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"My David don't you worry
This cold world is not for you
So rest your head upon me
I have strength to carry you."
Lazarus - Porcupine Tree
It had happened so fast.
They’d been patrolling an abandoned factory for some spare parts. Esther had some ridiculous plan to improve the receiver on his rifle, even showed him the schematics. It’d just looked like scribbles to him, though. Harsh white lines on blue fancy paper she’d gotten from Sturges. She would not take no for an answer. It was a gift, she’d said. For his twenty-third birthday. It’d taken a few moments of heated back and forth before he relented and agreed to accompany her on her run. It was hard for him to accept gifts, but he was learning.
The place appeared empty when they approached the north side of the building. Patched up walls, foggy glass, and glimpses of collapsed roofing and dilapidated paint. They went in hoping for the best and expecting the worst. That’s how it was in the wasteland.
But this was not the kind of ‘worst’ he’d been expecting.
She’d just found the part she’d been looking for—a certain kind of steel plating. She’d picked it up from a pile of junk and smiled at him with that cocky grin and quirked brow that always seemed to make his chest tighten. Just as he’d moved towards her, a gunshot broke the silence.
He jumped into action and pulled Esther behind him by the collar of her duster; a habit she regularly chastised him for but one he couldn’t manage to break. She never liked when he put himself between her and danger. But it didn’t matter, he wasn’t fast enough this time. He wasn’t careful enough, attentive enough, strong enough. By the time he’d disposed of the few raiders that’d been hiding in the building, it was too late.
When he’d turned around, she was on her side, a pale hand clutching darkened fabric. A bullet had completely torn through her armor. Splotches of red began to pool beneath her and leak from her nose and mouth. Murky green eyes stared up at him silently, lined with tears and shadowed by panic.
His rifle clattered to the ground and he dropped to his knees at her side. Shaking hands fumbled with the pack tied to his waist, hopelessly trying to find the few stimpaks they’d bothered to bring along with them. One arm looped under her shoulders as he dragged her to him, extending his legs to better prop her up.
He hastily uncapped the stimpak and injected it near the wound sight, trying hard to keep his hands steady. It was no use, though. The blood kept coming. He pressed his palm and applied pressure to her wound and withdrew another syringe.
“Mac…”
Another stick with the needle. She flinched.
“You’re gonna be okay. We just need to find the right dosage, boss. I can fix this.” He tried to ignore the way his voice cracked. “I can fix this!”
He uncapped yet another syringe and was ready to inject it when he felt cold fingers press against his jaw. Mac froze. The sensation of her blood, cooling with the open air, mingling with the death-like chill in her fingertips was enough to send his stomach into his toes. Dread licked down his spine as they locked eyes. Her eyes were cloudy and red but he could still see she was in there.
“You’re crying.” She managed to say through ragged breaths.
“Boss,” her title left his mouth in a whimper, “let’s try one more dose.”
“I don’t think… it’s gonna help, Mac.”
“No, no, no…” he injected the other stimpak. “We have to try. Just… we just have to…”
“Hey-”
“Just one more… ah, fuck! This can’t…”
“Robert.”
The sound of his name on her tongue made him pause and he stared at her once more, trying to fight the lump in his throat. Trying to hide the desperation in his face. This was just supposed to be a simple supply run. They’d survived worse than this. They’d taken out a Gunner base, cleared entire buildings of super mutants, took back the Castle in one piece, and even faced the Institute. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.
Her fingers sank down his throat and lingered there, too weak to keep them up any longer. Mac tossed the empty syringe to the floor and wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her close to his chest. His hands were still trembling, almost violently, as he cupped a palm to her cheek. Blood had begun to dry and flake beneath her nose and when she smiled, her teeth were stained with rust and crimson.
But it was still her smile. That smile she threw him every time she won a game of poker. The smile she’d given him when she promised to help find a cure for Duncan. The smile that cracked her steely façade every time their gazes met. Every time he told a stupid joke. Every time he lectured some poor, naive wastelander.
A smile just for him.
His vision started to blur as hot tears filled the corners of his eyes. He hastily blinked them away, selfishly, if just for one more moment of seeing her clearly-- seeing her looking up at him as if he was the best damn thing in the world. Seeing her alive.
“You can’t leave me, too.” He traced her cheekbone and brushed a few strands of hair from her face. “Please… not you.”
Her mouth slid open as if to speak, but another ragged breath filled its place. It was a few more moments before she was able to summon the energy to utter anything.
“Mac,” she started to cry. “I can’t see you.”
A gasping noise escaped his throat as he tried to find air. "It's okay, I'm here."
Slowly, gently, he leaned down and caught her lips with his own. The kiss was chaste and warm and conveyed everything for her that his words lacked. Nothing he could say would ever be able to show her the appreciation and love his soul was burdened with. He lingered back to all those moments over the last year where he should’ve kissed her, should’ve held her, should’ve just gotten over his own fears and let her in completely.
What he’d feared most was loving and losing again. Lucy took part of him with her the night she died in that metro. He’d accepted he’d be alone for the rest of his life and then along came Esther, and he found something in her he thought wasn’t possible: a kindred spirit. Soulmate. Two sides of the same coin. And even though he hadn’t given himself to her, he was still losing her and it still hurt just as fucking much.
Over the thrum of his own heart in his ears, he could hear a soft sigh ghost its way past her lips and linger at the corner of his mouth. When he finally pulled away, there was a sort of sad smile tugging at her features. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, lost somewhere over his shoulder, but his eyes were fixated on her. Memorizing every minute detail of her. The soft curve of her slightly-crooked nose, the scar above her brow, and the freckles that scattered across her tan skin. Dark red hair that sizzled in the sunlight like an open fire. He didn't want to look anywhere else.
“Esther…” he called to her. No response. “Boss?”
There was a flicker in her gaze as if she were trying to respond, but the pull of her breathing was harsh and rattled the silence. He felt completely helpless. He pressed another kiss to her cheek and to her forehead and again to her lips. Some part of him foolishly hoped that would stir her a little, bring her back to him for just a moment.
Then he felt it happen.
Whatever life lingered within her just... disappeared.
The normal brightness to her forest-green eyes were now murky and overcast. The tenseness in her body relinquished and fell limp against him, and he watched as the hand against his throat flopped back to her chest. Those few seconds seemed to drag on for eternity and yet it somehow wasn’t long enough; that teetering line between life and death.
She was just here. She was just saying his name.
Now he’ll never hear it again.
“No, no! Esty, boss. C’mon, don’t do this to me.” He slinked his hand under her head and brought her closer, pressing her face into his shoulder. The crack in his voice was painful this time and something tight squeezed between his ribs. “Don’t do this… please.”
She slid into the crook of his arm, her face pale and lips purple beneath the blood. Desperately, he ran his hand along her forehead and down to her jaw, letting his thumb rest against her chin. The heat was already starting to leave her body.
For a moment he clenched his eyes shut and he wished--hoped--that there was a god. Something he could barter with. Something that would hear his pleas to swap their places, because if anyone deserved to live it was her. Not him. But when he opened his eyes once more, she was still gone. Still empty.
His vision was blurred again and he blinked furiously, but nothing could clear his sight.
During the nights they were separated, on opposite sides of the Commonwealth, he felt like she was still with him. Like they were bound by an unseen tether; always connected.
But now? There was a kind of hollowness he'd never experienced before, even with Lucy. He felt it deep in his bones. It roiled and churned in his gut and he found he could do nothing but press his forehead to hers and cry.
He truly was alone again.
Another piece of him gone.
"Come back."