Begin Recording

Homecoming, Again

Recording by Scribe Ellison

"You're back!" Piper dropped her plate and came running, then slowed down. "Is it really you?"

"I think so."

Dogmeat had no doubt, he rushed over with his whole back end wagging and gave my legs a good sniff. Everyone else was coming too, cheering and yelling questions, then also stopping at a safe distance just in case.

Deacon appeared with his zapping device, fiddling with the dials. I waited to remember some new, even more terrible memories, but the past days remained just as they had been. Still terrible, but not new. In fact I didn't feel anything.

"Congratulations, you're human. Group hug!"

Deacon didn't join in but Piper did hug me and Preston slapped me on the back and Doc Jenna kept trying to grab my arm and get a look at the Pip-boy. It was wonderful chaos.

After a minute I extricated myself and held up my hands. "All right! Yes! I'm back and I'm fine. We're not about to be attacked, as far as I know. Yes, I reached the Institute and I'll tell you everything—but I don't think I can tell everything to the whole settlement right now. Let me borrow Preston, Doc Jenna, Nick, Deacon since he'd come anyway and Piper to take shorthand. We've got to figure things out before I can answer all your questions."

That didn't do much, but our Tom called from behind his bar, "Toast to the General!" and that moved the mood from asking questions to cheering and I escaped.

I got into my own house, squirmed out of my armor pieces and gun harness, and threw myself back on the couch. Dogmeat immediately crammed himself up next to me.

Preston asked, "Are we all right? Are we really safe?"

"I think so. The Institute… isn't what we thought. They might not be our enemy.'

Deacon said, "I'm pretty sure they're our enemy."

"I found—Doc Jenna, why are you trying to get my pip-boy?" I unbuckled it and gave it to her.

The doctor took it over to my terminal. "You've been wearing a diagnostic monitoring device for the past year and there's a full biometric scan from right before you left. I don't care how good the Institute is, I'll know if you're a synth."

I had my eyes closed in exhaustion and relief. 'Deacon's making an insulted face isn't he? All right, did you get the holotape?"

Deacon ignored the first sentence, "Yeah, Sturges is guarding it with his life but he was sure it has lots of blueprints and that list of synths that I really should be taking back to HQ."

"Tomorrow." I said as the reality of that mess came down on me. "You can absolutely have it but we—not this we, Deacon's friends we—have to talk about how to make sure these synths are safe without doing more damage. Mayor McDonough is a synth." I opened my eyes to look.

Piper's eyes got really wide and Nick chuckled, "That's almost too convenient."

Piper threw herself down on the couch next to me. "Really? You're sure?"

I nodded. "If people find out, the Institute will kill him. Just turn him off."

Piper went really still, pen poised above her notebook.

Nick said, "I think you'd better tell us everything."

"All right. The Institute is..."

And I talked all night. Most of it was me describing everything I'd seen, but some parts were me bawling into my dog's fur while Nick awkwardly patted my shoulder with his metal hand. Exactly what happened when is fuzzy.

At some point Nick said, "Sounds like they raised your boy to be one cold bastard. I'm sorry, Em."

At some other point Doc Jenna interrupted my description to exclaim that I'd been immunized against half a dozen things, including measles and could I get more vaccines for everyone else? I had to say I didn't know but I'd try. Then she said, "We can't go to war with the institute. They kill people, but a measles outbreak across the Commonwealth will kill more!"

Piper spent some time staring into space, still in shock that she'd been right. She can write shorthand without looking and probably without thinking about it. I've known court stenographers who could do that. She and Nick lived in Diamond City where paranoia about the Institute is so strong and now they were finding out it was all true. Piper occasionally said, 'oh my god." or she'd start asking something then wave it away.

I don't remember Deacon saying much, he stood looking out the window fully embracing the 'these sunglasses hide my expression' thing.

Preston just looked more and more worried as I spoke. I remember him saying something about, "I wish this had happened while General Becker was still alive, it feels very above my pay grade." and Nick saying, "Aren't the Minutemen here to save the Commonwealth?"

"A piece at a time yes, not all at once."

I shut that out as a question I wasn't ready to face and kept talking. It got very late and there came a point where I was talking with my eyes closed and making less sense and probably said, "And they have toothpaste!" four times.

Preston stood up and said, "I think that's enough for now, we're going to need our wits for what comes next. Go to bed everybody."

I grabbed my gun harness because it lives hung over the foot of my cot and stumbled my way to bed with Dogmeat clicking along behind me. Nobody else listened though; they immediately started talking about what they'd just learned.

I was too tired to be upset anymore, which was very nice. I found my son but I had to leave him behind to come home to a place where I could go to sleep in my own bed listening to the voices of people I trusted.