This wasn’t what she had expected. When the Brotherhood’s geiger counters had jumped and Sarah had given her that hopeless, wide-eyed look, Emma had expected to die. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and tried to ignore the feeling that this was what she had been waiting for this whole time: the chance to die like her dad had, and leave the wastes behind forever.
And lying on the cold metal of the rotunda floor, she had felt something almost like hope as darkness closed in around her.
She hadn’t been expecting to wake up in the Citadel. She hadn’t wanted to. Lying still, listening to the whirring of the machinery that was monitoring her vital signs, Emma thought of a poem her father had once read her.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
They’d tried to explain what was wrong with her. The radiation got inside her body; inside her bones. It had done something to her blood cells, mutated them and made them reproduce uncontrollably. Cancer.
But I have promises to keep.
She hadn’t understood, not really. Science wasn’t her thing. She knew she was dying, slowly and painfully, she knew there wasn’t anything that could be done, and she knew that the Enclave was still alive, scattered across the Capital Wasteland. She had thought she wanted to die, but not like this.
Not alone in a hospital bed, too weak to breathe without mechanical aid. Not while there was still work to be done. Not before the Enclave was properly destroyed. Not before she’d said her good-byes.
And miles to go before I sleep.
It was her 20th birthday, she had saved the Wasteland, Butch was dozens of miles away in Rivet City, and she was dying. She let her eyelids flutter shut.
And miles to go before I sleep.
I posted this without editing. Let's play 'oh god look at the typos, why don't I revise more?!!?!!'
The Darkest Evening, 1/1
And lying on the cold metal of the rotunda floor, she had felt something almost like hope as darkness closed in around her.
She hadn’t been expecting to wake up in the Citadel. She hadn’t wanted to. Lying still, listening to the whirring of the machinery that was monitoring her vital signs, Emma thought of a poem her father had once read her.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
They’d tried to explain what was wrong with her. The radiation got inside her body; inside her bones. It had done something to her blood cells, mutated them and made them reproduce uncontrollably. Cancer.
But I have promises to keep.
She hadn’t understood, not really. Science wasn’t her thing. She knew she was dying, slowly and painfully, she knew there wasn’t anything that could be done, and she knew that the Enclave was still alive, scattered across the Capital Wasteland. She had thought she wanted to die, but not like this.
Not alone in a hospital bed, too weak to breathe without mechanical aid. Not while there was still work to be done. Not before the Enclave was properly destroyed. Not before she’d said her good-byes.
And miles to go before I sleep.
It was her 20th birthday, she had saved the Wasteland, Butch was dozens of miles away in Rivet City, and she was dying. She let her eyelids flutter shut.
And miles to go before I sleep.
I posted this without editing. Let's play 'oh god look at the typos, why don't I revise more?!!?!!'