A/N - I can't express to you how disappointed I was when I found out that Deacon was not romanceable. Nick, I get. Deacon? Not so much. This story feeds my need for some Deacon + Sole Survivor, since I couldn't get it in the game.

He didn't think she would actually do it, right up until the moment she stepped into the Molecular Relay. Really though, given everything else she's been through and done in her search to find her son, he should have expected it. The chances of the teleportation succeeding in taking her to the Institute were good, according to Tinker Tom, and sure, Tom's a friend and he's done some amazing things for the Railroad and the synths they work so hard to free, but he tends to waver between complete paranoia and schizophrenia even on good days. Deacon has his doubts as to whether Tom's predictions of the Molecular Relay actually working as a teleportation device are overly optimistic or delusional. It's quite possible they are both.

"We're going to have to cut a few corners with the scan," Tom calls out, his fingers working so fast that they're a blur as he manipulates the dials and switches on the control panel. "So stand still, we gotta lock in all those molecules of yours. Hopefully we don't miss any—there's only 60 trillion of them!"

"Fuck me," MacCready mutters under his breath, taking a nervous drag from his cigarette. Beside him, Piper looks like she just choked on her bubblegum.

Deacon, for what is probably the first time in his life, has nothing to say. He just keeps his eyes fixed on the dark haired woman, and while he's hoping that she'll come to her senses and get far away from the whirring contraption she's standing in, he knows her better than that. She'll risk anything—everything—if it gets her even a step closer to finding her son.

Codsworth moves closer to the Relay and says, "Do be safe, mum, and good luck finding young master Shaun!"

"Thanks, Codsworth, but don't get too close or you'll get fried." Nora shoes him back with a warm smile.

"Don't you worry about us," Nick snorts, "you just look after yourself, and be prepared for anything when you get there, alright?"

She grins, reassuring him, "I will, I promise."

Paladin Danse is taking her advice to heart, as he's standing well away from the cluster of generators and conduits while watching in his protective suit of power armor.

"All right, feeding our baby some juice!" Tom announces, "let's see what she's got!" He twists a knob and the entire machine shudders, sending a crackle of sparks spraying out in every direction.

Ignoring the fireworks, Desdemona hurries forward and pushes something into Nora's hand. "Take this holotape—you need it to contact Patriot!" She's in the process of backing up when the Relay convulses again, this time with enough force that the woman inside has to fight to keep her footing on the platform.

"Oh man! Don't worry, that's all part of the plan!" Tom frantically cries out and flips a couple of switches, but gauging from the crackle of electricity in the air, it doesn't help.

Des raises her hand to shield her face from the sparks, giving some last instructions, "Do whatever you can to gain their trust! Lie, tell them what they want to hear, make up a cover story and sell it!"

"Come on, I think I've got it! Establishing lock on the Institute signal!" Tinker Tom shouts.

The machine vibrates even harder but instead of backing up like any sane person would do, Deacon moves closer. Des is calling out last orders, but he can barely hear her over the din the Molecular Relay is making, cracking and popping with so much force he feels like he's standing on the edge of a lightning storm. If Deacon had hair, he is pretty sure it'd be standing on end.

Nora, well, she's in the heart of the storm, so to speak. She nods at whatever Des is hollering and then turns her head to look Deacon, opening her mouth to say something, but it's lost in a thunderous explosion of light and sound that sends out a shockwave hard enough to knock them all to the ground.

His ears are still ringing when he can finally sit up again, and the Molecular Relay is nothing but a blackened husk of warped steel. Nora is gone.

Things pretty much go to hell in a hand basket from there, despite Tinker Tom's desperate attempts to assure everyone that everything has gone exactly as planned.

Hancock and Cait get wasted. MacCready gets drunk. Codsworth goes from being the most polite and upbeat Mr. Handy in the Commonwealth to a blubbering mess obsessed with dusting everything in sight so that everything will be properly clean when 'Mum and young Master' return.

Danse says something sententious about soldiers dying in the line of duty, and if it isn't ironic Nick Valentine's mechanical hand is the only thing that keeps Deacon from shooting the sanctimonious blowhard in the head, he doesn't know what is.

While Desdemona and Tinker Tom argue about what they need to do next, Deacon, Piper and Nick make some plans of their own. Piper heads back to Diamond City to chase some leads. Goodneighbor is Nicky's destination, as he's hoping Doctor Amara can scrape some more useful memories of the Institute outside of that cybernetic brainpan of his, with the help of Kellogg's implants.

As for Deacon, well, he's headed back to what's left of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology. He's not sure he can take a courser down by himself, but with a little bit—ok, with a LOT of luck, he figures it's the best shot he's got at following her to the Institute and getting her out of whatever shitstorm she might have found herself in.

It takes him the better part of that day and the next to make it to the CIT ruins. The place is barren, except for the bodies of the synths and super mutants he and Nora left lying around when they were there last. He finds a good lookout point on the top floor of a nearby building, one that gives him a clear view of the campus, and settles in to wait.

Two days later and he hasn't seen a single synth, much less a courser. There's a pair of dead raiders being pecked by crows at the other end of the block, so the trip hasn't been a total waste. He's dozing against the wall when there's a flash of light so bright that it pierces clear through his closed eyelids, jolting him upright. He fumbles for his sniper rifle, peers through the scope in the direction of CIT and then nearly drops his gun because there she is, standing right on the front steps of the rotunda.

Exhaling a long breath he didn't even realize he was holding, he examines her through the sights. Physically, she seems unharmed, but something just seems off about her, and it takes him a moment to put his finger on what. After travelling with her all over the Commonwealth, he knows her face so well he'd recognize her from this distance with or without the scope, and he's seen her angry, cheerful, sad, even scared shitless—and with good reason, deathclaws scare the shit out of him too. But he has never seen anything resembling the complete lack of emotion he sees in her features right now. In fact, her expression is so carefully neutral it's like she has a mask on.

And then it hits him—what if they've replaced her with a synth? And he's totally at a loss, because he doesn't know what he'll do if she's gone.

Deacon looks through the sights again, sees her take a deep breath and look around with the bearing of someone who knows that they are being watched. Oddly enough, her behavior reassures him, because it just doesn't seem like a synth would be worried about being watched. Instead, he thinks that they'd be laser focused on whatever their mission is. Holding to that tendril of hope, he watches as she hefts her backpack, shoulders her heavily modified laser rifle, and trots down the street, following the river to the northeast.

It only takes him a few moments to grab up his gear and race down the stairs after her.

He shadows her for a few hours, and it takes all of his skill at tailing someone to stay out of her sight, especially since she seems to be showing paranoia worthy of Tinker Tom himself. She passes south of Bunker Hill, and seems to be heading toward County Crossing but stays clear of that as well, continuing due east toward the waterfront. Night falls and out here there are a lot fewer places for him to conceal himself, even with the added shadows darkness provides. If anything, she becomes even more cautious, checking all around with gun raised and ready to take out any threat she might encounter. He finds himself hiding behind trees and crouching behind the burnt out shells of cars at times to stay out of sight.

To make matters worse, it seems that her paranoia is not without reason when he realizes he is not the only one following her. He can't quite make out make out who or what it is—he knows it's not raiders, they make enough noise to wake the dead—he just knows there's more than one of them and they're keeping low and to the north.

Exhaustion seems to eat away at her, because her pace slackens and every step seems heavier than the previous. She heads toward a small cluster of houses and right before reaching them, whips around, raising her gun to fire a series of laser blasts in quick succession. A hunched form crouched a couple hundred yards to his left is enveloped in a glow of molten light that turns to a cloud of ash. The strangled yelp that pierces the night is a sure indication that she's hit a second. There's a skittering of paws on the ground and the rest of the feral mongrel pack flees, no doubt in search of easier prey.

Deacon stays right where he is, hunkered down behind a crumpled Nuka-Cola billboard, and grins when he hears her muffled curse split the night. The woman has no mercy when it comes to killing raiders and super mutants, but she absolutely hates to kill dogs, even the hairless ones that are barely recognizable as being the same species as Dogmeat. He waits a minute or so and emerges from behind the sign to see... nothing. Nora is nowhere to be seen. Straightening to his full height, he eyes the smattering of ruined homes by the riverside and figures she must have ducked into one of them.

Or not, he realizes when he feels the gun barrel nudge his shoulder. Turning to face her, he musters a broad grin and says, "Want me back on deck, hunh? I gotta admit, things have been pretty quiet without you."

Nora rolls her eyes, "I saw you hiding behind the bus when I was going past Bunker Hill. Deacon, is there a reason you've been following me instead of just joining me like usual?"

"I didn't get you a welcome back present, and I've been feeling guilty about it," the lie comes easy. "I had the willow flower vase all picked out and then I saw this amazing gold-plated lighter etched with the letter Z, and I was like, hey, if she turns it sideways, it'll be an N, so that could work too!"

Tilting her Minuteman hat back to study his face, he watches realization dawn. "You thought they replaced me with a synth? Really?" Somehow she manages to sound both incredulous and disappointed. "You really think they whipped up an exact copy of me in three days?"

Well, when she puts it that way, the idea does seem somewhat far-fetched, given the short amount of time that's passed. Giving her a sheepish shrug, he says, "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. Seriously, that might be the only way I stop lying. Though I guess it doesn't really stop me from talking, and if I'm talking, there's a good chance I'm lying..."

She brushes past him, shaking her head. "Come on, let's get out of sight. They've got cameras all over the Commonwealth."

He follows her, of course. He'd follow her anywhere.

The house Nora chooses to camp in isn't horrible, as far as ruined houses go. It's missing most of the top floor, but does have a nice view of the sound. The lights from Libertalia to the southeast are almost pretty. Almost. He's halfway surprised he can't hear the racetrack announcer from Easy City Downs.

Faint music can be heard coming from the radio in the little shop across the street. She turns on every single radio she comes across, regardless of location, is borderline obsessive about it. He can't deny that it's come in handy though, if raiders or scavvers come through the area where they are bunking down for the night, the first thing they'll do is investigate the noise. It has proven to be quite an effective way from being ambushed in the night.

Nora's sitting on one of the beams and looking out the window toward the floating city, her legs dangling down through the ceiling of the first floor living room while she nibbles on a piece of grilled radstag. He takes a drag from his cigarette and does his best to study her delicate features without outright staring. It's been his favorite past time almost since that day he first saw her wandering through Diamond City with Dogmeat. She looks absolutely exhausted, but that expressionless mask she had on earlier is gone.

"What made you think they had sent a synth back, and not me?" she breaks the silence, giving him a sidelong glance. "I know it had to be something specific, Deacon, you're cautious but not outright paranoid." A slight smile twists her lips, "That's Tinker Tom's specialty, not yours."

He stares down at the tip of his cig, flicks some ashes off of the end, considers his options. For once, he decides to go with the truth. "I can't really explain it. You just, hell, you didn't seem like yourself. You didn't look like Nora, the two hundred forty-ish year old Sole Survivor of Vault-Tec's experimental cryogenic preservation Vault 88 that I've come to know and..." he derails that train before it can go any further, clearing his throat. "It just wasn't you."

She nods, staring down at the radstag, rolling it between her fingers. "And now?"

"Jury's still out," he drawls, lifting his shoulder in a lazy shrug.

That elicits a snicker. Nora pops the rest of the meat into her mouth, sighing, "I don't know how you do it."

How can he resist an opportunity like that? He grabs it and runs. "Well, what happens is this—when a boy and a girl really really like each other...OW!" he yelps and rubs his shin where she kicked him.

"Serves you right," she huffs, crossing her arms. "I'm being serious here, I don't know how you do it, all the disguises, the acting, the lies. How do you keep everything straight? You practically change into a different person every time we walk into a new settlement, and me? I was in the Institute for what, three days tops, listening their bullshit and reasoning, and..." Her voice breaks, but she plows on, "I felt like I was having part of myself stripped away and replaced with something... something else. Something I hated. And I just had to go along with it, smile and nod to whatever they said and do whatever it took to get in their good graces, like Desdemona said to do."

Now he understands Nora's expression from earlier. Damn you, Desdemona, he privately curses the red-headed woman, though he can't begrudge the orders. It's the first time the Railroad has been able to infiltrate the Institute, and they are desperate for any kind of information they can get, regardless of the means. As one of the top field agents for the Railroad, he really should be trying to get any and all information he can out of her, but there's only one question he really has for her. "Did you find him?"

She exhales a long, shuddering breath. "Yes? I think so. Maybe?"

The uncertainty in her voice should be surprising, but given everything else that has happened, it isn't, not really. He doesn't say anything, just puts his cigarette out by scraping it on the floor and waits.

"After they lost contact with Kellogg, it was like they know that somehow, I'd find a way into the Institute. And he—Shaun—was waiting for me." Swallowing audibly, she wipes at her eyes as tears begin to stream down her face. "He is… he's very important to the Institute, especially to their bioscience division. He said they took him because since he was born before the war and cryogenically preserved, he has unmutated DNA, DNA they used to advance the production of the most advanced and humanlike synths by leaps and bounds. So he is standing right there in front of me, telling me how happy he is to finally meet me. He says he is my son, and I believe it, I do, but he is a complete stranger and I don't know him. And every time I saw him, all I could think about was how much of his life I've missed. I'll never see him learn to walk, never know what the first words he spoke were, see him lose his first tooth, take him to his first day of school… or any of that. I just want my baby boy back!" she chokes out, and seems to crumple in on herself as wracking sobs shake her entire frame.

For a moment, he is at a complete loss as to what to do, but then he moves to her side and wraps his arms around her to draw her close. She's the strongest woman he's ever met, but everyone has a breaking point, he knows it better than most. He'll be damned if he is going to let her grieve for her son and the time she has lost with him alone.

Nora curls into his side, weeping into his shoulder until the hot tears seep beyond the joints in his combat armor through the undershirt to his skin beneath. He doesn't tell her that everything will be alright—he doesn't know if it is true, and it's not a lie he's willing to tell. When her crying winds down into soft hiccups and sniffles, he says, "I'm a sucker for Old World Books. It must have been something living back then. I don't remember learning to read, but I definitely remember the first Grognak the Barbarian comic I ever read. Issue #2, 'Cometh the Trickster'. It was my brother's, and when I was reading it, I had to turn the pages just so, and only by the edges of the paper. I think I may still have bruises from how hard he hit me when I touched the art. Over the next couple of days, I drove everyone in the settlement batshit crazy pretending to be Grognak, complete with an axe I finagled together from a couple pieces of wood. When my mom got tired of it and took away my axe—I may or may not have whacked a few kids on the head with it—I just became the Trickster instead."

She makes a soft sound that conveys what he hopes is amusement, so he keeps talking. "Every book I read opened up a new character to play, a new world to my imagination, from a pirate to a mad hatter, a stableboy to an undercover cop rooting out corruption in my own city. The disguises help sell it, sure, but the only real limits are the number of characters in the books I read and my own imagination. There's always a new book to read, it's just a matter of finding them." It goes without saying that he has an excellent imagination, which is currently working overtime because emotional breakdown or no, he is finding it increasingly difficult not to think about how good she feels in his arms, how she might just be a perfect fit against his side, even with the bulk of the combat armor blocking the way.

"Got anything for mothers who have lost their sons?" she rasps, her voice hoarse from crying.

"Well, there's Oedipus the King, but I don't think that's a relationship you want to explore." There it is again, that quiet sound of amusement, this time accompanied by a distinct shake of her head. "Oh, how bout Grendel's mother? She took on Beowulf's entire army to avenge her son," he offers, but damn if those aren't the only two books that immediately come to mind out of everything he's read.

Nora considers that for a moment, tilts her head to look up at him while rubbing her cheek on his shoulder. "Didn't Grendel eat people?"

Ok, so maybe that was an even worse analogy. "Well, he did kill a few people, but in his defense, they kept having loud drinking parties on top of his den, and that'd make anyone grumpy. Sort of like living next door to a gang of raiders, right? Hell, I get grumpy just looking at raiders."

She's silent for a moment, and then asks, "What was your brother's name?"

"Laura."

At her incredulous look, he quirks his eyebrows and shrugs his unoccupied shoulder. "I know, right? Explains why he was so mean to me when we were growing up, he should have blamed Mom, not me, but nooooo."

That draws a soft giggle out of her, and he's feeling pretty damn smug about how good a job he's done at lightening the mood. That triumph is short lived, because she shifts in his arms like she's ready to pull away, so he reluctantly slackens his hold on her. But she only draws back a few inches, so she can look him square in the eyes when she tells him, "Deacon, you're a good man."

And she says it with such certainty that he can almost believe that it's true. But he knows himself better than anyone, so he calls her on it. "Liar."

A soft peal of laughter escapes her, and she gives him a rueful grin. "I learned from the best." She stares at him for a moment longer, growing more serious, quietly whispers, "Thank you." Then she leans forward and kisses him on the corner of his mouth.

He forgets how to breathe. Her lips are warm and soft on his face, and it's only when she wraps her arms around him to hug him tightly that his brain trips, nudges his body with a 'hey asshole, breathing is a good thing, cause fainting from lack of oxygen because of something as simple as a peck on the cheek (she kissed him!) isn't going to be easy to recover from' type thing, so he inhales, slow and deep, fills his lungs with air and the smell of her, raises his arms to hug her back with a quick squeeze and god he hopes it wasn't too fast—but he doesn't want it to be too long either because then it could potentially end up being awkward and what the hell is he doing other than overthinking things to a ridiculous degree at this point.

She draws back, looks at him as though trying to gauge his reaction. When a tiny frown appears on her face he is convinced that he's fucked up somehow (of course he has, lying isn't the only thing he specializes in) but all she does is take off his ever-present sunglasses. Without them, he feels naked, exposed.

"I just realized, I don't even know what color your eyes are." She squints in the dim light and sounds disappointed when she admits, "I still don't know. Light brown? Hazel?"

"Pink. Too much food paste during my misspent youth."

She sticks her tongue out at him before quoting, "The eyes are the window to the soul."

"...And the mouth is the door," he automatically finishes the rest of the quote. And now wishes he hadn't because her face is so close to his and it's taking a significant amount of his willpower to avoid staring at her lips.

She makes no such effort, her gaze immediately dropping down to his mouth. He knows her intent before she even starts to tilt forward, makes himself resist the urge to lean into the kiss, and oh, it's so soft, so sweet and gentle. Dimly, he wonders if this is what all first kisses were like before the Great War, because his and Barbara's first kiss had been the result of alcohol induced bravery on his part and pity on hers, he's always suspected.

He responds to it, how can he not when he finds her irresistible? The kiss deepens, becomes something less experimental and more meaningful so he pulls her closer to him. Judging from how her arms slip around his shoulders, she doesn't mind. But when something clatters on the first floor directly below them, he jerks away, grabs at his sniper rifle...

Nora is laughing. "I dropped your glasses," she admits, holding her hand up to her mouth.

Sighing with exaggerated patience, he sets his gun back down. "Good thing I keep a couple of spare pair, just in case. Saying, 'Not in the face!' doesn't seem to work too well against raiders, as it turns out. In fact, it kinda has the opposite effect." He is bordering on rambling, but she must be used to it by now. A quick pat of a thigh pocket on his pants later, he pulls out the extra glasses and puts them on with no small amount of showmanship. "Whew, that's much better. All that light was blinding."

It's dark outside and there's only a sliver of moon and starlight to provide any natural light, so she gives him a well-deserved look before peering down to the first floor. The electric lights from Libertalia happen to catch her gaze and her light mood evaporates. Reluctantly, she informs him, "I've been given a task by the Institute. 'Synth Retention'. I've done a few odds and ends around the labs, but this is my first big assignment in the Commonwealth. To help me with gaining their trust and proving that I've actually got their interests in mind."

Deacon scowls and looks in the direction of the floating raider city. "Some synth has been captured by raiders in Libertalia, and they expect you to just hand him over? The hell with that, let's go get him out of there."

Wincing, she shakes her head. "Yeah, uh, that's not exactly the case here. As it turns out the leader of the Libertalia raiders is a synth named Gabriel. I guess freedom of will also means freedom to make bad decisions."

That information puts her mission in a whole new light. "What are they going to do with him?" And he's not saying he'll go along with whatever they've got planned, but Libertalia is bad news for everyone in the Commonwealth, and if there's a synth at the head of it, it's just going to make things worse for all synths if the knowledge comes to light.

"Take him back into the fold, is the impression I got. I don't like it, but at least if we do it their way, there's a chance we can get him out again, especially now that I've got contacts on the inside. But that's not the worst part."

"Uh-oh."

"Yeah, uh-oh is right. To make sure I mind my p's and q's, they're making me team up with a courser."

He whistles, "That's not good, because it will be able to report back on how you do to the Institute, good or bad."

"Exactly. That said, my understanding is that I'm being given autonomy here, so the courser is supposed to follow my lead and assist where needed without interfering. It will have a recall code to deactivate Gabriel when we find him, and then transport him back to the Institute with a courser relay."

"Working with a courser to invade a heavily fortified floating raider camp so we can kidnap a synth and return him to the Institute? Sounds like awesome fun to me," he says with dry humor and then frowns when he sees the enormous yawn she tries to hide behind her hand. "And it's awesome fun that will wait till tomorrow, when you've had a chance to get some sleep."

The fact that she doesn't even argue, just scoots across the floor to lay down on the mattress against the wall is proof of her exhaustion. While she gets settled, he lights up another cigarette and is settling in for a few hours of guard duty when she calls his name. "Deacon?"

"Yeah?" he responds, puffing on his cig. She still hasn't said anything by the time he's blown the smoke out, so he glances over to see her just looking at him, one arm tucked up under head and the other by her side, hand clenching into a fist. It doesn't take a genius to see that she's got something she wants to say that she is either reluctant to divulge, or struggling to find words for. Given what happened earlier, he figures he knows what it is in regards to. And of course she is regretting it now, because what normal woman would want to get caught up with the likes of him, given his past? "Don't worry about it, it won't happen again," he says with forced nonchalance and takes another drag.

"What?" She sounds genuinely confused.

He exhales a couple of smoke rings, giving himself a few moments to muster up the balls to say it out loud, "I get it, you're having second thoughts the kiss from earlier, hell who wouldn't? It won't happen again. I'll keep my distance." Just saying the words hurts, but not nearly as much as following through on his promise will.

Nora is silent for a such a long time that he thinks she's satisfied with his answer and has gone to sleep. But then she says with some irritation, "Well, what if I don't want you to keep your distance?"

Wait, what? Taken aback, he looks over to see her sitting up and glaring at him. Shit.

"Look, buster, I kissed you, not the other way around, so you haven't got jack shit to be sorry about. And while we're on the subject, I've been wanting to do it for a while, but believe it or not it's been kind of a pain in the ass to find time for intimacy in between fighting raiders, synths and super mutants. So if you're finished throwing yourself on your sword of good intentions, what I was going to say was that I'm sorry that things are so damn complicated. Maybe after we figure out what to do about the Institute and Shaun, things will calm down and everything will get back to some semblance of normal." She crosses her arms and waits for his response with poorly concealed impatience.

Deacon just stares at her, bemused, and flicks ashes off the tip of his cigarette. "Lady, I don't think you and normal go along in the same sentence. And if you doubt that, just take a good look at the people you got following you. A liar, a patriot, a Paladin, a ghoul, a merc, Mr. Handy and a former cage fighter. You're more than two hundred years old, and you can teleport in and out of a secret organization that is basically the boogeyman of Commonwealth. Does any of that sound normal to you?"

The corner of her mouth twitches. "Well, no..."

He flips his cig into the open air and goes over to her side to take her hand in his before squeezing it. "Sorry about that. I'm so used to... I just... I..." He hesitates, swallows, tries to find the right words to explain. Finally, he asks in a low voice, "Can you ever escape your past? God, I hope so."

Her fingers tighten around his and she draws his hand up to her mouth to press a soft kiss on his knuckle. "You can, if you let yourself," she tells him, and the way she says it with such utter conviction, it makes him think that maybe, possibly, it really can happen. All he knows is that he's got a much better chance of succeeding with her at his side than he does alone.

"So... how are we? Are we good?" Nora asks worriedly, rubbing her cheek on the back of his hand.

His smile comes easy, and so do the words. "The load always seems a little lighter, and the steps seem to come a little faster when I'm with you, friend. We're good."

She arches an eyebrow at him. "Friend? Seriously? That's all I am to you, is just a friend?"

"Yep."

Snorting, she calls his bluff by tugging on his arm until his face is inches away from hers. "Liar," she whispers.

"Damn straight," he agrees and kisses her.