Chapter Text
“Lucy- Lucy, please, would you just- just wait,” Max stumbles after her, practically tripping over his boots as he fights to keep pace. “You don’t have to do this. We can still walk out of here. Right now. We can just go.”
Except she can’t, can she? There’s no getting around this. There’s no walking away.
She has to do this. It's the only way.
“I can’t,” she tells him— too sharp, too brittle. Her hands curl into fists at her sides, eyes straight ahead as she marches after the effortless glide of the Mister Handy leading the way down the long corridor toward the room marked Laboratory. “I have to do this.”
There’s no other choice. Not really.
The laboratory smells of cold metal and antiseptic when she pushes inside, machines silent but ready to wake at the push of a button. The Mister Handy floats toward the centre of the room, already arranging whatever equipment it needs with cheerful efficiency. Just another day. Just another procredure.
Dogmeat noses her hand anxiously when Lucy freezes just inside the room. She tries to pat her, but her fingers shake too hard to make contact.
“Terribly sorry about this, ma’am,” the Mister Handy says as it flicks switches and boots systems online. “Just standard protocol when dealing with mid-gestational material, you understand.”
Standard protocol. Right.
Because this is all standard.
Routine healthcare.
A choice.
She swallows, forcing a tight nod.
“Hmm, yes, lets see- ah! Previous diagnostics have been archived. Good, good. That will be quite helpful when comparing to a new sample. Ma’am, if you don’t mind?”
Lucy’s throat closes as she glances toward the machine— the same machine she’d sat before weeks ago, back when she’d been terrified of the possibility, not the certainty.
Somehow it was easier then.
Max stops her before she can take a single step, throwing an arm out across her chest as he steps in front of her.
“Just wait,” he bites, “for a second. God!”
“Sir, it is-”
“You shut up!” He turns a vicious glare on the machine, chest heaving, “You are not doing anything to her until we figure out-”
“Max.”
Her voice is barely a whisper, but it's enough to stop him. To have him look away from the Mister Handy, and back to her. His eyes are wide and furious- scared- jaw so tight it trembles.
“Lucy,” he tries again, softer, more desperate, “you’re scared. That’s all. You don’t have to-”
“I do,” she insists, and she hates how her voice trembles. Hates even more how her hands come down to hover traitorously over her stomach like they’re trying to protect the life inside. “This is why I was out there in the first place- where you found me. I was looking for a way to- to fix this.”
Teeth sink into her lip, biting down so hard she tastes blood.
“I can’t keep it, Max. I can’t. You don’t know-” she shakes her head, eyes shutting against the burn. “You have no idea what could happen to me if I let this- if I let it--”
If she lets it grow. If she lets it become something more than what it is now.
It's just a fetus. It's not alive in any real, tangible way.
Without her body to grow and shield it, it would never survive.
Her hands tighten into fists.
“Lucy…” Max steps closer, voice cracking. “Lucy, your baby isn’t a bomb. It’s not- its not something evil. You don’t even know if-”
“I do,” she croaks. “I know enough.”
Maybe she doesn’t know what kind of mutant it will be, but she knows it’ll be dangerous. More-so, even, than its father.
“You don’t want to do this.”
No.
But she has to.
“I’m sorry, Max.”
She steps through his blockade, pushing past his raised arm. Dogmeat follows at her heel.
“Lucy…”
The Mister Handy floats a little off to the side as she approaches, opening up the space before the diagnostic unit so she can step into place. The mounted bio-scanner is already awake and waiting, green light blinking slowly. Just like she’d done weeks ago, Lucy slides her finger into the scanners collection port and braces for the sharp prick.
Blood Sample Accepted. DNA Matching Enabled.
It's faster this time.
Lucy turns away before the results can fully materialise, swallowing hard against the turn of her stomach.
“Gestation reading incoming,” the Mister Handy chirps, angling a stretched eye-stalk toward the screen. “Sixteen point five weeks. Growth rate consistent, hormonal balance within acceptable parameters. Mutations... hmm… ah, yes. Stable. Good. Father’s genetic presence confirm-”
“Don’t,” Lucy cuts in.
She can't hear the rest. Not right now.
“Of course, of course.” The Mister Handy floats up to her side and Lucy takes a sharp step back, keeping space. It clicks a couple of buttons, humming to itself. “Alright! If you could lay on the exam table and lift your shirt, please, ma’am.”
Lucy’s heart rockets into her ribs.
No way.
No way in hell.
“No!” she blurts, and then immediately winces as the echo cuts back at her off the walls. “No, I- g-give me the wand. I can do it myself.”
She holds out a trembling hand, snatching the solid piece of equipment up when the Mister Handy passes it over. Her hands shake, knuckles white.
Max takes a single step closer. If he reached out, he could touch her, but he doesn’t. He just stares at her, all big, sad eyes.
“Lucy.”
She turns away- turns toward the mission at hand.
The gel is just as cold as last time, just as thick and tacky. It reeks of chemical wrongness, clinging to her fingers even as she scraps the excess off against the rim of the wand. Her breath hitches, hands trembling.
She doesn’t look down at her stomach. Can’t. So she looks at the screen instead, watching as it flickers. As black shapes bloom and shift under the roll of the wand across her bloated flesh. As shadows resolve and build into form.
Grey, and grainy, and abstract, until, suddenly… they’re not.
“Oh.”
The sound slips out of her before she can stop it.
A heartbeat. The curve of a spine.
Arms ad legs and a profile so unmistakably human that it feels like a knife between her ribs. A tiny little nose.
Her breath hitches, and the fetus moves with it. Just a little. Just a twitch.
It yawns.
Lucy’s free hand flies to her mouth, something small and broken caught in her palm before it can fully escape.
Max’s breath leaves him in a rush. He takes a single step closer, before forcing himself to stop.
The Mister Handy chatters on cheerfully, oblivious to the fact that Lucy’s world has just completely shifted beneath her.
“Fetal positioning is optimal. Limb growth within parameters. Neural activity robust- yes, yes, very good…”
Lucy’s eyes burn. The world around her blurs.
She doesn’t blink. Can’t look away.
She’s pinned to the screen as if looking away will make everything disapear.
The hand across her mouth shifts hesitantly, trembling as it falls to her belly. Her fingers graze the stretched skin, palm cupping the new shape of herself.
Swollen. Curved.
The tears spill over, running down her cheeks silently to soak into the collar of her shirt.
There’s a baby inside of her. An actual baby.
“I… I-”
She can’t look away from the screen. Away from her son. It had predicted a boy. Thirteen weeks; 76.4% probability.
She can see it now. Can see him.
And suddenly everything is so much more real than it has any right to be.
When she left Vault Sixteen, it was easy to disconnect the thing inside her from anything substantial. It was a fetus. A problem. A parasite feeding on her already-starved body.
It didn’t look remotely human.
But now… now it does. A tiny, impossibly fragile person curled up inside her.
And that’s- God, that’s so much worse.
Because no matter how she feels about it, she still has to let him go.
People are dying. Vaults like hers are still up and running, working their way through experiments she can’t even begin to fathom.
Her father is still out there.
Cooper’s daughter is still out there.
She has a mission. A responsibility.
“The fetus appears to be in optimal health,” the Mister Handy announces cheerfully. “How wonderful! Now, if you wish to proceed, all the required tools for a safe and efficient termination are located in the surgical theater across the hall.”
It's the right thing to do. It has to be.
It's the only real option.
She cannot have this baby.
Dogmeat whines, low and worried, and tucks her warm head against Lucy’s leg.
Lucy’s breath hitches.
Once.
Twice.
And then everything buckles.
Her shoulders fold inward, shaking, as a sound tears up her throat. It's raw and painful. Helpless. A sob born of the type of grief she'd only felt in the years following her mother's supposed death.
The wand drops from her grasp, crashing into the side of the machine as both hands clutch over her stomach, fingers digging in. Her chest burns, ribs feeling like they’re caving in.
“I want him,” she chokes out, bleeding like an open wound. “I want him so much.”
“So keep him,” Max implores, stepping up beside her to take her hands in his. “Lucy, you can keep him.”
She shakes her head, fighting his hold.
“I can’t,” she sobs. “I can’t!”
People are dying.
Lucy- Lucy just feels like she’s dying.
That’s not the same! She can’t. She can’t!
“Lucy, please- please, don’t do this. Look at what this is doing to you! There’s got to be another way. We can protect you, okay? The Brotherhood can-”
“The Brotherhood would kill him!”
She jerks her hands out of his, staggering back as far as her weak legs will allow her.
Dogmeat follows, but instead of pressing back into Lucy’s side, she falls into a protective stance in front of her. Ears flat, she bares her teeth at Max until he backs away a step, holding his hands up.
Lucy chokes on her next sob.
“They’d kill him,” she repeats, “just- just like they’d kill y-your friend! T-The one who got shot with the- with the arrow.”
Or worse. They’d experiment on him, just like the scientists in this vault would have had she been unlucky enough to stumble upon this place when they were still active.
“Thaddeus?”
“They’d kill him, and they- they’d kill me, too.”
And Cooper, as well, when he inevitably came looking for them.
All of them would just be more monsters put down for the good of the wasteland. An entire family wiped out before it could even get the chance to exist.
And for what? For prejudice. For fear.
Max is a good man. Lucy knows that. But those he's pledged his life to are as bad as Vault-Tec. Just another machine built to crush and conquer.
Her breath trembles, her hands shake. The image is gone from the screen now, but it's burned into her eyes anyway— even as tears flood her vision, she can see him.
Her baby. Her son.
And she can’t keep him.
She can’t keep him, but she can’t lose him, either.
And still- she has to decide. How can she decide? Either way, she knows the choice will kill her.
“I-” her voice splinters, sticking on her tongue. Her knees threaten to fold under her, shaking with the strain to keep her upright.
Max steadies her at the elbow, gentle but firm.
“I won’t let that happen,” he promises. “Lucy, you know I wouldn’t.”
Except he wouldn’t have a choice in the matter. The Brotherhood is one of the most powerful fractions in the wasteland. When they want something, nothing can stop them.
She shakes her head. Her whole body trembles, knees threatening to give under her own weight.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” he tries. “Lucy, please. You’re hurting, okay? I get it, but you need to- you need to just step back with me for a second and think-”
“I am thinking!” she snaps— or maybe it's a sob. It's hard to tell. “All I have done since I found out about him is think, Max! And I’m still- I-I-”
She’s still stuck.
Both hands press hard into her stomach, fingers digging in until the bite of them hurts almost as much as everything else inside her already does.
Max’s hand tightens on her shoulder, warm and steady.
“Lucy, you’re working yourself up into this… this frenzy,” he says, softly. “You’re scaring yourself with what-ifs.”
What-ifs are all she has.
What if the baby is too mutated to know right from wrong?
What if the baby comes out feral? Or broken? Or suffering?
What if Lucy doesn’t even live long enough to see him take his first breath?
Her heart kicks. Stutters.
But then... god, but what if it's all fine?
What if he’s just a boy?
What if he's beautiful and perfect, and what if she and Cooper-
“I hate seeing you like this,” Max whispers.
“Then leave.”
She doesn’t mean to say it. The words slip out before she can stop them, nothing more than a cracked whisper, but she doesn’t take them back. Even as Max’s head snaps up, eyes blown wide and hurt. Lucy doesn’t take it back. She can’t.
“What?”
“If you can’t bear to watch this...” she swallows, shakes her head. The movement feels slow and syrup-thick, mind struggling to catch up to her mouth. “If you can’t watch this, then you should leave.”
Max’s throat jumps with a swallow, eyes darting between hers.
“I… I can’t stop you, can I?”
She doesn’t reply, and that seems to be answer enough.
“You’re right,” he says softly, defeated. His eyes linger on her, sad and helpless and angry. “I’m sorry, Lucy, but I… I can’t be here. I can’t watch you do this to yourself.”
The warmth of his hand leaving her shoulder hits like a shot, but Lucy doesn’t stop him as he backs away. One step, then another. Forcing each one like a man wading through mud.
She waits until he’s turned around, until he’s made it all the way to the doors leading out into the hall, before she calls to him.
“Max.”
He stops, head lifting, but doesn’t turn back to face her.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
His shoulders tighten, drawing up, before falling slack on a long breath.
“Yeah,” he says, a crack in his voice, “I’m... I’m sorry, too.”
He takes another step, hand on the door, when Lucy’s mouth opens again.
“Max?”
A beat.
“...Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
He doesn’t reply this time. Just stands there a moment, breathing deep and slow like he's forcing it. When he makes to leave again- to put all this behind him- he’s stopped once more.
“Before you go, sir,” the Mister Handy calls, holding up a strip of glossy white paper in its claw, “would you care for a print as a momento?”
Horrified, Max blinks at the ultrasound, mouth floundering before he finally manages to find his tongue.
“What the- what the fuck are you even- no! No, I don’t!”
“A fine choice!”
He leaves. Doesn’t look back.
This time Lucy doesn’t try to stop him. Neither does the machine.
The sound of his boots fades down the hall, each step quieter, until even the echo is gone. A beat of silence follows.
Then-
“Well then!” chirps the Mister Handy, “if your emotional concerns have been addressed, ma’am, shall we continue with your procedure? As an Eden-Assist, I assure you, I can prune an errant seedling with the utmost precision!”
A joke.
Lucy doesn’t laugh.
She doesn’t argue, either.
She just… follows. Steps out after it, moving through the door Max just fled though moments ago, across the hall, through another set of doors. Her boots drag, feet heavy, but her head is light. Her thoughts have gone soft and distant, like someone's stuffed cotton candy between her ears.
Her body moves on without permission. Without thought.
The interior of the Surgical Theater is more or less what Lucy was expecting. A viewing room, overlooking four separate operating chambers-,all steal plated and cold, lit by sterile white strip-lights embedded in the ceiling. A surgical table sits in the centre of each, bolted to the floor. Straps hang from the sides— at the wrists, the ankles, the waist. Too many. Too tight. Too worn.
The viewing room is no more inviting— just as cold, just as sterile. Chairs line the floor-to-ceiling windows, a single terminal placed to the left of each room. Along one wall is a row of filing cabinets, along the other…along the other is a goddamn cigarette machine and a coffee station.
Lucy stops dead, skin crawling.
This is where untold horrors were committed. Where women were drugged and medically raped— likely some even murdered— and these people were just sitting back with a coffee and a cigarette, watching as it all happened. Doctors, scientists. Men and women all the same. Vault-Tec puppets that stood back safely behind the glass and took notes while a mother was torn open on the other side.
Lucy’s breath comes sharp, echoing in the cavernous quiet as a full-body shiver claws up her spine. The tears on her cheeks have dried tacky and tight.
“Operating Chamber Three has the most active filtration system,” the Mister Handy announces brightly, gesturing with a claw toward one of the rooms. “Ideal for procedures involving potential contaminants such as fetal evacuation. Isn’t that convenient?”
Convenient.
Right.
Lucy swallows hard, but her mouth is too dry to make it easy. She chokes, coughs, tries to breath through the rising panic taking her throat.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes,” she croaks, “Yes, that’s… that’s fine.”
“Wonderful! Follow me, please.”
Dogmeat whines at her heels as Lucy hesitates at the threshold of the operating chamber. The metal floor sways under her feet, her legs suddenly hollow, brittle. Her heart thunders so hard behind her ribs that it burns.
The Mister Handy bobs around the room, utterly oblivious. Arms reach in every direction, plucking bits and pieces from drawers and depositing them on a tray it has clutched in one claw. Preparing.
Lucy’s hand trembles as she brushes her fingertips over her belly. Just once. Barely even a graze. Barely anything at all.
Her breath stutters, heart aching so fiercely she almost folds in on herself.
This is the right choice.
She forces a deep breath.
This is what has to be done.
She raises her chin.
This is only real choice she has.
With every muscle fighting her, she forces her foot forward.
She takes that last step.