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lagingersnapz · 23 days

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Some Rain Must Fall - (Fallout Fic) Chapter 5: When The Dust Settles

Chapter: 5/?

In the past, Lucy finds out what the Ghoul's plan is for getting the head back.

In the present, the Brotherhood has paid a visit to the settlement, and Lucy gets a harsh reminder of what life on the surface is like.

Characters: Lucy MacLean/Cooper Howard(The Ghoul), Dogmeat(CX-404), Original Characters

Word Count: 4781

Warnings: Violence, Swearing

Author's Note: I realized I never even put an author's note on the last chapter. I was in a hurry to post it. Word count took a little bit of a jump this chapter. I can't remember what my longest is, but I don't think this is the one. We are getting close to when I really started to feel like I was telling my own story, rather than trying desperately to fake knowing how to think of how to write a story. I had been in a writing slump for years before trying this fic, and it took me awhile to find my writing voice again.

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Ao3

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The Ghoul reached down and clamped a gloved hand around Lucy’s arm, hauling her to her feet. Lucy tried to grab her tranq gun from where she had dropped it on the ground. It was empty, and wouldn’t help her, but she would have still felt better if she had managed to have it in her hands. Unfortunately she wasn’t quick enough, and the Ghoul kicked it off into the bushes. His free hand came up and clamped itself onto the back of her neck, and he started hauling her off along the shore while she sputtered in protest, trying to comprehend what was happening.

“Wait!” she cried out, as the Ghoul pushed her roughly against the trunk of a thick tree.

“Hands,” he said. His voice was calm, too calm, and Lucy felt herself breathing hard, nerves twisting her gut.

“No, you don’t have to do this.”

The Ghoul’s hand left the back of her neck, bracing his body against hers to keep her in place, and now he was grabbing for her hands. Lucy tried to hide them between the tree and her body, but his arms were longer, and he simply ran his hands along her arms until he found her hands, dragging them out. He looped a length or rope around her wrists, pulling tightly. Lucy looked down at her bound wrists, but didn’t get a lot of time to contemplate them, as the Ghoul was now dragging her along by the rope that tied her wrists together.

The dog followed along, barking the entire time, clearly not approving of what was going on, but unsure of what to do about it. The three of them emerged from the brush onto a concrete walkway that had partially collapsed into the water. At the edge of the walkway was a winch. The Ghoul continued to march on for awhile until he reached it, then he spun around and wrapped the rope around her waist until her hands could barely move from waist height.

“Please!” Lucy continued to try and beg, not sure how she could talk him out of whatever it was he had decided to do with her. The Ghoul apparently didn’t care, and continued trussing her up, including tying her to the winch and adding an anchor to the ensemble for good measure. Lucy’s heart sank as he positioned her on the edge of the collapsed walkway. He was going to drown her! He was going to push her in, tied to an anchor, and let her drown. She couldn’t figure out why, other than some sick form of entertainment. She didn’t know where the head was and had told him as much.

“Stop, please!” Lucy tried again as the Ghoul bent to tie her ankles together as well. “My dad, he’s an Overseer! H-he got taken by raiders, and I need that head to get him back. If you help me find him, he’ll do whatever you want.” She didn’t know if what she was saying was true. The last person to hurt her had been Monty, and he had been drowned in a pickle barrel by her father over it.

Planting a hand firmly in the middle of her shoulder blades, the Ghoul gave a hard shove, and the anchor did the rest, dragging Lucy down into the irradiated water while she shrieked. As soon as she hit the water she was trying to pull the anchor off of herself. Her arms could reach up almost enough to grab the rope, but not quite. Her mouth gaped open, seemingly of its own volition, and bubbles escaped back up to the surface. Water filled her mouth and nose. Lucy tried opening her eyes, but it was so murky she could barely see the outlines of things.

The few seconds she spent in the water felt like an eternity, but then the rope at her back tightened, and she was hauled back out of the water, gagging and coughing, water, snot, and spit mixing down her face as her eyes and sinuses burned.

“Stop. Stop!” she managed to wheeze out. “Torture is wrong!” Water ran in streams down her face from her hair, and as she tried to suck in more desperate lungfuls of air, she managed to breathe in more water, sending herself into another coughing fit.

“You know, they used to do these thangs called ‘studies.’” Lucy barely heard the Ghoul’s thick southern drawl over the sound of her own gasping and coughing. She tried to turn her head to see him, but he remained just out of view.

“Why, you couldn’t open a newspaper without readin’ about one study or another.”

The rad meter on Lucy’s Pip-Boy started going crazy, and she managed a glance down, seeing the meter was maxed out.

“Anyway,” the Ghoul continued from behind her, “this one particular study came out, said that torturing a person? Don’t do shit.”

The click of the winch was the only warning Lucy got before she was sent, shrieking, back into the water. Her hands came up again, trying frantically to pull the rope off of herself, but as before it remained sturdy, and all she could do was hope he would bring her back up again. If he was trying to kill her, why didn’t he just leave her down? But apparently he didn’t consider this torture, either. This second time felt longer than the first, whether it was or not, and when the winch started to haul Lucy back up, she felt herself not only gagging, but throwing up the water she had swallowed. Her boots slipped on the wet concrete, and she couldn’t seem to find her footing.

“Made sense,” the Ghoul went on, as if he hadn’t interrupted their conversation to drown her a little bit. “I mean, a man hurts me, I wouldn’t wanna do him any favors. And yet the practice of torture failed to vanish from this earth.”

Lucy hadn’t heard him move over the sounds of her own choking, but suddenly the rope behind her tightened, pulling her more upright.

“In fact, as time marched on, I’ve personally noticed a decided uptick in the amount of torture being doled out across the board.” As he spoke, she felt him pulling something off of the back of her vault suit, and was oddly glad she couldn’t see what it was. She heard and saw the dog jump up to catch whatever it was in its mouth, though, so it must have been something made of something edible.

“Sir, please, I need the head.” Lucy figured by now that pleading wasn’t going to get her anywhere, but with the rest of her body tied down, her mouth was the only tool she had available, and she couldn’t just sit and quietly let him kill her. “It’s the only way I can get my father back.”

“My point is,” the Ghoul said, completely ignoring her, “if you ask me, them studies, they was right. Torturing a person don’t do shit.” He walked back as he spoke. Lucy managed to twist and get a glimpse of him. She expected a grinning villain, taking pleasure in her pain. Instead, he didn’t look like he was thinking about anything in particular. His face was neutral.

“Then why… why are you doing this?” Lucy still hadn’t gotten her breath back, and the words came out more as gasps.

“Well, I ain’t torturing you, Sweetheart. I’m using you as bait.”

The winch clicked again, and Lucy screamed as she went face first back into the water, a new and horrifying revelation made clear to her. The thing that had grabbed her before, that he had called a gulper, that had taken the head from her… He was trying to lure it back out. And he was using her to do it.

***

“Why are they here?” Lucy whispered, crawling out of the bed and reaching for her holster and gun. She was still dressed in a nightgown, but it didn’t seem like there was time to change just now, so the nightgown would have to do. Suddenly she was having flashbacks to fighting raiders in her wedding dress, and the memory made her nauseous for a moment.

The Ghoul and Ellie waited for her to put on the holster before gesturing for her to stay low to the ground and follow Ellie.

“I don’t know, hun,” Ellie whispered. “Maybe something to do with Moldaver’s group up at the observatory. Maybe for you two. We just don’t know.” She led the two of them to a closet, which was open, and the floor inside was a hatch, which was propped up, showing a set of wooden stairs leading down into the darkness.

“The kids are already down there,” Ellie explained, and Lucy could hear the sounds of sniffling down below.

“Wait, maybe we can help,” Lucy said, turning back to Ellie. The Ghoul’s arm caught Lucy around the waist as he started to haul her wordlessly down the stairs.

“Best thing you can do to help right now is to hide down there.” Ellie offered her a tense smile. Lucy threw an irritated look at the Ghoul, but his face was stormy in the dim light of the hallway. Lucy ground her teeth together and turned, letting herself be ushered down the steps. Behind them, the hatch closed, and the closet door clicked shut.

“I don’t like this,” Lucy whispered to the Ghoul, but all he did was grunt in response. “We could be helping them,” she pressed.

The Ghoul shushed her and then looked around. There was a lamp in the small room, its light on its lowest setting, casting dark shadows over the children assembled there. There was only 5 of them, so Lucy figured the other houses must have had similar setups for the other residents to hide in. Kelly and her brother were huddled against one wall, and Kelly was holding him in a clear effort to comfort the much smaller child.

The faint creak of a step made Lucy turn, and she saw the Ghoul going slowly up towards the hatch, stopping at the top of the steps to listen.

“Can you hear anything?” Lucy whispered, moving up the stairs to him.

“Can’t hear shit,” the Ghoul said, then put a hand back and gestured for her to be quiet. Lucy didn’t know if his hearing was better than hers or not, but between being underground, and also inside a closet, everything she did hear was muffled beyond understanding.

Time passed by agonizingly slowly as they waited for some sign of what was going on outside. Lucy was about to suggest that they leave the hideout when a scream loud enough to cut through the doors sliced through the air, and something rumbled nearby. And then came the unmistakable sound of gunfire. Lucy tried to shove her way past the Ghoul, while below them the kids started to scream and cry.

“We have to help them!” Lucy’s voice was frantic. She couldn’t see what was happening, but she had seen what happened to the observatory. She knew exactly what the Brotherhood was capable of.

“Only thing goin’ out there is gonna do is get you killed,” the Ghoul snapped.

Lucy noted that he didn’t say it would get them both killed. Only her. Because he wouldn’t go out there, no doubt. Lucy tried to shove him out of her way. “I have to try!”

The Ghoul rolled so he was sitting on a step, almost reclined back against them while Lucy tried to crawl over him. He was grabbing at her wrists with his hands, and Lucy remembered him trying to subdue her to use as gulper bait. Her heart hammered harder in her chest.

“Damn it, Sweetheart, look at me!” the Ghoul finally managed to catch her arms, though his hold on her was awkward at best. Lucy still stopped moving. She was straining to look at his face, but the light was so dim she could barely see it reflecting in his eyes. Outside, the sounds of gunfire continued, along with screaming and yelling.

“One vault dweller isn’t gonna turn the tide of whatever is happening up there.”

Lucy moved to try and get away from him, but he let go of one of her arms and grabbed her roughly by the chin instead, making her look him in the eyes again.

“If you or I coulda made a difference, she wouldn’t’ve put us down here. That woman wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t’ve survived this long if she was.” His voice was a harsh whisper, and his hand was rough against the skin of her face. She hadn’t noticed that he hadn’t put his gloves back on. It was just like the time she’d bitten off his finger. But this time, they were supposed to be allies. They were supposed to trust each other, at least a little bit, right?

“We need to help get those kids quiet, or when the commotion dies down out there, they stand a good chance o’ hearing them, and then we all die.”

Lucy bit the inside of her cheek, wanting to argue, wanting to fight him, to go outside and at least try and help. But what if he was right? He hadn’t lied to her so far that she knew of. He had always been honest to a fault, even when they had been on the worst of terms. Cruel, but honest. Tears sprang up in Lucy’s eyes, and she sniffled, but stopped squirming to get past him. The Ghoul let go of her chin first, then her arm, and Lucy eased her body back off of his. She hadn’t realized how close they had gotten, but it made sense. It was a narrow stairwell, after all.

Down in the hideout, the children continued to whimper and cry. Lucy made her way over to them, shushing them gently and drawing them in towards her. They didn’t know her, other than Kelly and Nate, but all of them accepted her as she sat down on the floor with them. The Ghoul took a much more practical approach. He found the few blankets that were down in the room, and he covered the huddled group in them to help muffle the noise.

It quickly grew stifling under the blankets, but Lucy did her best to stay put and to be comforting. She knew tears were running down her face, but they hadn’t taken the lamp under the blankets with them, so at least the children wouldn’t be able to see her. The surface never failed to prove its brutality. They had found a settlement of good people, and now those people were seemingly being wiped out.

It took awhile for the sounds above ground to die down, and it took even longer for the Ghoul to decide that it was time for him to go out and see what was what. Demanding Lucy stay down with the kids, he took Dogmeat out with him. Lucy, of course, had no intention of listening to him. As soon as she heard the hatch close behind him, she moved to follow. Waiting a moment for the Ghoul to walk away, Lucy pushed on the hatch as quietly as she could, and found the Ghoul standing, waiting for her, staring down at her, simultaneously frustrated yet unsurprised.

Lucy didn’t have time to be amused by his reaction, or to be embarrassed for being caught so quickly. All other feelings she might have had gave way under a crushing wave of shock. The house around them was partially collapsed, wood singed from some sort of energy based weapons.

The Ghoul moved slowly, keeping low, and Dogmeat and Lucy followed. She was too shocked to ask him anything anyways. They traversed the wreckage of the house and finally emerged into what had once been the fields of crops, but were now scorched out fields of destruction. Corpses littered the ground, and the other two houses that had once sat by the one they sheltered in here similarly destroyed.

Feeling her stomach heave, Lucy covered her mouth as she looked around. “Why…?” She wasn’t even sure what to ask. All the questions swirled around in her brain like a tornado. There seemed to be no reason for what was in front of her. Even if the people had been guilty of some crime, the thorough destruction of the houses and the crops made no sense. Not when resources were already so scarce up here.

“‘Cause they could,” the Ghoul said in an enviably even tone. Lucy stared at him.

“Doesn’t this affect you at all?” she demanded, trying to keep her voice low in case any of the Brotherhood were still lurking about.

“Well, it definitely means we can’t stay here, which is a bit inconvenient.” The Ghoul used the toe of his boot to roll over a body, and Rob’s face stared up at them, eyes glassy, a hole burned through his chest. Lucy gasped as the sight, horrified even more by how calm the Ghoul was being about all of it. She wanted to go over and check for a pulse, but the man was clearly dead.

Close to Rob was Ellie, laying on her side, eyes closed. For a second, Lucy felt a spark of hope, but it guttered and died when she knelt down and put her fingers to the woman’s neck. Which had died first, she wondered? Had one of them seen the other murdered? Or had they been killed at the same time? Did they believe their children would be safe in their hideaway, or did they assume, at the end, that they would be killed as well?

“There has to be someone alive,” Lucy choked out. The Ghoul grunted and continued his slow walk around, taking in the carnage. There were marks in the dirt where other bodies had fallen, but been dragged away since. Lucy was horrified to feel a sense of justice in that. At least the Brotherhood had had losses too. As soon as the thought swept through her mind she felt sick again. Wilzig had told her that to stay on the surface she would have to adapt and become a ‘different animal altogether.’ Was that what this was?

Lucy made her way around, checking bodies, and found that none of them showed signs of life. When it became apparent that the Brotherhood was gone, at least for now, she thought of the children in the hideaway, and her theory that the other houses must have had similar spaces.

“We can’t let the kids see them this way,” she said quietly to the Ghoul, who was picking out supplies from the destruction like he was just off on a visit to a supermarket.

“Well, we ain’t got time to bury them all, either.” He picked up a gun and looked it over before dropping it back onto the ground when it apparently didn’t meet his standards. Lucy didn’t bother answering him. Instead, she went back to the hideaway, opening the hatch and calling down to the kids.

“Hey, it’s, um… It’s not very good up here. Can you stay down there for a bit?”

After a few seconds, Kelly appeared at the bottom of the stairs, blinking up at her. “We’re getting real hungry. And Nate’s messed his pants. Joel might’ve too.”

“Right,” Lucy said under her breath. “Okay, you can come up… But stay in the… house.” She didn’t know what else to call it. It was a ruin now, but at least there didn’t seem to be anyone dead inside. The kids shuffled up the steps slowly, most of them on all fours. Kelly came up last, the oldest of the bunch that had been down there. When they emerged, Nate immediately started wailing at the sight of their ruined home.

“Kelly, can you quiet him down? We don’t know how safe it is for sure yet.” Lucy felt terrible asking the young girl to comfort the wailing child, but she needed to see to the other houses. Kelly was looking around, eyes wide, but she nodded, and gathered her brother into her arms, trying to get him to cry into her shirt to muffle the sound.

Lucy slowly backed away from the group of children and went to the next closest house. She was surprised to find the Ghoul already over there, clearing away debris and knocking on the floor, checking for a hatch. Eventually they found it, and when it opened, a few more survivors came crawling out into the light. A woman in her twenties, like Lucy, but with a baby clutched to her chest, and a teenage boy with a girl around Kelly’s age. The woman looked around, and Lucy expected her to cry at the sight, but instead her face closed down, going blank. She almost looked resigned, like this had been inevitable.

The third house’s shelter had partially collapsed, killing an elderly man who had been down there, but another young mother and her child were still alive, along with the freshly widowed older woman. Their reactions all varied. Some were angry, some despairing, and others blank faced. A second search of the grounds recovered another survivor, trapped under the rubble at the back of the house.

Searching for the survivors had taken the better part of the day, and Lucy helped put together a makeshift shelter in the hideout of the house they had been in. They gathered what food they could, and blankets. The water purifier was damaged but still mostly functional, so at the very least they would have enough water. The shelter served as a makeshift food storage, so there were canned goods available. But that wouldn’t be enough. There were too many mouths to feed and not enough hands left to feed them. Lucy knew she wasn’t going to be able to leave them like this.

***

Cooper took a deep hit from his inhaler, looking up at the night sky. It was surprisingly clear, and the stars shone brightly. It was a beautiful sight, and reinforced in his mind the idea that what happened here really didn’t matter in the grand scope of things. The universe would just keep going on. He heard Lucy coming up next to him, but didn’t turn to look at her.

“You gonna be ready to leave in the morning?” he asked.

Dogmeat was curled up at his side, and he was resting a hand on her head. He wore his gloves again, but he still gave the dog a little scratch. He could feel Lucy stare daggers into the side of his head. Finally he looked at her.

“What do you mean? We have to help these people.” She gestured back at the house.

Cooper scoffed. “These people ain’t our responsibility. Kid under the rubble heard it all go down. Says the Brotherhood came down on this settlement because there was records tying them to Moldaver’s people. Didn’t have anythin’ to do with us.” He had known this fight was coming, but he was still surprised at how frustrated he already was by it. Why wasn’t she learning? This young woman had been through a hell of a lot since she had popped out of her little vault, so why was she still so damn set on helping people?

“So? Just because it wasn’t our fault doesn’t mean we have no responsibility, no obligation to them. You can’t just turn your back on people in need.”

Cooper ground his teeth together. “I certainly can. And if you plan on traveling with me, you’re gonna have to as well, because I am leaving in the morning.”

Turning back to look at the sky, Cooper hoped that was the end of the conversation. A hope that ended up being a vain one.

“I’m not leaving.” Lucy’s voice was firm, and Cooper had to admit he was impressed by her conviction. It had taken him awhile to get used to the cruelty of the world too, after it had all ended. But he had learned, and he had no doubt that so too would she.

“Guess I’ll be sayin’ goodbye to you in the morning, then, too,” Cooper said with a sniff.

Lucy stood in silence for awhile longer, then spun on her heel and left. Cooper was happy for the peace and quiet, though the twinge in his chest was a little annoying. It almost felt like guilt, which would be ridiculous, because he had given up on guilt a long time ago. The things he had done to survive up here, the things he had done so he could see his family again... If he found Janey and she ever found out about any of them… Well, she might see her daddy as a monster. So, Cooper would just have to do his best to not let her find out. Guilt was a fool’s emotion up here in the real world, and Cooper wasn’t a fool anymore. Under his hand, Dogmeat heaved a sigh.

Morning came quickly, and Cooper finished getting his stuff together. As the sun crested the horizon, Lucy emerged from the shelter. She was dressed in her vault suit again, god knew where she had found it, though the arms were tied around her waist, leaving her arms bare and her torso wrapped in a simple tanktop. This one wasn’t white like her old one, however.

“Changed your mind?” Cooper asked, already knowing her answer.

Lucy shook her head. “No. I’m helping them. With or without you. It’s the right thing to do.”

Cooper felt a pang in his chest. Was he… was he disappointed that she had chosen these people over him? His lips twisted into a scowl. “Good luck, Sweetheart.” Turning on his heel, Cooper started to march away, his saddlebags slung over his shoulder, Dogmeat trotting at his side, though she stopped periodically to cast confused looks over her shoulder at Lucy.

Cooper managed to resist looking back until he made it to the edge of the settlement, and when he did, he really wished he hadn’t looked back at all. Lucy was standing in the same spot, watching him go, but she wasn’t alone anymore. Even from that distance, Cooper recognized Kelly’s silhouette. She had reached up and taken Lucy’s hand in one of hers. The other one rubbed at her eyes.

All at once, Cooper felt the breath stop in his lungs, and it wasn’t Kelly standing there with Lucy MacLean anymore, but Janey. He could see the outline of her small frame, and her beautiful dark hair. She was watching him leave her. His thoughts flew back, over 200 years, to when he had handed Janey over to Barb at the entrance to a vault, only for the guards to start pushing him back out while Barb watched. Janey looked between her parents, clearly confused. He saw her lips form around the word ‘mommy,’ and could almost hear the question in his ringing ears. And then the elevator doors had closed. It had been his last view of his daughter… Until now, at least, when the specter of her memory settled like a shroud around Kelly’s small shoulders.

Cooper realized he was breathing harder. His eyes felt hot, and he blinked the feeling away.

“Motherfucker,” he hissed quietly to himself. Lucy turned away from him, her hand still clasped in Kelly’s, and the two of them started back towards the shelter. Was he really considering this? Going back? They had already lost two days to this nonsense. There was nothing he could do for these people, and as far as he knew there was nothing Lucy could do for them either. So why was she so adamant that she needed to stay? And WHY was he considering staying now too?

Dogmeat whined and licked at his gloved hand as he stood in silence. Cooper growled, rubbing his other hand over his face and pinching what would have been the bridge of his nose if he'd still had one. He desperately wished for a cigarette just then.

“If that little vault dweller wants me to help, she better have a fuckin’ plan,” he snapped. Dogmeat’s tail started wagging, and she barked, taking off at a run back in the direction of the shelter where Lucy and Kelly had disappeared. After a few more seconds of hesitation, Cooper followed, retracing his steps back to the ruined house, back to the shelter and the settlers, back to Ms. Lucy ‘Hazard’ MacLean.

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