Closure for Lucy West

"It's good to see you, madame! And your new four-footed friend," Wadsworth's voice rang out; Ellen waved him off as she trudged up the stairs. Not that she didn't appreciate the Mr. Handy's attentiveness, but just now all she wanted to do was collapse. How long had this trip been? Big Town, the mutants in the police station, the vampires, that incident in the Scrapyard, those lunatics in Canterbury Commons... agh, it was all just too much. If she could just get a little rest, she-

-oh, wait, she still had one thing left to do, didn't she? The trip wasn't done until she finished what she'd set out to do in the first place.

With a grimace, she unshouldered her backpack. "Wadsworth?" she called.

"Yes, madame?"

"Where can I find Lucy West at this time of day?"

***

Moriarty's. Figured. Well, at least the man himself didn't seem to be around; if she just didn't look towards that one dim corner, she should be all right. "Hey, Gob," she said, lifting a hand to the bartender.

"Hey there, smoothskin," Gob answered, and glanced past her. "I see you got yourself a dog out there."

"Um, yeah." Ellen glanced down at Dogmeat, who seemed more interested in sniffing the wall than being the subject of attention. "Is that a problem?"

"Long as he doesn't lift his leg or squat, I don't care," Gob said. "I have enough to clean up as it is. What can I get you?"

"Nuka-Cola's fine," says Ellen, and passed a handful of caps to him. Not that she couldn't afford beer or whiskey- Uncle Roe had been as good as his word- but after Milliways beer, she was pretty sure the local stuff would take like ash in water. "Thanks."

She turned to look around the room, noting a few faces she didn't recognize- a sallow fellow a few years older than herself, an elderly woman in a Brahmin-skin dress- before catching sight of Lucy West. The fair-haired young woman looked up and smiled as Ellen approached her table. "Oh, hey, you made it!" she said. "At least, I hope you did..."

"I made it to Arefu," Ellen confirmed.

"That's great! Did you deliver my message? Are my parents all right?"

Ellen took a deep breath. "Lucy..."

There'd been vids about the annexation of Canada in the Vault, she remembered that. When a soldier died, the War Department sent someone with a telegram to the family's door, and he took off his hat and handed over the piece of paper. Ellen had wondered, once or twice, what those men must have thought with a job like that.

"... your parents..."

Lucy's expression went from bright to sober, and then to very, very still. "Oh no," she half-whispered. "What happened?"

Have you considered telling her that her parents just got killed by mutants or something? Ichigo had said.

"Lucy, I'm so sorry. Your parents are dead," Ellen said, wishing irrationally for a hat to take off herself. Or some other gesture of respect to make, or- or something! Especially since what was coming next simply would not be denied. "Your brother..."

Lucy closed her eyes and let out a long, shaking breath. "Oh, God," she murmured. "He lost it, didn't he."

"... you knew?" Ellen blurted out.

"Well, I always suspected," Lucy said. "When we were just kids, there was this man-"

Lucy hesitated, but Ellen shook her head. "He told me," she said. "The one he-"

"Yes," Lucy said. Then: "Wait. He told you? He's still alive?"

"Well, yes?"

Lucy shook her head. "That's incredible. The other people in Arefu didn't lynch him?"

"He's not in Arefu any more," Ellen said. "Does the term 'the Family' mean anything to you?"

"No," said Lucy, "but I think I'd like to hear about it..."

Hubris Comics

Ellen woke with the first fingers of light picking their way through the gaps and chinks in the wall of her bedroom. It took her a moment to shake sleep off; she'd been dreaming, although about what she couldn't quite remember. "Dogmeat?" she called as she sat up.

"Down here, madame," came Wadsworth's muffled voice from below. "I took the liberty of bringing him outside for his morning ablutions."

It wasn't the word she'd have used for it, but far be it from her to argue with the robot. Ellen yawned. "Thanks, Wadsworth," she said. On the way down the stairs she added, "He wasn't too much trouble, was he?"

"None at all, madame," said Wadsworth.

"Oh, good."

Breakfast was the meat of a mole rat she'd shot on the way home from Canterbury Commons. As Ellen chewed on the stuff- nasty, but at least it was fresh- she considered her options. There wasn't been a lot of work going spare in Megaton right now, according to Lucy and Gob. Neither Evan King nor Vance nor even Roe had been able to suggest where any Vaults might be. There wouldn't be another caravan in Megaton for a few days at best. She could theoretically stay in town and wait for Doc Hoff or someone to quiz on the topic, but staying in town meant avoiding Church of Atom members- not to mention that simply being idle felt entirely wrong. Down-time in the Vault had been rare and precious. Down-time up here looked to be more of the same. Either she had to find something to do in Megaton until she got an answer, or she needed something to get her out of town and headed towards somewhere useful.

Her eyes fell on the lockers shoved up against one wall of her living space. "Hey, Wadsworth?" she said, putting down her bowl of mole rat.

"Yes, madame?"

"Dogmeat and I are going to head for Arlington today," she said. "We've got some books to deliver to the library."

"Very good, madame."

***

It had seemed like such a good plan in Megaton, Ellen fumed. Take the gun maintenance manual and the Army heavy weapons book. Make a run for Arlington and find Scribe Yearling. Give her the books and for that promised reward for pre-war books, ask whether the Brotherhood could point her in the direction of Vault 112. Simple. Elegant. Very low risk of horrible Wasteland death. What could go wrong?

Well, for one thing, the freakin' Brotherhood could have pulled their entire operation out of the Library. No Scribe, no guys in power armor, nothing! And for another, Talon Company could have set up camp at the far end of the street Ellen chose to search for signs of the Scribe and her escort's passage. That had been something to write home about, not to mention that she'd used up most of her ammo not getting killed. Oh, and on her way north from the Library? She could get surprised in the Arlington ruins by a pack of feral ghouls; what they were doing on the surface instead of in the dark, dank underground she didn't know. All she knew for sure was that they were on one side of the door, and she was on the other, and she was out of stimpaks, and she didn't have any idea where Scribe Yearling was, and she didn't know where Vault 112 was, and she didn't even know where she...

Where she...

Ellen fumbled in her backpack for the flashlight Mills had given her and swung it around the darkened, windowless room. A radroach the size of a baby scuttled away into the shadows, but she ignored it. She'd lit up the cracked, peeling mural that covered an entire wall, and God help her, she recognized most of the figures in it: Captain Cosmos in his silver space-suit, Jingles the Moon Monkey on his shoulder; the Manta leaping from an ocean wave, his cape spreading out behind him like vast blue-black wings; Drake Tungsten, his cowboy hat pushed back on his head, lasso in one hand and plasma pistol in the other; and bigger than the rest, Grognak the Barbarian, swinging his two-handed axe overhead for all he was worth. There were other figures, too- men in soldiers' uniforms, a group of tousle-haired, grinning boys all in colorful pre-war outfits, a cloaked figure with its hat drawn low over its eyes and surrounded by mist- but the others, oh, she knew them all right...

Hand trembling, she pointed the flashlight a little farther to the right and it lit up the words Welcome to Hubris Comics!

Ellen sagged back against the door and closed her eyes for a moment. What Tyler wouldn't have given to see this place in its prime. Eventually, she stood up again. There were radroaches here. There were probably worse things as well. No sense making herself any easier of a target for them.

Hubris, it turned out, had become something of a haven for feral ghouls over the years. Without another light source, Ellen's Pip-Boy tended to draw them. At least they made enough noise that she heard them coming. General Jingwei's sword was getting more use than it'd seen since the War here. True, she had that weird weapon Dogmeat had brought her outside the Mechanist's lair, but after what it'd done to that poor lamp-post she wasn't about to fire it in close quarters. She had to wonder, though, how much of their former lives the radiation-maddened ghouls remembered as they attacked. Some of them still wore fragments of clothing, with tools or toys long unused shoved into the pockets. There was one who came at her among the long-crumbled printing presses who'd been carrying a teddy bear...

She paused over that one, thought for a while, and did her best to close the corpse's clouded eyes. These had been people, once, whatever they were now. She couldn't lay them all straight or give them any sort of burial, but she could at least send them along with the same courtesies and prayers as the raiders and the Talons.

(If she ever saw Castiel again, she'd have to ask him about that.)

As she bowed her head to pray for the fallen ghoul, the sound of gunfire reached her. There wasn't anything else it could be, not here. It was a few rooms away by the sound of it, but that didn't warrant taking chances; she shut down the Pip-Boy's light and pulled up her armor's headpiece. Then she stepped back and held very, very still. The stealth field could only cloak her appearance, not mask the sound of a body in motion.

For several long minutes she stood like that, listening. The gunners had big weapons, by the sound of it. Assault rifles couldn't put out that many bullets that quickly; if they could, the Talons would have cut Ellen down long ago. Mutants carried miniguns, she knew that; her hand crept towards the strange pistol...

"All clear, sir," came a muffled voice from the next room. It sounded... familiar, somehow.

There was no 'somehow' about the next one to speak, though. "Good work, Initiate," came the helmet-stifled voice of Paladin Hoss. "Let's keep moving."

Ellen deactivated the stealth field and yanked down her headpiece immediately. "Hey!" she cried, lighting up her Pip-Boy again. "Hey! Over here! Don't shoot, it's me- from Vault 101!"

There was a startled silence, and then a clatter of metal against metal. Moments later, Hoss, Pek, and another Paladin- it might have been Rand- came into view. "Well, I'll be," said Hoss. "Huh. Didn't think I'd be seeing you again. No offense, of course."

"None taken," said Ellen, smiling for the first time in what felt like forever. "What are you doing here?"

"Another training mission for our Initiate," said Hoss, nodding his head towards Pek. "Something a little more straightfoward this time. There's mutants in the area, though- I'm surprised you haven't run across them yourself."

"I was kind of in a hurry," Ellen admitted. "I might've missed them."

"Hmph." Hoss shook his head. "Well, you seem to've handled yourself pretty well this far. You are welcome to join us for the rest of the mission, if you like. There should be plenty for everyone to learn from."

"Thank you," said Ellen, "but I was looking for Scribe Yearling, actually..."

"She's gone back to the Citadel," Hoss said. "That holotape you gave her was the find of a lifetime. It's not often someone recovers an entire library's worth of books that way. If you present yourself at the Citadel, there's a hefty reward waiting for you."

"Really."

Hoss nodded. "The Brotherhood acknowledges its debts, and repays assistance in kind," he said. "We owe you a great deal, it seems."

Ellen beamed. "Thank you," she said. "That's going to make things easier... say, I know this is a long shot, but can I ask you a question?"

"Ask away."

"Do any of you happen to have any idea where I might find Vault 112?"

Hoss was silent behind his helmet; Pek frowned, and exchanged a glance with Rand. Eventually, Hoss shook his head. "Couldn't tell you," he said. "The most I can manage is something approximate. I've seen an old Citadel map from the days when the Brotherhood first arrived in this area. There was a vault marked on it, up in the north. I can point out the approximate area on a map, if that computer of yours has one."

Ellen held out her arm immediately. As Hoss indicated the general region she thought to ask, "Would they let me look at the original map when I went to the Citadel?"

"Not likely," said Hoss. "There aren't many civilians who're even allowed through the gates. All things considered, they'll probably bring your reward out to you instead of letting you in."

"I guess that's better than nothing," Ellen says. "Can you show me where the Citadel is when you're done?"

"Certainly," said Hoss. "Right over... all right, down here."

"Thank you," said Ellen. "I'd better get going, in the meantime. Good luck to you!"

"Steel be with you," Hoss said.