There was absolutely nothing wrong with Goodneighbor's front gate. Nuh-uh. Not at all.

That is, if you didn't mind the whole world seeing your comings and goings. Deacon had a big problem with that.

He wasn't twenty-five anymore. Hell, he was on the wrong side of thirty-five. That didn't stop him from shimmying up the broken brickwork of an old townhouse that leaned precariously far over the alley beneath Goodneighbor's eastern wall. From what remained of the drainpipe, he could just reach a wobbly piece of rebar that stuck out a little too far from the jagged top of the wall. A precarious leap and a narrow escape from a jagged piece of glass and he was over, breathing heavily and sporting a graze on his elbow.

Piece of cake.

He hadn't been shot. He hadn't even been noticed. That was good for him but bad for the night-guard nodding at his post. Hancock always flipped Deacon a cap or two for exposing gaps in security.

Deacon turned his jacket inside out to switch to from a dockworker's blue to a street tough's black and swapped his newsboy's cap out for a pompadour wig. The sunglasses could stay. Handsome D liked wearing sunglasses almost as much as Deacon did.

Abracadabra, hey presto, we got a magic act here folks. The transformation was complete. He wished he had someone to boast about it to.

Running a comb through greasy black hair and whistling a bawdy tune, Handsome D stepped out of the shadows and nodded to the men throwing dice below the streetlight. He was a local ne'er do well and a common fixture at the Third Rail. People liked him. And why wouldn't they? When he was flush, he was good for a drink or two in exchange for the news.

Another time, he might have joined their game. Drunks and gamblers had a habit of running their mouths, and he might have won some beer money off of them. Deacon never cheated, but Handsome D had fewer scruples.

He had other business tonight, though: a rendezvous with a dame he didn't want to keep waiting.

o - o - o - o - o

"How much for a throw?" he rasped to the curvy woman in a lounge chair in the back of the room. "Just run a job for the boss and I've got a fistful of dollars to spend."

She didn't even bat an eye at his obscene theatrics. This was a whorehouse in its own way, but it wasn't that kind of whorehouse. "It's good to see you again, Deacon."

Deacon switched acts abruptly. "Irma, O the delight of my eyes. My love, my life, my only light. Run away with me. Let me save you from this den of iniquity."

"Mmhm. She's downstairs, honey. I'd go down quickly, before… you know."

She was looking at him pityingly, as she often did. Why? Didn't she know Handsome D was the happiest sonuvabitch around?

He swept her a courteous bow, forgetting for the moment just who D was pretending to be. Don Juan-lite, he supposed.

"Adieu. Parting is such sweet, sweet sorrow. Until we meet anon." Damn, that sounded terrible. He'd have to work on his lines. Suddenly embarrassed, he slapped on a normal face. "Thanks, Irma. Will do. I'm hoping to pry her out of there, actually."

"I wish you could."

o - o - o - o - o

Thankfully, Amari was still awake. In the land of the living, even. Deacon didn't wait for an invitation, but hopped onto an empty exam table and began to lay out his plan.

"Picture this." His hands framed an image only he could see. "A stealthboy, a moonlit night, and thou. I can get you arms-length from the largest mirelurk you ever saw. Dormant, of course. We can take my boat - well, it's not my boat, but you get the idea - and visit a pre-war shipwreck. Let me show you the world in all its shining, shimmering splendour." He grinned the stupid, sloppy grin of a bullshitter who knew exactly how dumb he was being.

Amari ignored him. She was good at that. Deacon knew she was secretly glad to see him, though, from the way her shoulders relaxed and the premature frown-lines receded slightly when she finally turned to greet him.

"Tell me, Deacon, does Carrington know you're spending stealthboy juice on midnight strolls?"

He grimaced inside. He and Carrington had never gotten on well. Though neither Lyons nor Amari had ever said it outright, he thought he knew exactly where they'd plucked the creepy stiff. It rankled him further that Carrington now outranked him in the Railroad… not that Deacon had ever aspired to leadership. Leave that to the saps who wanted to paint a bull's-eye on their chest.

"What the good doctor knows can't hurt him. Besides, ma cherie, it's an investment. In your good health and sanity. We all appreciate your work ethic, but you need a night off." He dropped the flair and tried again, as seriously as he was capable, "Please, Amari. For old time's sake. Forget wandering Boston at night. We can stay in Goodneighbor. A short walk to the Third Rail, with me at your side. A drink. A talk. That's all I ask. You're so much more than this."

"I was, once. That was a long time ago." She laughed a little. "One would think that someone living a safe and stable life was an affront to your sensibilities, Deacon. I'm fine."

He looked around the room incredulously, taking in blank, expressionless walls. The neatly made bed in the corner. The memory pod that held pride-of-place in the center of the room, lid open and ready to admit its most regular occupant. "No, you're not. Moira told me to look out for you. That's what I'm doing."

A shadow passed over Amari's face. "Yeah, well, Moira's dead. She died in the house she barely left the last few years of her life. Hardly a great example there."

Deacon shook his head stubbornly. "She wouldn't want to see you like this."

Amari opened her mouth to say something - and it probably wasn't "You're so right Deacon. I've seen the error of my ways." - when Irma's voice floated down from above, interrupting their argument.

"Amari, honey? You've got someone up here. Sweet little thing with a dog bite. Can I send her down?"

"Yes," Amari called back shortly. Deacon rose to go and she fixed him with a sharp glare. "Stay. Someone comes in this time of night, they're often trouble."

"Yes ma'am," he responded cheerfully, stretching out and making himself comfortable on a cot, to all appearances completely relaxed. Deacon never relaxed, not really. There was always something to watch out for, and he eyed the woman descending the stairs with his usual overabundance of caution. She didn't look like a raider, but no one was above suspicion.

She was moving slowly, gripping the bannister as if it was all that was keeping her upright. As she drew closer, Deacon decided that Irma had made a mistake in calling this one a "sweet little thing." Maybe she was just being nice. The stranger was young, yes, but that meant less than nothing. Early-to-mid-twenties, maybe, meaning she'd already exceeded the average life expectancy. Thin, but wiry, and solid enough to be a threat. Visibly exhausted, but vigilant and potentially dangerous for it.

Amari had her back turned to her patient, pulling out bandages, antiseptic, and a suture kit, washing her hands before and after. Deacon knew better than to assume the doctor was being cavalier after her safety. She might have been a vaultie, once, but that was years ago and she had learned her lesson, time and again. If Deacon hadn't been there, she wouldn't have taken her eyes off of the visitor.

"What happened?" Amari asked curtly, still not looking at the newcomer. Sometimes Deacon wanted to shake her. Precious little remained of the kindness he'd seen in her when they first met, and he missed the person she had been, even as he knew very well why that person was gone.

"I got lost in the city as night fell. There was a big, green dog. I ran. I climbed. I eventually shot it, but it got my calf in its jaws first. That was an hour or so ago. It was pure luck I found this settlement." Quiet and level, she almost sounded bored. Certainly, her gaze was a million miles away, as if the situation held no interest at al to her.

"Goodneighbor is a last chance kind of a place," Amari said, a little more gently. "If you have any weapons, give them to my bodyguard to hold. You can have them back when you leave."

The woman nodded and held out a hunting knife and a fancy pistol to Deacon, who stood lazily to take them from her hands. He shot Amari an amused look, and she glared right back.

Bodyguard, huh? She owes me some caps, then.

"Nice plasma defender," he commented casually, setting them aside. "I haven't seen one of these in a long time." Nor had he. Adam's Air Force Base had been, what, six years ago? He generally tried to forget that day. It wasn't that every plasma weapon was one of… theirs. That class of weapon just wasn't very common in the Commonwealth.

The stranger's eyes flashed at him. "It's not mine. I hate energy weapons. I'm just holding it for someone." Every syllable was an effort of will. Her head drooped to her chest and Deacon reached out to put his hand on her back, intending to help her lie down. Poor thing was practically asleep already. She recoiled from his touch, straightening up, and he stepped back hurriedly.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. "Sorry. I'm… sorry. Really. You can rest if you're comfortable doing so. I'm going to sit over here now." He retreated to his cot and swung his legs carelessly over the edge, resting empty hands palm-upward on his lap. The universal sign for I'm not going to hurt you. He hoped she could read it.

She nodded, but didn't look away from him or make any move to lie down. Deacon saw fury and fear there, and he filed that away, all the while pretending nothing had happened.

"Where are you from?" There was a battered Pip-Boy on her wrist and he had made his own assumptions, but he liked to be sure. Another straggler from Vault 81?

She shifted position, sighed, and sank down a little further. "Vegas."

Deacon had about a hundred follow-up questions to this extraordinary claim. He chose one at random.

"Which vault are you from? Was it the one with a panther? I've always thought that sounded fun."

She stared at him uncomprehendingly and might have said something, but Amari was finally done with her preparations.

"Scoot back. Lift it onto the table. Roll up your pant leg as high as it will go."

The woman obliged, turning her head away as Amari began to paint the lacerations with whatever foul-smelling liquid she'd concocted for this purpose.

Amari slipped into lecture mode. "Animal bites fester. Do you understand how infection starts?"

"Yes. My… father was… is a doctor." Deacon's ears pricked up at this. Do mine ears deceive me? A lie. Or a partial one.

Amari paused slightly at this, then continued brusquely. "Good. I'm going to clean this thoroughly and cover it with a sterile dressing. You must keep it clean and dry and come back if you notice heat or redness around the wound, or any fever at all. I don't have enough supplies to offer you prophylactic antibiotics, even if you could afford it. I don't have many stimpaks to spare either, but I'll sell you one."

She shook her head and winced as Amari worked, staying silent until the doctor pronounced it done. Looking straight at the doctor for the first time, she asked dully, "Do you have radaway? My count's high. We ran out weeks ago."

Something in Amari's face changed, shock replacing indifference. She sucked in a sudden breath of air and Deacon looked at her curiously. His old acquaintance never gave that much away to strangers and any reaction was out of the ordinary. After too long of a pause, she answered in a strangled voice. "Yes. It will cost you, though."

The patient gave no sign that she'd noticed anything odd. "I can pay. If… uh, if you accept caps here. I hope you do because that's all I have. God. What am I going to do?" This nonsequitur, delivered in a toneless, dispassionate voice, seemed rhetorical, and neither Deacon nor Amari had an answer to it.

Amari hung the bag of homemade radiation treatment and Deacon noticed that her hands were trembling. Somehow, she got the needle into the proferred arm, then jerked her hands away like she'd been burned.

Voice slurring a little from the sedating effect of the radiation treatment, the stranger asked, "Can I stay here? Just for tonight? I haven't slept in two days."

"Of co-" Deacon began, but Amari cut him off severely.

"No. This is a surgery, not a boarding house. You can go pay your ten caps at the hotel like everybody else. You owe me sixty caps."

Without a word of protest, the woman slipped to the floor, sitting down next to her pack and pulling out a leather bag bearing scorch marks and holes. She dumped out a mess of rusty camps, some of which were mangled, others fused together as if by extreme heat. She didn't see the look Deacon exchanged with the doctor, anger on his part… and was that fear from the other?

This is getting weirder and weirder.

She sorted caps into stacks of ten, prying some off of the semi-melted lump. After long minutes, she pushed a sizable pile aside and swept the rest back into the bag. It took her a long time to stand, hands and knees first, then grasping the leg of the table to pull herself up. Deacon struggled against an impulse to assist her, but knew better than to offer help again.

With a mumbled "thanks," she picked up her weapons and left.

Deacon waited until the uneven footsteps had reached the top of the stairs before he exploded on his oldest living friend. "Are you that desperate to get your fix, Amari?" he asked furiously. "You and I both know you've let people stay here before."

"You don't understand," Amari growled with uncharacteristic ferocity, picking up her payment gingerly as if it was a heap of vile refuse. "Besides, she's a complete stranger. And you are also intruding now. Good night, Deacon. Tell Irma I'm done until morning unless it's Hancock himself."

He didn't respond immediately to the dismissal, but stared at her for a long moment, trying to puzzle out the mystery. Amari was cold, but she wasn't cruel. Something more was going on here.

"Do you know her?" he asked at last. He didn't know how she could, but it was the only explanation that made sense.

"Get out," she hissed, truly angry now.

Deciding he'd waited long enough, he too climbed the stairs. He had one more job to do tonight.

o - o - o - o - o

Head hanging down and limping badly, the formerly-vigilant woman didn't notice hungry eyes spotting her for an easy mark. Nor did she think anything of the danger of stopping, just for a moment, to lean against a broken lamppost to take the weight off of her leg.

Deacon saw all of this - and he was fully Deacon now, despite his disguise, since Handsome D wasn't the sort to take unnecessary risks for lost, lame ducks. He moved swiftly. Like a paramour copping a feel, his arm snaked around the would-be predator's waist and his knife found the man's heart before he could cry out. Deacon was good at things like this. He'd had a lot of practice. No one had noticed; even if they had, no one in Goodneighbor would have cared.

He let the dead weight slip to the ground and continued his unseen escort mission until the wounded stranger had reached the relative safety of the hotel. That was all he could do without tipping his hand.

Call it an investment in a potential resource.

o - o - o - o - o

When she was alone in the basement that had become her whole world, much smaller than the vault she'd once known, Amari stood still for a long time before she moved to her desk and opened a drawer. Inside was a lightweight pistol, one she hadn't fired in six years. She checked the chambers to find it fully loaded, then replaced it carefully, pulling a single sheet of paper over it.

Provisions thus complete, she climbed into the memory pod and navigated to one of her hundreds of simulations, an assortment of memories, fantasies, and muddled combinations thereof. A lifetime worth of dreams. Her personal archive was voice-activated. Only she could access these files.

Her voice was steady as she summoned the memory she needed. Maybe, just maybe, she'd made a mistake.

"Raven Rock Expedition. Day Four. From the beginning."

o - o - o - o - o

Miles away and deep underground, Arcade Gannon woke to a nightmare.