A/N: Hello all~! Welcome back to Winona's story, continuing on back with her side of things of course! I must confess, this'll be a sort of dialogue-heavy chapter revealing a bit more of what happened to Purity before James' abandonment, so I hope it doesn't leave too many of you bored with a fuller introduction to some new characters! Next update, we'll be back with Butch and hopefully that'll be a bit more action-packed for y'all.

As always, reviews/feedback/constructive criticism, likes, favorites, etc. etc. are welcome, and I hope you enjoy!

Happy reading, happy writing!

~Konfessionist, signing out

Winona sat at a two-top in Gary's Galley in the marketplace, slumped down in her chair with her eyes panning between the random dirty faces of the shopping crowd, watching them hop from stall to stall, examining wares and haggling prices. The lunch rush struck Rivet City, and every citizen seemed to gather on the market deck to shop and eat, gossiping and milling about and enjoying the leisure time. She couldn't sleep after Harriet left to talk to Mei, and she rightly assumed that the mercenary probably wouldn't be back for some time if the reunion left the two women with a lot of things to catch up on and talk about—so Winona left her cold hotel room, leaving a note for Harriet to meet her in the marketplace, and then trudged downstairs to treat herself to lunch.

She could've gone to see Madison, but… she wasn't ready.

Not without Harriet with her.

The inventor went about her people watching with a hand wrapped around a warmed coffee mug, her thoughts wandering away to other things; she watched a young mother with her daughter at one of the clothing stalls, holding up a dress to her malnourished child to gauge if it'd be too big; she watched an old man picking over the menu board at Gary's counter as a restless, aggravated line built up behind him; she watched two guards in the center of all the coming and going of the crowds, laughing amongst themselves with shouldered assault rifles, failing to notice two boys that rushed by them with faces twisted into plans for troublemaking. They passed Winona's table, and she recognized one boy as the one Harriet dubbed No Shoes. The other was the teenager, Overalls, who was with Peter yesterday getting reamed by Harkness.

Overalls gave her a passive nod when their eyes locked, and it felt like he was silently relaying something to her. 'Our business is over', he seemed to say, and she sure hoped it was, because she was getting really fucking sick of being followed.

"Spicy 'lurk cakes on grits!" A young waitress appeared table side and slid the meal toward Winona with practiced expertise, the plate scuttling to a halt in front of her. "Anything else I can get you? Refill on coffee? It's free. We've got water, chilled, even, and it's cheaper than the Weatherly by the bottle. If you're staying there, we can send some up to your room, too, for a couple caps extra." She laughed then, warm and sweet. "Just don't tell Miss Weatherly!"

The waitress couldn't have been any older than 15 or 16, a striking starry-eyed blonde, and her bright smile matched the normalcy of the marketplace. Today was just like any other day in the city. Winona expected things to be different, for the world to change, for someone to just know what she'd done to Sister and come right for her with furious accusations over his whereabouts… but no, today really was like any other day.

A mother bought her daughter a pretty new dress.

An old man finally decided on steak and eggs.

R-cest returned to their morning watch.

Peter's boys still roamed the crowds, invisible to most everyone.

A young waitress looked at her expectantly for a response.

And none of them knew what she had done.

"I'm fine, thanks." Winona replied in finality, returning the waitress' smile with a fragile nod.

"You seemed real deep in thought over here—hated to come over and bother you," She admitted, her own smile leveling kindly. "I'm Angela if you need anything, okay? Not Angie, I hate that name. Just Angela's fine!"

"I'll remember that." Winona reassured and Angela went on her way, smiling all the while, to seat the indecisive old man. The inventor went back to people watching with a few sips of coffee, waiting patiently for her steaming plate of food to cool despite the grumbling of her empty stomach.

She didn't know how she managed an appetite after this morning. What bothered her wasn't the fact that she orchestrated another man's murder, slaver or not, deserved it or not; it all mattered very little to her when she wasn't a killer at heart. What really bothered her was the fact that she wasn't—… bothered. Past murders she committed seeded the shrapnel of guilt inside her, and so she readily expected and accepted for Sister's end to hurt her just as well, but recognizing that it didn't, troubled her more than she cared to admit. Had the Wasteland finally twisted her all up inside? Was she accepting that this was what the rest of her life would be, her own survival at the cost of others? Or did she have no regrets because she did it for the sake of a friend? For the freedom of a group of survivors? Because she had already accepted it?

The deeper Winona looked into herself, the more confused and saddened she felt at the lack of answers. It wasn't until her food grew cold and her coffee cup was nearly empty did she force herself to accept that this disconnect made for a reluctant gift; look no further, nothing to see here, move right along with your day! If it wasn't hurting her, then she wouldn't go looking for something that could.

Just another day in the Wasteland, she repeated to herself reassuringly until it rang numb in her thoughts, echoing until it's death, and then she picked up her fork and dug into her meal, and holy shitif it wasn't the best thing she'd eaten since leaving Tenpenny Tower—

"You gunna let me in on that or what?" A voice inquired, and when she looked up, Harriet stood over her on the other side of the restaurant's rope barrier, strapped into a fleece-lined winter jacket with the tip of her nose and apples of her cheeks chilled red. Swinging a leg over the mottled velvet rope, Winona gladly handed over her only fork to share as the mercenary plopped into the empty chair across from her and pulled the plate closer.

"Hey!" Winona greeted, relieved that she was no longer alone to her thoughts. "How was your talk with Mei? How'd she take the news?"

"Just glad the whole thing's over with." She replied shortly with a mouthful of crab cakes, holding the fork like a shovel in one hand as her other haphazardly shucked off her jacket to get comfortable. "We didn't talk much."

"How's that? You were gone for hours—"

"Took a walk outside." Harriet explained with an eye lifting to the inventor's face. "Had some stuff t'think about."

"Anything you're willing to share with the class?" The inventor teased, but her smile faltered on the rim of her coffee cup when Harriet's expression was nothing but serious. She set down her cup. "…Is everything alright?"

Harriet paused in her eating then, her body stiff and resistant. Her eye faltered from Winona's face, looking about the crowded restaurant, and Winona was getting worried because Harriet wasn't the type to stall like this—she wasn't the type who didn't just say it outright—

"I'm gunna quit the Talon."

Winona's brows skyrocketed to her hairline to accommodate the bulging of her eyes in shock. Harriet was quitting? Harriet? Quitting? She fumbled for the words clumsily like a handful of pocket change just as Angela appeared beside them with a doting smile and a notepad in hand.

"Welcome to Gary's Galley! Can I get you anything?" She asked, looking to Harriet.

"Beer. Keep 'em comin' when I run empty," She answered gruffly.

"We don't run tabs for out of towners," The waitress explained with a quirked brow, and Harriet easily understood the implication as she handed off some caps in annoyance. "Thanks, I'll be back with your drink!"

"You're quitting?" Winona crowed once Angela left. "Why?"

"'Cause I never planned on stayin' with them forever, figure now's as good a time as any to call it quits." She admitted candidly as she took advantage of Winona's shock, fork in hand, to dig into the rest of the crab cakes. "When I escaped from Philly, I needed protection in case the Families sent someone after me to collect my body parts—thought that stickin' with the people with a fortified HQ, a bad reputation, and a fuck ton of guns was my best bet. Worked out alright in the end, I guess. Nearly died only once on this mission so's I think it'sa sign of good luck or somethin', like endin' on a high note."

"…What made up your mind?" Winona inquired and Harriet's eye lifted to her face again, as if startled mid-chew. Stalling yet again, she took the time to finish the reminder of what was in her mouth and handed the fork back to her.

"…Guess all this shit with Mei did," She confessed, as if she hadn't considered any deeper reasoning behind her decision until now. "Gettin' rid of Sister for her an' the others—… guess it made somethin' click in me. Dunno. Made me realize I don't need the protection anymore… like I took a little piece of me back."

It stunned Winona to hear Harriet admit to all that she did, and for the inventor to know that Harriet trusted her enough to even say any of this made her heart swell. It was nearly a struggle to remember that they actually thoroughly disliked each other at one time, almost as if it had come from a lifetime ago. Shit, everything out here felt like it happened a lifetime ago, even when it only happened a day or two before.

"So—… what's the plan, then? When you quit? Will they even let you?" She inquired with her face twisting suddenly in realization. "What about Burke?"

"Bein' a mercenary doesn't exactly have the 'job security' folks think it does," Harriet said with a cynical chuckle and a non-committal shrug. "Mercs get shot, injured, dismembered, killed, whatever all the time. Talon's a revolving door and they'll find someone else, it's just the good ones that're hard t'come by. Don't give a shit 'bout Burke or what he thinks, and—… fuck, dunno what I'll do when I get outta my contract. Probably make my way outta DC once we get your old man back to the Tower and just see where the road takes me."

Angela reappeared with Harriet's beer and dropped it off at the table with a cheery 'enjoy!' before rushing away to service another table. The bottle was already opened with the cap gone, and Winona heard the mercenary mutter 'cheap fuckers' to herself around a grumbling swig.

"You can stay with me until you figure out what you're gunna do," The inventor offered, and Harriet stared back at her, stunned. "I mean it. You don't have to stick around, sure—you could fuck off to the moon if you wanna—but if you decide you're gunna be around a little longer, I'm here."

"At Tenpenny?" She inquired with a quirked brow. "You're gunna stay there, then?"

"Not unless Burke trips into a deathclaw nest with a grenade taped to his face before we get back," She uttered violently while reclining back in her chair, an arm folded over the back, one knee crossed over the other with a bouncing foot, and Harriet nearly spat out her drink in a surprised laugh. "I've got my own plans once we find my dad, and they don't involve Tenpenny Tower or anyone that lives there. Especially Burke."

"Bad blood with him?"

"Nah, I just hate his fucking guts." Winona responded with caustic sarcasm.

"Couldn't've happened to a shittier guy, I'm sure," Harriet rejoiced with a mock toast of her beer, which Winona reciprocated with the clinking of her coffee mug to her bottle. "What'd Li say 'bout your old man, anyway?"

"…I haven't talked to her yet… had my own things to think about." Winona sighed with her free hand ruffling back through her short hair, shaking her head.

"…You wanna share with the class—?" Harriet offered, albeit awkwardly, and the inventor smiled in reassurance that there wouldn't be any more emotional discussions for today.

"Let's just getta move on today." Winona spoke as she finished her coffee and the last few bites of the meal. Harriet's drink met a similar fate as she took up her coat, and the inventor left a generous tip with Angela just as they vacated the table.

With the lunch rush over, the dissipating wave of shoppers drained from the market deck to flood the exits, and the two waded through the crowds to the midship deck. The October weather chilled the hallways, leeching itself into every crevice of the ship to leave no corner untouched and no resident safe from the impending winter where the metal would surely freeze in the lower floors, and foreboding whispers in the halls detailed snow in the coming harsh months. Winona would be lying if she said she wasn't excited about the possibility of snow, and she could easily envision herself standing up on the hangar deck with a mug of coffee, bundled up in jackets, watching it fall and settle across the Wasteland to catch everything in a crisp layer of white that smothered out the gray and brown.

Now wasn't that an idea, moving to Rivet City? She hadn't even thought about where she would go when she ultimately gave the finger to Tenpenny Tower, but the ship was an excellent choice for relocation; the bending of the hallways, the ample guards, the tight quarters, and the floods of people reminded her heavily of Vault 101. The place came with familiarity... it came with comfort, so maybe moving here wasn't all that crazy of an idea.

Madison's here, too, she mused to herself daringly, maybe I could help her in the lab and get it back up on its feet. She could probably use the help with all those budget cuts this council pulled on her. Maybe dad can come back and they can work together again, too.

That only solidified her resolve in making Rivet City a potential home as the two came around the bend of the hallway to the Science Bay door. Winona buzzed the intercom apprehensively upon remembering her interactions with that asshole Agincourt from yesterday, and she hoped she wouldn't have to talk to him a second time.

"Dr. Kaplinski, to whom am I speaking?" A woman answered politely, much to Winona's relief.

"Hi, Dr. Kaplinski, my name's Winona Parker. Dr. Li's expecting me today—is she in?"

"Oh, wonderful! You're finally here!" The woman responded with height in her voice. "Dr. Li's just finishing up on some paperwork, but you're more than welcome to come inside! I'll unlock the door for you, just make sure you shut it tight when you come in, alright? You should hear the seal."

The intercom clicked off and the door's hydraulic seal hissed in release before the door popped open, a buzzer on the other side chiming in admittance. Winona stepped onto the catwalk as Harriet dutifully pulled the door behind them until it vacuumed shut and the buzzer stopped, leaving them to pan their eyes over the railing at the busy hum of scientists and doctors down below. Harriet ushered an impressed whistle to herself at the various machinery and experiments surrounding them, and on the bottom level, a woman with a short brunette bob and a lab coat over a dingy yellow gingham dress, Dr. Kaplinski, Winona assumed, waved for them to come down.

As the two pattered down the staircase, Winona didn't notice until they drew closer that Dr. Kaplinski had frozen up with wide eyes and mouth agape in astonishment at the sight of her.

"Dr. Kaplinski, right—?" She inquired politely while sticking out a hand to shake.

After an absentminded beat, the woman spurned into action with a frazzled nod and took Winona's hand into both of hers to shake. "Yes, yes—! Sorry, yes, that's me! I'm Dr. Kaplinski. My God, I can't believe you're actually here! In front of me! It's so nice to finally meet you—well—I mean—we've met before, but you weren't even a week old then, so I figure you wouldn't remember any of that—!"

When Dr. Kaplinski realized she was still clutching Winona's hand all throughout her rambling, she clumsily dropped it with an apologetic smile.

"So- Sorry," She mumbled awkwardly and then cleared her throat as if it'd help to recollect herself "Dr. Li told us you were here, and I suppose we're all a little—… overly eager to see you. She conveniently left out how much you look like Catherine. Your mom, I mean, she was a petite woman, too—oh, except for your hair, of course, and goodness you have your dad's eyes! They were always so striking—I'm sorry, I'm sorry, this is probably a little weird for you since you don't even know me, and I'm probably being super embarrassing—"

"No worries," Winona said with a sheepish laugh and then motioned to Harriet beside her. "This is my friend, Harriet, by the way. Hope you don't mind she's here."

"Hey." The mercenary replied woodenly… only after Winona ribbed her with a bony elbow into responding.

"Nice to meet you! And not at all, a friend of yours is a friend of ours," Janice said brightly in Harriet's direction. "We're all a little like family here, so you both can call me Janice! Or aunt Janice, if you like, Winona. I always hoped you'd call me that… a- anyway, let me introduce you to everyone else," Turning away, she pointed at the other people dotted around the room as she listed them off. "That's Alex Dargon over there with his apprentice, Theo—her name's Theodora but she hates it so we all call her 'Theo'—that's Anna Holt—back there's our handyman, Raphael Garza, and up on the ladder there is Daniel Agincourt, our chief engineer. Our other apprentice Mitch is around here somewhere, but he always seems to disappear when you need him and then reappear when you don't… he's fantastically bright and fantastically odd. We have a couple other scientists around, too, but they're out today—"

"Is that Winona?" Another female scientist—Dr. Anna Holt, as Janice had introduced her—strode over with a clipboard in hand, the smallest of smiles on her face as if it wasn't so accustomed to baring one, and she stuck her hand out to shake firmly. "I'm Dr. Anna Holt. You may refer to me by first name. It's so nice to see you again after all this time, I'm sure Dr. Kaplinski was just telling you we both worked on Purity with your parents and Dr. Li."

"We weren't really—" Janice counteracted, shooting Anna with a prickly a look that suggested she intended on getting around to it. Eventually.

"I know you both were, and so was Dr. Dargon. And Agincuuuun—ourt," Winona slurred before coughing in a painfully awkward verbal rescue, with Harriet giggling quite proudly to herself just off to the side. Glancing around the noisy laboratory, the inventor saw Dr. Dargon, a tall man with a thick head of brunet hair and a kind smile framed by a manicured goatee. When she spotted Agincourt, however, crowded in a dank corner placing a quick fix on a leaking pipe, he was almost exactly like what she imagined; a short and scrawny man with a surly face and a mop of strawberry blond hair spilling to his shoulders. The only difference to her imagination was black, thinning hair instead.

When his eyes connected with hers from across the room, his expression went from surly to irritable and he quietly skulked off to the next room with a dented toolbox latched under his arm, and Winona couldn't tell if it was because he assumed to know who she was, or just didn't take kindly to strangers. It was a relief not having to talk to him in either circumstance.

"Garza was there back then, too," Janice leaned in with a slightly mischievous smile, cupping a hand around her mouth to whisper to the inventor. "He got so emotional the day you were born it was the sweetest thing! He couldn't wait to hold you!"

"Janice," Anna sighed in deadpan warning while tucking the clipboard under her arm.

"I'm only teasing!" She shot back with a good-natured laugh as she withdrew, smiling brightly. "Garza might look intimidating but he's a big ole' sweetheart, you'll see!"

"I'd love to, but—can I ask you guys something that might be kinda strange?" Winona inquired and the two women nodded readily with mutterings of 'by all means' and 'ask away!'. "Has my dad ever kept contact with any of you over the years since Purity?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Janice answered, looking to Anna, who shook her head in agreement. After finding those photos, Winona wondered if there was ever secret correspondence with the team over the years, even if she'd never figure out how he pulled it off. Knowing that they might've been in contact would've made his escape feel less abrupt. "Him showing up out of the blue like he did two weeks ago was the first time I think any of us have seen him since then, and he didn't even say 'hello' to the rest of us. He just—… talked with Dr. Li and then left."

"Well, it was more of an argument and then a storming out." Anna corrected crisply.

"Stormed out—?" The inventor parroted, perplexed. Dad didn't storm out, he didn't have a temper. "Why? What'd they argue about? Purity?"

"It's not as if they would have anything else to argue about after all this time." She said in a dubious scoff that made Janice furrow her brows and avert her eyes uncomfortably at the subject.

"…Sounds to me like the project's a sore subject around here." Winona guessed as she looked between the two scientists, feeling as if she were missing something vital in their conversation. Was it because it failed? Was it because Madison kicked him out?

Come to think of it, I never asked her why she made him leave…

"Why—yes it is, and for excellent reason with the way your father abandoned our team and Purity all those years ago," Anna responded haughtily with her face tightening, as if appalled that Winona had even asked. Janice was looking even more uncomfortable now, her gaze squirrelly as it shifted frantically between her coworker and the inventor. "Then for him to have the audacity to return after 20 years of silence without extending the common courtesy of an explanation or even a deserved apology was another slap in the face. Like Dr. Kaplinski said, he didn't even bother greeting the rest of us and went straight to Dr. Li."

"He had his reasons for leaving back then! And this was 20 years ago, people can change in that amount of time. It's not fair to us or to him to hold on to old grudges. Besides, I think him reappearing has given us a chance at a fresh start with Purity if he's right." Janice countered defensively.

"His research isn't supported by any actual evidence, but what does that matter when Dr. Li already said 'no'? We're not resurrecting Project Purity." She spat, her taciturn demeanor hardening in frustration. "And furthermore, why do you and Dargon constantly defend him like he could do no wrong—?"

"Okay, okay, timeouts for the aunties—" Winona interrupted the arguing in a singsong as she made a 'T' crossing with her hands. The two women looked back at her, Janice absolutely beaming at being referred to as an aunt while Anna looked less than amused. "Can we do a little rewind? I thought he left because Purity failed, what's this about him abandoning the project?"

"He might have explained it to you that way because you wouldn't have known any better, but that's not what happened in the slightest." Anna said petulantly.

"Actually, he never told me anything about Purity. Everything I know I found out by accident." The inventor admitted.

"You—Dr. Parker never told you about any of this? About us?" Janice asked woundedly, the ecstatic grin clearing from her face with the deep furrowing of her brows and a pulling frown. "I—… I thought you were here because he sent you to talk to Dr. Li."

"I assumed the same when Agincourt told us you were here, since your father wasn't getting anywhere in convincing her." Anna agreed with a suspicious quirk in her eyebrow.

"First, tell Agincourt he's an Agincunt." Harriet said with a sardonically gleeful expression that curled her upper lip away from her teeth, finally entering herself into the conversation. Winona almost forgot she was there with how uncharacteristically quiet she was being and shot her with a thorny look that Harriet shrugged off easily. "And second, t'get some shit straight here, we ain't here on her old man's word. He ran off so we're huntin' him down."

"Oh my God—honey, I'm so sorry. We'll help you in any way we can and answer whatever questions you have about anything." Janice vowed as she took on a weak smile to mask how upset she was. Anna didn't react with surprise, saying nothing as she shook her head condemningly.

"Then what can you tell me about Project Purity? I know my parents and Dr. Li led the team, and you were testing the Potomac and the tidal basin at your old lab in the Jefferson Memorial, trying to find a way to make clean water—but it sounds like there's a stark difference between your purifier and a run-of-the-mill Wasteland purifier."

"You're correct. The difference is the magnitude," Anna stated with a nod, arching an eyebrow curiously at Winona, as if taken aback at her understanding of their work. "Any thriving settlement has a purifier, but they're cobbled together with scrap and a little pre-war knowledge. They're unreliable, malfunction constantly, and even for paltry amounts of water the cleansing process takes time. Purity wouldn't be some common homemade purifier, we created it to purify the tidal basin all at once in a near instantaneous process. We began the work in Jefferson Memorial because we could feed the purifier into the freshwater basin, which connects with the Potomac-Anacostia crossing. We would draw in the dirty water coming into DC and filter it back out as clean deeper inland."

"But Project Purity was about more than just the purifier and the water. Wasn't it?"

"You're probably one of the very few people not on the team who actually seems to understand what we were doing. You've got an interest in science and engineering, don't you?" Janice declared with a suspicious smile as if she had caught Winona red-handed in a crime, then laughed with a nod of impressed approval when the inventor nodded enthusiastically. "And you're right on the money about Purity being more than just clean water! At Her core, Purity was the answer to a question Dr. Li and your parents asked themselves—'what can we do to help rebuild the world?'. Purity was the first step in a massive undertaking that would surpass even our lifetimes, but they didn't care and neither did we if we lived to see it come full circle. The work had to start somewhere, and it would start with the purifier."

"While Dr. Li and your parents believed that clean water was a right to everyone and not a privilege for the few, they surmised that unbiased distribution and access to clean water would turn the economy of the Wasteland on its head." Anna said with a glance down to her clipboard, flipping through a couple papers before she produced a pen from her lab coat pocket to scribble something down. "With it readily available to all, we expected healthier strains of plants and animals, and ease in starting and maintaining crop farms. The possibilities can only go from there."

"Purity would be a service to the Wasteland that answered to and was owned by no ultimate power. Only protected and maintained by a neutral presence in Jefferson." Janice interjected again.

"Which would be the team that made it." Anna concluded.

"That—… That could've revolutionized the Wasteland, not just the Capital if the purifier could be replicated and distributed across America! It could even change how communities connect and bond with one another, population explosions would happen with fewer people getting sick or dying from dehydration—real change could take place! That's incredible!" Winona exclaimed in astonishment.

"It was incredible!" Janice agreed with equal glee before her smile fractured into pieces, leaving the passing seconds to corrode it to nothing. "But—… we couldn't get there. We couldn't get Her to work. In the end, we kept hitting brick wall after brick wall. It felt like we struggled with climbing over one obstacle just to find out the rules of the race had changed when we got to the other side."

"Back then we had a benefactor that supplied the project with money, resources, protection, and any further favor or support we required—on the condition that they be a part of our success and distribution." Anna further explained. "Unfortunately, it came to a point where our progress grew stagnant. Experiments ended in failure, calculations and research amounted to nothing promising, and eventually the Memorial was under constant attack by the local super mutants—"

"We think all the concentrated radiation might've drawn them to Jefferson, or maybe the sudden uptick of people in a previously unoccupied area disturbed them nearby, but we're still unsure." Janice interrupted.

Anna nodded with an agreeing gesture in her coworker's direction. "The attacks were brutal, and our benefactor lost many soldiers trying to protect us. Tension grew between our teams as they grew impatient for the answers we didn't have, and shortly before you were born, the hand of generosity withdrew from our arrangement."

"…That's when Purity really started falling apart," Winona said solemnly. "Wasn't it?"

"Even when they pulled out, we still had hope." Janice rebutted with a fond smile directed at her, looking as if she suddenly wanted to squeeze Winona and never let go. "We had you on the way! Knowing you would be here soon gave us the strength we needed to keep trying. We had plans to keep moving forward with or without the Brotherhood."

"The Brotherhood—? You mean the Brotherhood of Steel?" Harriet balked in shock. "'Ya ask me, y'all dodged a bullet when they pulled out. Your little science project wouldn't've stayed 'neutral' with those guys 'round."

"Dr. Li would certainly agree with your sentiments, but we didn't have a choice if we wanted to get any height off the ground. No one else in DC or the surrounding states had the protection or money we required while also believing in the work we were doing. They were neutral enough." Anna countered.

"So when was it that my dad abandoned Purity?" Winona asked to bring the conversation back to topic, but with the reluctant looks Janice and Anna exchanged amongst themselves, she had a very clear idea of what happened. "…I'm guessing it was when mom died."

"We lost our brightest mind on the project when she passed away."

The four women, three of them startled and the last disinterested, snapped toward the voice that invaded their conversation to see a sympathetic Madison Li leaning in the open doorway of her office with her arms loosely locked over her stomach. It was difficult to say when she entered the discussion, though she must have been listening long enough, as her expression was unreadable aside from the melancholy look in her eyes that betrayed her.

"D- Dr. Li! We were ju- just—" Janice began nervously but was given a dismissive wave as Madison came striding over.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to borrow Winona for a little while. We have much to discuss and I suspect you both have work that needs tending to, correct?" She spoke as if it were a polite suggestion, but there was a discreet edge to her tone that made it clear it was an order.

"Yes, Dr. Li." Anna nodded in understanding and strode away with the click of her heels. Janice turned to follow but stopped just as quickly, pivoting back in Winona's direction with a troubled expression as if she wanted to say something before shaking her head, turning away once more to follow Anna, but still, her feet didn't move as she lingered, thinking.

Finally, she threw herself at Winona to wrap her up in a tight hug she hadn't expected, but returned it gladly.

"We're so happy that you're home." Janice murmured emotionally to Winona and withdrew with a warm look, then shooed her off to Madison before scattering back to her own work.

As Madison led Winona away to her office with Harriet in tow, that single word tugged a thread—if a whole tapestry could be considered a thread—deep inside her gut. Home was Vault 101; it was her few friends and family; it was her desk in maintenance; it was all the wonderful memories she used to cover up the traumatizing ones in shallow graves; and when it was all gone, she believed she'd never have 'home' ever again. Vault 101 would never take her back with how extraordinary the damage was that night, and the Wasteland was too harsh and unforgiving… but to hear Janice welcome her back to the laboratory of her dreams, to the family Winona never knew had been waiting for her all this time, readily giving her a place amongst them if she wished to take it—…

There wasn't any doubt in her mind now, about her place being in Rivet City once the search for dad was over. Winona wanted to be here with them almost as much as she wanted to find him.

The feeling of finally belonging somewhere, instead of being a jagged piece forced into a puzzle she wasn't cut for, was almost overwhelmingly right.

When the office door shut behind them with a grind of squealing metal, it drew the inventor out of her thoughts and back into the present. Harriet planted herself in a corner to wilt with boredom, and Madison swept around her desk to perch primly in her chair; with a flourish of her hand she removed her bifocals to let them drape from the leash around her neck, and Winona thought she looked almost picturesque in that moment; poised and sophisticated in her desk chair, tilting back ever so slightly with a knee crossed over the other as the dim lamp light took advantage of her features, shadowing the crow's feet that framed her eyes, full of old secrets.

"I didn't mean to interrupt anyone's work—" Winona apologized quickly.

"You interrupted nothing," Madison reassured as she nodded toward a chair at the desk for Winona to take. She did so with a thankful nod and pulled it around to the scientist's side, plopping into it with a comfortable foot of space between them, her forearm resting on the desk edge. "The others were so excited to see you when they heard you were coming in today, I could hardly fault any of them. Garza even wore his best shirt—he said he wanted to make a good first impression."

Despite her guilt, Winona beamed with a contained laugh. "Now I feel bad for not going over and saying hi to him!"

"You'll have time, I'm sure," She replied with the tapping of her pointer finger nail on the wooden arm of her desk chair in a brief pause. "Speaking of, when were you planning on leaving Rivet City?"

The question pulled the smile from Winona's face effortlessly. "Oh—… uh… a- as soon as possible. We've got friends waiting for us at the Watering Hole, I think I mentioned them before. The plan was getting info on dad, doing a resupply, and then rendezvousing back outside to hit the road again."

"…I see." Madison's words hung in the air, speaking so little and yet saying so much.

"I wish I could stay—I want to—"

"Might I say something?" There was a disapproving frown in her tone that didn't show on her face aside from the shallow curl of her brow; professional and unreadable, as always, but her eyes carried a subtle, hopeful glint. "From the moment I saw you, I understood and accepted that you'd come and go after your father and wouldn't be here long. I'm unaware of how long you've been on the surface, but I think it hasn't been long enough for you to understand the culture and the dangers of the Capital. I think you should heavily reconsider what you're doing by following him—you will only be dragged further into this foolishness, and frankly—… you're too good in all this to be haunted by a past that isn't even yours."

Winona balked, shocked at Madison's admission. No one ever actively tried to stop her from looking for dad, let alone 'recommended' that she stop the search outright. People told her she wouldn't last a minute out in the Wastes, sure, but no one stopped her from trying. She ran her tongue along the back of her teeth as if the crevices were hiding the seeds of words she needed to plant in her throat.

"I'm not going to." She replied with stern finality. "I'm so close to finding him, and I can't stand knowing he's out there alone. Just 'cause he knows the Wasteland better than I do doesn't mean he's any better off, especially in his age. He came to talk to you about resurrecting Purity, and if he was determined enough to risk his life for it, then nothing's gunna stop him unless he's come to a brick wall he can't get around."

A sigh so faint that it was almost unnoticeable escaped Madison at her answer, and it startled Winona to feel the older woman's hand lay over hers on the desk in an uncharacteristically vulnerable touch, her thumb smoothing over the back of her hand and knuckles. She softened at the contact, feeling something close to guilt at how apparently worried Madison seemed. Winona's hand lapsed back over the older scientist's, squeezing tenderly in silent apology.

"And that's precisely what I'm concerned about you being dragged into." She confided weakly, as if 'weak' could ever be a word to describe Madison Li (and it definitely wasn't). "But you're just like your father in that aspect, aren't you? No, no… more like Catherine, because she could be even worse than him sometimes. Brick wall or not, she'd work herself half to death just trying to find a bigger sledgehammer to break it down with."

Turning slightly in her seat to face the inventor head on, she lifted her eyes toward Winona's face. "I suppose you'll do what you feel you have to, no matter what, or else you wouldn't have come so far to speak with the people you were only vaguely aware of being a part of your parents' past. If you need anything for your journey back out, you only need to ask… and when you return, there will be a place for you here in the lab."

The certainty of the 'when' made Winona smile warmly with a nod of promise, but it quickly turned bleak when she felt an emptiness following Madison's offer; something was being left unsaid, but the implication hung quietly between them.

"…No place for dad, though, is there?" She concluded, and when Madison shot her with an austere look and withdrew her hand from atop Winona's, she knew she was right. "You never told me why you kicked him out."

"Your father and I have a turbulent history and I would prefer to keep that between him and I out of respect for you." The reply came in colorful shades of scolding, something akin to being asked a question that was too improper to answer comfortably.

"'Respect for me'—? What does that even mean?"

"It means that for any feelings I have about your father, I won't color him a certain way to you. I keep that between him and I." She reiterated severely with a cutting gaze of warning.

"So he did abandon the project? Do you blame him for that?" Though initially undeterred, her determination was quickly squashed when Madison's gaze only solidified with protruding barbs, leaving the inventor to instantly regret her decision to push. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm just trynna understand what happened better. There's this whole piece of my life that's missing and I just—I need to know what happened. I'm sorry."

"Those are questions your father will have to answer for you. It's not my place." The scientist accepted.

But what if he won't? Winona thought abysmally, but said nothing further on the matter in favor of not getting a verbal whipping from the older woman. This time wasn't like before back in the vault, when he refused to speak and gave her nothing but a holotape with her mom's voice on it and no further explanation—she deserved to hear it all this time with the hell she went through just to find him. Hearing it from him later trumped getting her answers now because some part of her knew Madison was right, she had to hear it from him, or else what would the point be?

"Then tell me about the conversation you two had. What you two talked about."

"As you're aware, he wishes to resurrect Project Purity," The reply came under a repressed huff as Madison reclined further back in her desk chair with her hands steepled over her stomach, thinking back on the interaction. "He claims he spent the last 20 years running small-scale Purity experiments in secret and conducting research in your vault's archives, attempting to discover a solution to our past struggles. Whatever he found drew him to the conclusion that the project needed a piece of Pre-War tech known as the G.E.C.K."

"The 'geck'—?" Winona frowned as she sat up, perplexed.

"G.E.C.K. is an acronym for 'Garden of Eden Creation Kit'. It was created by a Pre-War German scientist by the name of Dr. Stanislaus Braun, whom was employed by both Vault-Tec and the American Government to build technology that would aid survivors of the Great War in rebuilding anew. From what your father explained to me, and what I discovered in my own research, the G.E.C.K. was said to do the unthinkable—it was a portable device that could convert volatile environments into perfectly livable conditions, purify dead soil, revitalize an irradiated atmosphere, eradicate run off and contamination, provide the means to plant unmutated crops unseen since before the war—those sorts of things."

"So it's a terraforming device! If dad's right and you can get your hands on one, you could do more than just revolutionize Purity! We could study and replicate the tech and disperse it across the Wasteland—" The inventor exclaimed in awe as goosebumps raised the hairs on her arms at the dizzying prospects that went tearing through her mind. "It—It's really possible? It can really do all that?"

"We're unsure." Madison nodded with equal fascination as she rest her chin and cheek within an 'L' shape she made of her fingers, jaw cupped in a palm, and an elbow upholding her weight on the arm of her chair. "We don't know if any of the vaults who received this tech actually deployed it and what the result was. From what I understand, there wasn't even enough time before the Great War to test it extensively or build a final product. It was more of a prototype than anything, and Vault-Tec and Braun were selective about which vaults received one. We're also unaware of how many are currently in usable existence."

"So when 'ya kicked him t'the curb, did he say where the wind'd take him next—?" Harriet asked a little impatiently from her claimed corner.

"Well, James apparently found a manuscript detailing Dr. Braun's assignment to a vault here in DC—Vault 112." Madison admitted while regarding Harriet into the conversation. "He told me he wanted to find this vault and explore it for any of Braun's records or research, or even find the G.E.C.K. itself if 112 had received one. If Braun was indeed a vault resident, then there's a strong chance one was inventoried there with him. I can't imagine the scientist who invented the G.E.C.K. wouldn't be stationed with one."

"Well, if that ain't a brahmin kick in the ass," Winona heard the mercenary mumble to herself, and she turned back in her seat to pin her with a questioning look.

"You know anything about this vault, Harriet—?"

"Talon's got history with 112. Found it years back in an old car garage close t'the Virginia border, the door's hidden under a car lift. S'never been opened, so our big boss Jabsco's bent on bein' the first guy t'step foot in it after 200 years, seein' if it'd make a good HQ, and if it's got Pre-War tech or weapons he could sell. Couldn't pay me enough, if 'ya ask me."

"Why's that?" Winona frowned, remembering Sir Sumner saying something about Wastelanders trying to get into 101 over the years. Didn't he say something once about Megaton being erected by the survivors 101 turned away after the bombs fell?

"'Cause the other vaults ain't like yours, Whiz Kid. They all got opened an' abandoned a long ass time ago and Wastelanders who've got half a brain cell avoid 'em like they're radioactive." She gave a dubious chuckle. "Think one of 'em actually is. They're all full'a weird shit and Pre-War secrets. Some people try lootin' 'em and never come back, and the sad bastards that do don't come back the same way they went in."

Her brows went to her hairline in disbelief. "So no one reallyknows anything about 112—? At all?"

"'Fraid so, and you've got an expert on the team."

"I hope you don't mean me." She deadpanned, leaving Harriet to snort obnoxiously.

"Nah, I meant the old man. You lived inna vault, sure, but that old fucker goes vault spelunkin' for fun, can't tell 'ya how many vaults he's raided all 'round the US. He was even there on the last raid t'112, said somethin' went wrong and the mission went bust. Jabsco went nuclear and gut the guy that fucked it up."

"Oh, geeze," Winona sighed with a hand clapped to her forehead. "Well, when we get back out, I'll talk to Sumner about it."

"Then we should get goin'. Gunna be dark soon and we still gotta run a resupply. Figure if we get it done now and head out t'the Waterin' Hole 'fore it gets any darker, we regroup, sleep, and head out early tomorrow mornin'. It'll be another five days back t'Megaton, then another four-ish days t'the vault from there if we keep on the roads."

"Oh, fun." The inventor proclaimed with mock enthusiasm as she bounced up from her seat with Madison following suit, smoothing out her lab coat as she went to the door to open it for them.

"If that's all there is, then I'll leave you to your work." She said, returning to her pristine veneer, cool and professional, as they stepped out onto the laboratory floor and she plucked up her glasses to replace them on her nose. "I'll send Garza up in a few minutes with some extra shopping money as a courtesy, and to help with any heavy lifting back to your hotel room. I'm certain he'd be more than happy to help."

"Then we're more than happy to take it," Winona said brightly as she revolved towards Madison with Harriet standing behind her, gazing curiously at a loudly rumbling machine. "…Thanks, Madison. For everything."

"Do not make me regret telling you where he's gone. I want you to be careful while you're out there, do you understand me? And as soon as you're able, you return to Rivet City. I am to be the very first person you speak with when you're onboard." The scientist asserted firmly with the downward tilt of her nose, affixing Winona with a severe look over the frames of her glasses. It worked, because Winona immediately felt like a guilty child getting caught doing something naughty, and was now being forced to admit to her troublemaking.

"I promise. And once we're done shopping, I'll come see you before we leave to say goodbye. If there's time, maybe we could even have dinner—?" Said the inventor sheepishly.

"…I would like that. Very much," Madison affirmed with a pursed mouth and a nod toward the upper floor exit. "Then off you go. Let's not waste anymore time."

Madison turned back into her office the moment the two women parted from her company to go towards the stairs. Winona kept a leisurely pace so she wouldn't seem rude just rushing off to the door, waving toward Janice and then Anna as she exclaimed a promise to be back in the lab later that evening. She even bade a quick hello to Dr. Dargon as she passed by. Unfortunately, Garza in his cleanest shirt was nowhere to be seen.

Agincourt was the only one present who hadn't received a goodbye, and as they climbed the stairs to the door, Harriet was thoughtful enough to give her own goodbye in the form of two middle fingers down at him; one from her and one from Winona, who slapped the offending hands away with a hidden laugh at Agincourt's furiously red face.

It was late evening when Winona and Harriet walked out of Rivet City with their backpacks full of the spoils of the marketplace—having bought absolutely everything Sumner asked for, from food and duct tape to ammunition and medical supplies. The wind was whipping and harsh for how high up they were from solid ground, threatening to barrel them clear over the bridge's side as the cold buffed Winona's exposed skin like stiff sandpaper. Pulling up the scarf bundled around her neck, she covered her face and ears to make the cold bearable while tugging her coat hood over her head for good measure.

If this was only the start of winter, she couldn't even imagine what it'd be like when it arrived in full force, and despite the boat's residents' concerns for snow, she was still excited to experience it. Out of curiosity she tapped through her Pip-Boy as they traversed the bridge, hoping to find some application akin to a weather thermometer, but found nothing useful in depicting the current temperature. Maybe she could program one…

"Last call for the bridge. Please vacate the bridge immediately. Last call for the bridge." The security depot speakers called over crackling static.

The two women broke into a jog at the warning with their heavy packs banging against their backs, navigating through the crowd of Wastelanders going to and from the ship in their rush to clear the bridge. Once they were through the exit lane of the security depot with a straight shot to the ground floor, Winona peered back toward the bridge in time to see it move; a crane atop the vessel strained with the weight of its load, retracting the bridge from the depot once the last person was off and the gates were shut on both sides, locking up the city until dawn.

"C'mon, 'less 'ya wanna catch brahmin flies for dessert." Harriet urged impatiently, wanting to get back to their stall to unload her heavy pack, and Winona followed her with an obedient nod, clacking her agape mouth shut.

With Garza's help in the marketplace, directing them to the stalls with the cheapest competitive prices and helping to carry the bulk of their purchases, they cleared their resupply with plenty of time to spare. They had a short dinner in the Science Bay with food catered out of Gary's Galley (with an extra order of spicy mirelurk cakes for breakfast in the morning, solely because the inventor had no shame and life was too short not to have 'lurk cakes for breakfast), and the scientists all pulled up chairs around the equipment so they could sit together and eat and talk. Aunt Janice talked excitedly at length about Anna's work with the gestation of the plants and produce they grew and split an apple with Winona and Harriet to try; Dargon further explained the mechanics of their hydroponics and even showed Winona the potatoes they were currently growing, and the inventor gave some pointers on their construction from Vault 101's own greenhouses; Garza didn't have much to say about the work given his loose understanding of it, but was content in asking Winona questions about her time in the vault; and Agincourt took his meal and disappeared with it into a back room of the lab when a glare from Harriet sent him away.

Winona was also formally introduced to Theodora "Theo" De La Fuente; a woman around her own age with thick glasses, a long braid of kohl black hair and a clever sense of humor, so the two got on fantastically. The other apprentice, Mitchell Chu, was nowhere to be seen—or at least Winona thought he was until she noticed his plate was gone halfway through dinner, and Garza confirmed Mitchell came and went with his meal. Shocked that she hadn't caught even a glimpse of the mysterious apprentice despite her typically keen perception made her wonder if him running about undetected was common practice. No one else seemed bothered by his almost invisible entrance and exit, otherwise, though Harriet confirmed she hadn't seen him, either.

At the end of the night, the two departed back to their hotel room to pack their bags, and Winona hugged almost everyone (even Madison, which she was ecstatic about!) before leaving with a last promise of staying safe out in the Wasteland. The inventor was shocked that she didn't feel the same dread and anxiety she felt in all the other times they left the safety of a settlement, and wondered if she'd feel differently in the morning when it was time to leave. At least now, through Madison's accounts, she had confirmation that dad was safe and unharmed… well, outside of being a little ego-wounded.

As they came up to the edge of the Watering Hole, which was a haphazard wall of cinder blocks and an archway littered with pleasant glass bottle wind chimes and various good luck tokens left behind by caravans past, Winona felt an excited fluttering in her chest; in just two weeks, she could be back with her dad and have the answers to the questions and the salve to the wounds she'd been carrying with her for months—about his past, and her own. Spending time with Madison and the others uprooted more questions for her, too, about why he abandoned Purity and why his leaving had apparently left grudges amongst some of his old colleagues, but she could be patient. She had been patient all this time, after all, and hoped that the story was worth the 20-year wait to hear the ending.

Navigating around the brahmin stalls and camp outs was easy work, as most of the caravaneers were at the canteen for dinner or drunkenly tearing up the dance floor with Ricky Nelson crooning over the familiar clamor of the Watering Hole, and soon the two women were back at their appointed brahmin stall overlooking the frothing radioactive water. During the time they were gone, a small campfire was dug out in the ground in a position where the wind would carry the smoke in the opposing direction of their living quarters, and cooking over it was a pot of baked beans and roasting skewers of meat willowing over the flames like sparse cattails ringing a puddle.

Sir Sumner sat beside it on an upturned crate to tend to the meal with a spoon so it wouldn't burn, sitting back with ungloved hands to hold them near the fire for warmth as he stiffly flexed his left.

Is there proper etiquette to follow when you ask someone to kill for you? A thank-you card, maybe a fruit basket—? Winona thought glumly with a hint of dark amusement as the dutch door to their stall swung open to reveal an exhausted Glasgow. He stepped out into the frigid night air in nothing but jeans and a thin shirt, and a neglected cigarette pinned between his angled lips where it was more ash than tobacco. He seemed to make a passing comment to the squad leader that left him looking less than entertained, and all Glasgow did was stretch his arms above his head and grin in self-satisfaction—grinned so wide his yellowed teeth seemed unnaturally sharp and gleaming in the light of Sumner's little campfire—

"Little sister, he's got the smile of a raider—"

Winona couldn't help but abruptly stop as Lucky Harith's words regurgitated themselves from the bowels of her thoughts.

"—all teeth and sickness that is, can't trust any of them."

"Hey, raider bait—'ya gunna stand in the middle of the road all night or what?" Harriet grumbled when she realized the inventor stopped walking, making her double back to her, then frowned when she realized something was wrong by the petrified look on the inventor's face. "Winona—? Kid, what's wrong?"

The replying words stuck like splinters of glass in Winona's throat, bleeding the color out of her face as her mouth opened and shut uselessly, wanting to speak but the breath was gone from her lungs, crushed like empty paper bags under her tightening ribs. Part of her was aware of some truth of Glasgow all this time, since they first met—and the other part of her spent all this time avoiding that awareness she had of the danger that lurked beneath his boyish charm, and all the little things about him that just didn't make sense when she thought too long about them. Why had she ignored them like this?

"Bet when he came back t'you he didn't have anything, right? That's 'cause no one told him anything."

Winona didn't think coming to terms with the reality she spent months avoiding would be this overwhelming to face—hadn't expected it to feel like this—

"They know what he is and they know not t'get too close to his kind."

She didn't expect it'd feel like rocks filling up those paper bag lungs of hers until it stacked a headstone in her throat that buried her shame; didn't expect it to feel like he was still intruding her body, leaving her layers of skin and flesh and bone to house a piece of him she couldn't dig back out, a parasite or something even worse, because she let him in despite the warning signs; she didn't expect it to feel like she'd fallen back down to Earth from hundreds of miles off any solid ground, falling freely with the all-consuming dread of knowing there was nothing under her to break her fall.

And that's exactly what it felt like—her feet shattering through the Earth's crust when Glasgow's gaze lifted from pestering Sir Sumner to lock with her own frozen stare from across the camp, causing his grin to widen as if overjoyed in seeing her return. It quickly faded, however, upon registering the broken, crumpled look on her own face, and grim realization replaced the glee that was in his features moments ago.

His sunglasses couldn't hide anything. He knew that what he spent so long trying to hide from her had made itself known, regardless.

"You're the one that sent out the raider, aren't you?"

Winona knew things between them would be different now… distant, cautious, treacherous, and she immediately questioned if it was safe to keep him around—if she could even safely fire him without repercussion—

But when Glasgow lifted his aviators to rest them atop his head, posture overtly rigid with a screwed jaw, revealing the mismatched gaze he constantly concealed, Winona withered fearfully under the cold-eyed look he pinned her with—threatening and controlling, piercing clean through her chest with barbed hooks trapping her—and that look alone made the absolute danger of the situation quite clear to her.

Their relationship would be distant... cautious… treacherous. There wasn't any matter of firing him, or getting away, because as long as he had anything to say about it—and he certainly would have something to say about it—

This didn't mean anything was over between them.