The New Year passed quietly. Too quietly.
It ended the moment the Combat Zone fell.
Nate hadn't expected much from the place—just another raider pit dressed up as entertainment, reeking of sweat, blood, and cheap chems. What he hadn't anticipated was the fighter who emerged from the chaos, swinging with feral precision and swearing louder than any gunner he'd ever crossed paths with.
An Irish accent cut through the din like a vibro-knife. Sharp tongue. Mean right hook.
Cait.
Later, as the dust settled and the crowd dispersed, she leaned against the twisted remnants of a cage, lighting a cigarette with a flick of her battered lighter. The glow illuminated her scarred face, casting shadows that danced like ghosts in the dim light. She dropped the bombshell casually, as if it were just another street rumor whispered in the back alleys of Goodneighbor.
"Y'know... Gunners been sayin' things," she drawled, exhaling a plume of smoke that curled lazily into the night air. "About your merc commander friend. Sarah. Or Sierra. Whatever she calls herself these days."
Nate looked up from cleaning his pistol, his fingers pausing mid-motion. "What kind of things?"
Cait took her time, savoring the drag before answering. "Paradise Falls. Burned to the ground. Kids inside. They say she ordered it."
The words hung heavy, like the fallout from a mini-nuke. Nate felt a chill snake down his spine, colder than the Commonwealth's irradiated winds.
Nate didn't waste time. He stormed back to the Castle under the cover of encroaching dusk, his boots echoing against the fortified walls. No crowd gathered this time, no AR Team or DEFY units standing sentinel. Just the two of them—him and Sarah—in the dim glow of a flickering lantern, the air thick with unspoken accusations.
Nate:"There been rumor lurking around the commonwealth, about paradise falls"
"Tell me it's not true," he demanded, his voice low but edged with steel.
Sarah didn't answer right away. She stood by the window, gazing out at the restless sea beyond the battlements. She didn't look angry. Didn't look defensive. She looked... tired. The weight of years—of wars fought and lost—etched into the lines around her eyes.
"It's true," she said finally, her tone flat, devoid of apology.
The admission hit harder than a gunshot, punching the air from Nate's lungs. He stared at her, waiting for the justification, the denial, anything to soften the blow. She offered none.
"Paradise Falls wasn't a town," Sarah continued, her voice steady but laced with something brittle beneath the surface, like rusted metal ready to snap. "It was a factory, Slave hub."
She turned to face him then, her expression unyielding. "They didn't just enslave people. They broke children early. Taught them to steal, to lie, to lure travelers into traps. Some were turned into raiders before they could even hold a gun properly. Others... used as bait. Disposable decoys in a world that already chewed up the innocent."
She paused, her gaze drifting to the scarred floorboards as if reliving the horrors in her mind. "There was no future where that place stopped on its own. It was a cancer, spreading rot through the Capital Wasteland."
Nate clenched his fists, knuckles whitening. "So you burned it."
Sarah nodded once, a sharp, decisive motion. "I dismantled it. Completely."
For the first time, she looked away, her shoulders sagging ever so slightly under the invisible burden.
"I gave the order," she admitted, her jaw tightening. "which most of my Dolls couldn't carry it out."
The confession hung in the air, raw and unfiltered. "They either froze. Or broke down. Or refused outright."
She listed their names quietly, with a reverence that spoke of shared scars: Vector, Five-seveN, PP-90. Only three had accepted the command. Not because they wanted to—because someone had to.
"That operation damaged them," Sarah said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Damaged me."
She didn't sugarcoat it, didn't wrap the truth in platitudes. "I'm not regret stopping Paradise Falls. But I'll carry what it cost forever."
The room fell into a heavy quiet, broken only by the distant crash of waves against the shore. Nate stood there, grappling with the revelation, his mind a whirlwind of betrayal and reluctant understanding. The Gunners were spreading this poison because they knew it would erode trust like acid on steel. He suspected the Institute's shadowy hand in stirring the pot—always pulling strings from the darkness.
Sarah nodded when he voiced the thought, her expression grim. "Let them. Truth doesn't always look clean from the outside."
She met his eyes again, unflinching. "If that means some people can't follow me anymore... I'll accept it."
Nate didn't answer immediately. But he didn't walk away, either. The silence stretched, a fragile bridge between them, until the weight of the night pressed in.
Later that night, under a canopy of stars veiled by the Commonwealth's perpetual haze, Sarah made her way to Spectacle Island. The air was thick with the scent of salt and decay, the island's makeshift outpost a precarious haven amid the ruins. Team 404 awaited her there—UMP45, UMP9, HK416, and G11—along with the rest of her Dolls, their synthetic eyes reflecting the faint glow of campfires. They stood in loose formation, a silent assembly of loyalty forged in fire and code.
Sarah didn't preamble. She stood before them, the wind tugging at her coat, and laid bare the truth of Paradise Falls. The words spilled out methodically: the slavers' atrocities, the children twisted into tools of cruelty, the impossible choice she'd made in the Capital Wasteland. She described the flames that had consumed it all, the screams that still echoed in her memory, the fractures it had left in her command.
"I ordered the purge," she said, her voice carrying over the lapping waves. "And it broke us. Some of you know fragments of this already. Now you know it all."
She paused, scanning their faces—impassive yet etched with subtle algorithms of emotion. "I'm leaving the judgment to you. Team 404, and every Doll under my banner: continue under my command, or not. There no reprisals. And this is not obligations. Walk away if this truth is too heavy to bear."
The island fell silent, save for the rustle of leaves and the distant hum of generators. UMP45 stepped forward first, her gaze steady. The others followed, their decisions unfolding like a cascade of data streams—loyalty reaffirmed, not blindly, but with eyes wide open to the shadows in their leader's past.
Sarah nodded, a flicker of relief softening her features: "Thank you."
The rumors didn't shatter the Minutemen. They strained them, like a rusted chain pulled taut under mounting pressure.
At the Castle, conversations dipped to hushed murmurs behind barricades and battlements. Patrol captains posed harder questions in dimly lit war rooms, their voices laced with doubt. Militia leaders from the outer settlements—hardened farmers and scavengers who'd pledged their lives to the blue banner—demanded explanations in terse holotapes or face-to-face confrontations. Others deliberately skirted the subject, their eyes averted, afraid the answer would unravel the fragile unity they'd built.
A few Minutemen resigned quietly, slipping away under the cover of night. Not in fiery protest, but in quiet disillusionment—unable to reconcile the hero they'd followed with the shadow of Paradise Falls.
But more stayed. Far more. Their loyalty wasn't blind; it was battle-tested, forged in the fires of the Commonwealth's endless strife.
Ronnie Shaw was blunt during a closed-door meeting in the armory, surrounded by crates of laser rifles and the faint hum of generators. Her voice cut through the tension like a combat knife.
"Paradise Falls was a slaver pit," she growled, her scarred face illuminated by the glow of a terminal screen. "Anyone sayin' otherwise is either stupid or lying. But people don't like knowing what it takes to end things like that. The blood, the fire... the choices that haunt you."
Sarah didn't interrupt. Didn't defend herself. She stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, her expression a mask of stoic resolve. She let them talk, let the words flow like irradiated water—raw, unfiltered. Because true leadership meant giving people the space to decide whether they could still stand beside her, shoulder to shoulder, in the face of the storm.
In the end, the Minutemen didn't fracture. They adapted, bending but not breaking. Clearer chains of accountability were drafted on crumpled paper and flickering screens. Oversight committees formed, comprised of veterans and newcomers alike, to ensure no order went unchecked. Sarah accepted every safeguard without complaint, her signature steady on the documents that would bind her actions tighter than any shackle.
Trust wasn't gone. It was being renegotiated, one hard conversation at a time.
Publicly, the Brotherhood of Steel said nothing. No thunderous denunciation from their vertibirds, no impassioned defense broadcast over the airwaves. That silence was intentional, a calculated void in the cacophony of rumors.
Privately, Elder Maxson allowed select Brotherhood officers—Paladins clad in power armor, Knights with laser-scarred helmets, and scribes hunched over ancient tomes—to speak with Minutemen leadership. These meetings unfolded behind closed doors only: fortified bunkers or shadowed ruins, far from prying eyes. No press. No settlements eavesdropping on the proceedings.
One Paladin, his voice modulated through a helmet grille, put it plainly during a clandestine gathering at a derelict outpost: "Paradise Falls was a strategic infection, a blight on the Wasteland that spread like rads in the groundwater. Commander Sarah did what wars require—even when peace can't stomach it. We've all burned bridges to save the future."
Maxson himself forbade any public statements. Not because he disagreed—but because he understood something most didn't: If the Brotherhood defended Sarah openly, the Commonwealth would assume strings being pulled, manipulation from the shadows, or outright coercion by the steel-clad giants. And that would make it worse, turning whispers into roars.
So the Brotherhood stayed quiet. And that quiet, among those who understood its weight, spoke volumes—louder than any proclamation from the Prydwen's decks.
The Castle infirmary was never truly quiet, even in the dead of night. The slow, rhythmic tick of improvised medical equipment echoed softly against the stone walls, mingling with the creak of ancient masonry as it shifted under the assault of cold sea air. Distant footfalls of Minutemen on watch patrolled the battlements, a constant reminder that vigilance never slept in the Commonwealth. Curie heard all of it—every subtle nuance, every whisper of the wind through cracked windows. Her synthetic senses, honed for precision, picked up the anomalies others might miss.
That was how she noticed the absence.
Three vials of Med-X, their labels still crisp under the dim glow of a chem lamp. Two ampoules of Calmex, the sedative's amber liquid meant for the battlefield's broken. One sealed injector of an experimental pain suppressant—restricted access only, its contents a volatile cocktail of pre-war science and post-apocalyptic desperation.
Curie stood very still, her fingers hovering above the inventory slate, the screen's blue light casting ethereal shadows across her porcelain features. She did not panic. She calculated, her processors whirring through probabilities and patterns.
The missing drugs formed a mosaic she recognized all too well—a desperate grasp at oblivion, a chemical escape from demons that clawed from within.
"Non," she whispered to herself, her French accent soft but resolute in the empty room.
Cait didn't even try to hide. She was down by the dockside storage shack, crouched against the biting wind that whipped off the harbor, her shaking hands fumbling with a syringe she never quite managed to plunge into her vein. The needle hovered, trembling, as if even her body rebelled against the final act. When the Minutemen's lanterns pierced the darkness, bathing her in harsh yellow light, she laughed—a sharp, ugly sound that scraped her throat raw and echoed across the water.
"Well," she muttered, her voice laced with bitter resignation. "Took you long enough."
Two rifles leveled instinctively, the barrels glinting in the lantern glow, fingers hovering near triggers. The minutemen guards' faces were taut, shadows playing across their Minutemen blues.
Curie raised her hand, her movement deliberate and calm. "No firearms," she said, her tone steady as a surgeon's scalpel. "She is not a threat. She is… unwell."
Cait looked up at her then, eyes bloodshot and rimmed with the exhaustion of endless nights, fury simmering beneath the haze. "Yeah?" she spat, her Irish brogue thick with venom. "Tell that to the itch under my skin. Feels like fire ants crawlin' through my veins."
The cuffs went on gently, almost apologetically, the cold metal clicking shut with a finality that hung in the air. Curie stayed with her the entire walk back, her presence a silent anchor amid the shuffling footsteps and the relentless crash of waves against the shore.
Sarah didn't summon Cait immediately. She read the report first, her eyes scanning the terse lines under the flicker of a desk lamp in her quarters. Then the second report, cross-referencing details with a precision born of years in command. Then the third—intel from Minutemen scouts, fragments pieced together from shadowed alleys and gunner outposts, confirming what Cait had whispered on the streets and what the Gunners had encouraged her to amplify into a roar.
Paradise Falls. Burning children. Commander Sarah, the slaver butcher.
Sarah closed the folder with a soft thud, leaning back in her chair. For a moment—just a moment—she let herself feel the weight of it all, the exhaustion seeping into her bones like radiation. Her hand pressed against her forehead, fingers tracing old scars.
Then she stood, her resolve snapping back like a loaded clip. "I'll speak to her alone," she said to the aide waiting outside, her voice brooking no argument.
No one argued. They knew better.
The holding room was colder than the infirmary, its stone walls unyielding and damp, absorbing sound and warmth alike. A bare bulb dangled from the ceiling, casting stark shadows that danced like specters across the scarred table—a relic that had witnessed too many confessions and too few absolutions. The air smelled of rust and regret.
Cait sat slouched in the chair, wrists cuffed to the armrests, her boot tapping a restless rhythm against the uneven floor. She didn't look up when Sarah entered, the door creaking on its hinges. Didn't need to. She felt her—the shift in the air, the quiet authority that filled the space like smoke.
"So," Cait said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Come to finish it? Put a bullet in the junkie's head and call it mercy?"
Sarah closed the door behind her and locked it. The sound echoed louder than expected, reverberating off the walls like a judgment.
"No," Sarah replied, her tone even, measured. "I came to understand why you thought this would end well."
That made Cait laugh—short, bitter, the sound bouncing hollowly in the confined space. "End well?" She shook her head, chains rattling softly. "You really don't get it, do you? Nothin' in this wasteland ends well."
Sarah pulled out the opposite chair and sat, her posture straight but not domineering. She did not loom. She did not posture. That unsettled Cait more than any threat, her eyes narrowing as she finally met Sarah's gaze.
"You stole medical supplies," Sarah said evenly, laying out the facts like cards on the table. "Enough to kill yourself twice over."
Cait's jaw clenched, her fingers twitching against the cuffs.
"And you spread rumors that you knew would destabilize the Minutemen during an Institute crisis," Sarah continued, her voice unwavering.
Cait finally looked up fully, her expression a storm of defiance. "You saying it's not true? That you didn't burn that place to ash with kids inside?"
Sarah met her gaze without flinching, the weight of years in her eyes. "No."
The word hung there, simple and unadorned, sucking the air from the room.
Cait's anger stalled—just for a fraction of a second—before slamming back twice as hard, her face flushing. "Then what the hell are we doing here?" she snapped, leaning forward as far as the chains allowed. "You want me to feel bad for telling people what you did? For shining a light on your dirty little secret?"
Sarah's voice did not rise, remaining a calm anchor in the rising tide. "I want to know why you let the Gunners decide how you tell it."
That landed like a punch, Cait recoiling slightly, her bravado cracking at the edges.
Cait leaned back, the chains rattling again as she deflated into the chair. "They knew," she muttered, her voice dropping to a rough whisper. "About the chems. About how bad it was gettin'—the shakes, the nights where I'd claw at my own skin just to feel somethin' else."
Sarah said nothing, letting the silence draw out the truth.
"They said they had a cure from vault. A real one, not some hack with a stimpak and a prayer. Complete clean cure. No cold turkey. No shakin' yourself apart in a corner." Her voice cracked despite her effort to keep it sharp, edged with the raw ache of vulnerability.
"All I had to do was talk. Didn't even have to lie much. Just… leave out the parts that make you look human. The hero bits."
Sarah's fingers curled slowly against her knee, hidden beneath the table. "So you took a slaver's word," she said quietly, the words laced with a subtle undercurrent of disappointment. "About salvation."
Cait's lips twisted into a wry, pained smile. "Funny, isn't it? Me, of all people."
"I was a slave," Cait said suddenly. Not shouted. Not performed for effect. Stated, like a fact etched in stone.
"Collar. Cage. Auctions." Her eyes burned with the fire of old memories, unblinking. "Bought and sold like Brahmin meat. Fought in pits for scraps while they laughed."
Sarah did not interrupt, her silence an invitation to continue.
"So when I heard about Paradise Falls—about you burning it—I didn't hear 'liberation.'" Cait's voice trembled now, the anger giving way to something deeper, more fractured. "I heard someone deciding which slaves were worth saving. And which ones weren't."
Silence filled the room like rising water, thick and suffocating, broken only by Cait's ragged breathing.
Sarah did not rush to fill it. She leaned forward slightly, her expression softening just a fraction. "You think I don't know what that place was doing to those children?"
Cait hesitated, her momentum faltering.
"You think I didn't wait," Sarah continued, her voice lowering to a near-whisper, "for another option? Negotiation. Extraction. Bribery. Threats. I tried every mehtods and disposables i had."
She paused, the weight of the past pressing down. "There weren't any. Not without letting the cycle continue—breaking more souls, twisting more kids into monsters."
"I gave the order," Sarah said, her gaze steady. "And most of my Dolls refused."
Cait blinked, surprise flickering across her features.
"They couldn't do it. Wouldn't even tho they're machine under command." Sarah's voice carried the echo of that refusal, the fractures it had left. "They froze, or broke down, or walked away like any sentient beings."
She didn't name them aloud, but the weight of it showed in her eyes, lingering in the air. "Only three stayed. Not because they wanted to. Because someone had to."
Sarah exhaled slowly, the sound heavy in the confined space. "And they carry it still. We all do."
Cait's voice was barely audible now, stripped of its edge. "And you just… live with it?"
"No," Sarah replied, her words simple and profound. "I pay for it. Every single cursed day."
Sarah stood, the chair scraping softly against the stone floor as she pushed it back, the sound final enough to make Cait's shoulders tense beneath her worn leather jacket. The dim light from the bare bulb overhead cast long shadows across the room, amplifying the gravity of the moment.
"You will be held for theft," Sarah said, her voice level and controlled, each word measured like a command in the field. "And for collaboration with a hostile force."
Cait's jaw tightened, her hands curling into fists in her lap, knuckles whitening against the strain of the cuffs. She stared at the table's scarred surface, refusing to meet Sarah's eyes, her breath shallow and ragged.
"You will undergo mandatory detox under Curie's supervision," Sarah continued, unflinching. "No chems. No exceptions."
A humorless laugh escaped Cait's throat, bitter and laced with resignation. "Figures. Lock me up and fix me, like I'm some broken toy."
Sarah turned toward the door, one hand resting briefly on the cold iron handle, the metal chill seeping through her glove. She paused there—just long enough to be certain her next words would land like a well-aimed shot.
"But you will not be executed. You will not be sold. And you will not be used."
Cait looked up sharply then, disbelief flashing across her face, her bloodshot eyes widening in surprise. The words hung in the air, a stark contrast to the wasteland's usual brand of justice—swift, merciless, and final.
Sarah glanced back once, her expression unreadable but her gaze steady. "If you want to tear me down," she said quietly, her tone carrying the weight of hard-earned wisdom, "do it when you're clean—and when the Commonwealth isn't bleeding."
The door opened with a creak, admitting a draft of salty sea air from the Castle's corridors. Then it closed with a decisive thud, leaving Cait alone in the oppressive silence.
For a long moment, Cait didn't move. She sat there, chained to the chair, the anger draining from her like blood from a fresh wound. Then the bravado followed, crumbling away to reveal something raw and hollow beneath—a vulnerability she'd spent years burying under layers of sarcasm and chems.
She stared at the floor, her jaw trembling, breath coming uneven and shallow. The silence pressed down hard, suffocating, until it broke with the soft creak of the door reopening.
Cait didn't look up. She didn't need to. The familiar rhythm of his footsteps told her everything.
"Hey," Nate said, his voice steady. Not angry. Not disappointed. Just… there, like a anchor in the storm.
She swallowed hard, her throat tight. "Come to tell me I screwed up?" she muttered, her Irish accent thick with exhaustion.
Nate stepped inside and shut the door behind him, leaning against it instead of sitting, his arms crossed over his chest. He studied her—not like a judge sizing up a criminal, not like a commander assessing a liability. Like someone who cared, who'd fought beside her in the pits and ruins of the Commonwealth.
"You already know that," he said simply. "Didn't need me for it."
Cait let out a shaky breath, her shoulders slumping. "Guess that's it then," she said, her voice cracking at the edges. "Your big hero companion turns out to be a lying junkie working with Gunners. Go on, walk away. I'd understand."
She waited for him to leave, braced for the sound of the door swinging shut again. He didn't.
Instead, he pushed off the door and pulled the chair back across from her, sitting down slow and deliberate, the wood groaning under his weight. "You're still my companion," Nate said, his tone firm but gentle.
That made her look up, her eyes red now—not defiant, just tired, rimmed with the ghosts of unshed tears. "You shouldn't be," she said quietly, almost a whisper. "I'm poison, Nate. Always have been."
Nate leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, his gaze unwavering. "Cait… you were hurting. They used that." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Doesn't make it okay. But it makes it understandable. The Gunners prey on weakness—they always have."
She laughed weakly, a hollow sound that echoed in the small room. "Sarah didn't seem too impressed with that argument. Looked at me like I was just another raider to put down."
"No," Nate admitted, shaking his head slightly. "She wasn't. But she also didn't throw you to the wolves. That should tell you something about her—and about what she sees in you."
Cait swallowed hard, her fingers twitching against the cuffs. "I wanted to hate her," she confessed, her voice raw. "Made it easier. Thought if she was a monster, then… I wasn't just being petty. Wasn't just lashing out because I'm scared of what happens when the chems run out."
Nate nodded slowly, understanding flickering in his eyes. "She's not a monster," he said. "She's someone who's had to make calls no one else wanted to. Calls that keep her up at night, same as the rest of us."
Cait's voice cracked fully now, the dam breaking. "And what does that make me? Some pathetic fool who betrayed the only people who gave a damn?"
Nate didn't answer right away, letting the question hang. Then, with quiet conviction: "It makes you someone who's still here. Which means you still get to choose what comes next. Detox won't be easy, but it's a start."
She looked down at her hands again, the chains a stark reminder of her fall. "I'm scared," she admitted, the words tumbling out like a confession. "Detox. Being clean. Facing all of it without the chems to numb it. What if I can't?"
Nate stood, resting a hand lightly on the table—not touching her, but close enough to be felt, a silent offer of support. "I'll be around," he said. "Curie too. You're not doing this alone."
Cait nodded once, not trusting herself to speak, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek.
As Nate turned to leave, she finally found her voice. "…Don't give up on me yet."
He paused at the door, glancing back with a faint, reassuring smile. "Wasn't planning to," he replied.
The door closed again—but this time, the silence felt different. Not empty. Just waiting, like the calm before a new dawn.
Nate stepped out into the dimly lit corridor, the door's latch clicking shut behind him. The Castle's stone walls seemed to absorb the sound, but the weight of the conversation lingered in his chest. He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly as he made his way toward the command room. The night air carried the faint tang of salt from the harbor, a reminder that the world outside kept turning, Institute threats and all.
Sarah was there, standing by the window overlooking the battlements, her silhouette framed against the flickering torchlight outside. She didn't turn immediately, but he knew she heard him approach—her posture straightened just a fraction.
"How is she?" Sarah asked without preamble, her voice steady but laced with the fatigue of command.
Nate leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. "Shaken. Scared. But... I think she'll pull through. She's tougher than she lets on."
Sarah nodded, finally turning to face him. Her eyes, sharp as ever, searched his face for any sign of doubt. "And you? Still think bringing her in was the right call?"
He met her gaze evenly. "Yeah. I do. The Gunners got to her because she was vulnerable—chems, her past. But that's not who she is at her core. She's fought for us before. She can again."
A faint smile tugged at Sarah's lips, though it didn't reach her eyes. "You're optimistic. Admirable, but risky. If she slips..."
"If she slips, we'll handle it," Nate interrupted gently. "But punishing her now, harshly—that's what the slavers did to her. What Paradise Falls would have done. We're better than that."
Sarah's expression softened, the mention of Paradise Falls casting a shadow across her features. "You're right. But detox won't erase what she did. The rumors she spread—they're out there now, festering."
Nate stepped closer, his voice lowering. "Then we face them head-on. Together. You've got the Minutemen's trust because you've earned it, Sarah. One betrayal from a hurting ally won't undo that. And Cait... she regrets it. Deep down, she knows she was wrong about you."
She exhaled, rubbing her temple as if warding off a headache. "I hope so. For her sake—and ours. The Institute won't wait for us to sort our house."
Nate placed a hand on her shoulder, a brief gesture of solidarity. "We'll be ready. But we can't win this by turning on our own. That's their game."
Sarah nodded, a spark of resolve returning to her eyes. "Agreed. Keep an eye on her during detox. If she needs anything—within reason—let me know."