back an hour, or half an hour, or really to whatever it was she was doing before she found herself waking on the bed but the harder she thinks the more fluid the memories become, slithering and slipping away.
She starts to shake her head but it hurts to do that so she stops, yet the room starts spinning and doesn’t get the memo to stop
Lucy shuts her eyes again but it only makes the darkness behind her lids pulse and writhe.
“-cy!”
His hands are on her cheeks and his warmth is so nice. So familiar.
“Lucy!”
She cracks her lids only to meet his stare, beautiful and close and so familiar but she can’t connect them to a name and now she’s crying again.
And she must be babbling, because his hands are on her, and he’s holding her, and he’s soothing her tears as she’s crying and—GOD, she can’t remember!
She can’t think of it!
She’s so sorry, she should know, she should know, she’s so sorry she can’t remember his name and she’s such a bad wife and—
“Cooper,” he says as firm as his grip on her shoulders. “It’s Cooper.”
Cooper.
A set of images filter through her mind.
An outline of an outlaw—no, of a sheriff—crafted by the sun.
The tip of a hat and the flash of a pride filled smile.
“Cooper,” she says, the name feeling right on her tongue. “Of course it is…”
A funny expression crosses his face as he searches hers for something else she’s not sure of but it doesn’t last for long.
“Can you stand?” he asks so suddenly she frowns. “We need to get out of here.”
She’s not sure why they need to leave, but she trusts him. She starts to nod but when the pain starts to flare, she thinks better of it and simply says, “I think so.”
It’s all he needs to carefully pull back the covers and she realizes she’s still in her dress and boots and what a mess she’s made on these sheets! But she doesn’t have a chance to linger because he’s there again, helping her sit up and next, getting her to her feet.
Her knees wobble once beneath the weight of her but with Cooper’s hands on her shoulder and her back, she finds her footing and her balance and feels steady and ready to go. Lucy spares a smile up at him and the way his mouth twitches in kind makes her heart skip.
“C’mon. I packed some supplies in your old pack. I’ll carry it until you’re feeling well enough to, but we gotta get out of this vault.”
Confusion hits her again.
“What? Leave the vault? Why would we leave our vault?”
“Ain’t ours,” he says, already ushering her along through their apartment and out a strange set of glass doors she doesn’t recognize. “It’s another one where your daddy was when we found him.”
“My dad…” She tries to think of him only for a flash of searing hot fire to ignite in her brain.
“Right,” Cooper says, steadying her from where she must have stumbled, securing a backpack on his shoulders and a flat, weathered leather satchel over the shoulder opposite to the one she's bracing against. “No more chatting about any of that stuff until we get to the settlement.”
Cooper gets them moving and they make their way towards the main vault elevator.
When it comes into view, looming before them both, the acid in her stomach starts to roil.
“Lucy,” he says, pulling her attention from it, to him. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t realize she’d outright stopped.
“I… I don’t know.”
It feels like there’s something deep in the back of her brain warning her not to go. Some kind of animal instinct warding her from this path, telling her it’s dangerous, wherever that leads.
Cooper looks intensely unhappy with her answer, a deep grimace cutting a severe line across his face.
“Can you come with me?” He holds his hand out to her, gloved again, though she’s not sure when that happened.
She wishes he would take them off.
She misses the heat of his skin.
“Lucy?”
Startled from her errant thoughts, she takes his hand but can’t shift her stare away from the elevator as they near it. She’s able to move forward with his lead but her body starts to tremble, she starts to sweat and shake.
“D-do we really have to go? Vaults are very safe, even if it isn’t ours.”
“This one ain’t. C’mon, sweetie, only a little more.”
“Cooper…”
“Lucy, it’s alright, just a few more steps.”
“Cooper, please.”
“Almost there—”
“Cooper, please, I can’t!” A pained sob tears past her lips, sweat drenching the bodice of her dress, front and back.
She’s shaking.
She’s hot.
She feels like the whole world is spinning around her and there’s nothing for her to hold on to to make it stop.
And then he’s there again, hands on her shoulders, her face, cupping her cheeks so she’s back to looking only at him.
He shushes her softly, “It’s alright, sweetheart. Just hang on to me.”
Before she has a chance to question it, he scoops her up in his arms and she knows it’s not the first time he’s held her like this.
Scorching desert heat.
Thirst.
Dizziness.
Deep seated aches in her arms and shoulders.
She curls her arms tightly around Cooper’s neck and buries her face against him to try to shut out the rest of the world.
“Cooper… I-I’m scared.”
“I’ve got you, darling. Ain't no one laying another hand on you under my watch.”
Her heart is pounding in her ears and her dress is soaked and sticking to her skin, but the comfort of Cooper's arms and the conviction of his words soothe the nebulous anxiety that had been twisting in her gut since she woke in this vault that wasn't theirs.
When he steps into the elevator, Lucy buries her nose between the collar of his shirt and his scar-ravaged skin, inhaling the smell of leather, dust, and something more astringent she can’t place to secure her safety and make the frightening world around her drop away.
There is no safer place for her to be than in his arms.
Cooper is her husband, after all.