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The door to his quarters flies open, enough force to propel it very nearly into the wall, and it’s all he can do not to jump to attention for her.No sooner does she turn and lock the door behind her than she’s kicking her boots off and leaving them haphazardly in the middle of his floor. She doesn’t care for order, doesn’t care that he does, and it has him worked up before she even pulls her shirt over her head.“I thought we discussed meeting last night,” he says, standing and wasting no time as he shrugs off his battle coat.“We did.”“Where were you?”“I’m a busy woman, Arthur,” she says, sliding her pants down around her ankles and kicking them away. “High demand and all that.”He’s only halfway done with the buckles on his flightsuit but he can’t wait any more than he has been. He crosses the room, reaches his arms around her waist and one hand squeezes her ass while the other grips her hip and holds her to him. It’s how they should’ve been last night but she likes it better this way, he knows, likes to keep him waiting so the reunion is sweeter, rougher.Damn her.“High demand?” he asks, biting into her neck until he hears the sigh. “Who?”Her laugh is nothing but warm breath against his ear. “Jealous?”He is. Has always been territorial and protective. It’s why this, his bare chest against hers, her fingers pulling at his hair, urging him closer to her and both of them towards the bed, is a very bad idea. But, he tells himself, to be very fair, he hadn’t instigated it.She had. With fingers that lingered too long on his after shoving files into his hands. With the corners of her lips that seemed perpetually turned up in amusement, smug and infuriating and inviting. With an eyebrow, just the right one, that always rose when he issued an order and a voice steady and sure that knew only polite insubordination.He’d resisted it all for months.And then, it had been the most satisfying thing he’d ever done to shut her up with his lips hard against hers.Or at least, the second most satisfying thing. For a while, all he knew were heated kisses and blonde hair in his fist. Not exactly taking it slow but hesitant to let it get out of hand because he knows himself, can’t afford not to in his position. He knows every weakness, every longing. It’s messy, his title, and few are willing to entangle themselves in the politics. But he knows he isn’t content to go through lovers like cigars so he knows that Nora, back in his quarters, can’t be anything good.But it is her fault.He’s prudent, perhaps less than he should be, but at least he can blame her and blame can be fucked away.She slides her hands down his chest, back up and over his shoulders where they peel his suit away and then clench down to pull his body over hers. “Miss me?”"You're a tease," he hisses, dropping his fingers to tug the waistband of
her panties. At the hint, she lifts
her hips enough and he slides them down toned legs where they crumple at the foot of the bed.They're good at this, surprisingly in sync for having only fucked once before. His hips, broad and strong, fit perfectly on hers, and he runs a hand down between them to test her. He can't help but swell with pride when he finds her dripping, soaked through because he's a fast learner and now he's sure he knows what she likes. He runs a finger through her arousal, makes her squirm underneath him for a few moments before he slides over her clit, and the gasp it rouses from her is worth it.“You seem to thoroughly enjoy our time together,” he muses. “I can’t imagine you’d find anything more satisfying.”“‘s not what I meant,” she breathes, nails dragging down his back. Her eyes, hazy and unfocused, close fully when he finds the right rhythm, circles slow but building, and she pulses beneath him. His jaw is slack but his teeth grind together, holding back the guttural noises his body forms at the sight of her back arching. It's for him; she calls
his name, begs him to fill her.He applies faint pressure at her entrance and she whimpers.“Please, Arthur.”He doesn't refuse, hopes in the back of his mind that he might somehow condition her into using manners more often, but he sinks two fingers into her and she
moans loudly.He smiles, a devilish curve of his lips as he brushes them over hers. “Keep your voice down.”She doesn’t respond, lost to the world long ago. Her
hips are restless, push back against his hand as he works her. He finds the spot quickly, knows he has when she shoves her fist in her mouth to stifle the sounds it rips from her.He strokes her breathless until her thighs shake and every thrust draws higher pitches from her. She trembles, inside and out, and he's straining against his briefs.She pants and writhes and then falls back against the mattress, loose strands of champagne falling into her eyes. He brushes them away and suddenly wonders if he should—if that’s what they are. Sometimes it's obvious what she
wants but then she runs, makes him grapple with everything he thinks he knows and forces him to chase after her. But that's their dance, the game they play, and it’s as exhilarating as it is uncertain.She’s still breathing hard when he flips her onto her stomach and it’s enough that she knows what he wants. He pulls the last fabric between them away and it’s she who thrusts back into him and he can feel her slick on his erection.He grunts. “Who missed who?”“Just fuck me already, will you?” She wriggles again, the flesh of her ass rubbing tauntingly over his cock and he meets no resistance when he presses up into her where his fingers had been.They inhale in unison. He thinks he’s never more complete than when he’s here, warm and smothered by her.The flex of her back as he pumps is entrancing. He moves one hand from where it holds her hip just to trace her spine. She shudders, harder as that hand travels down her side and under to her breast. He squeezes, takes her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and rolls until she says his name and quickens their pace. Satisfied, his fingers roam past her stomach, down to reward her.“Woman,” he growls. The snap of her hips is in time with his and it makes him delirious, barely conscious but hyperaware of her alone, of every staggering breath and broken cry she utters until she comes again and he’s lasted just long enough. He removes himself at the last second and spills himself onto her back.He’s proud, not because she’s a conquest, but because outside of this room, she is so very put together and even if she never says it, the sated smile on her lips after they finish is proof that he’s made her feel.Blind hands reach over the side of the bed for anything-his briefs will do-and he cleans her up because he’s a gentleman. Yes, he’s jealous, and he can’t tell if she really does fuck anyone else, but if she does, they’re not him. They will not take half as good care of her after, won’t lay with her when they’ve finished and wait until she’s ready for more far before they are just to bury their fingers in her without the promise of mutual pleasure. He’s at her beck and call, whether or not she knows it, but he thinks she does because she sinks down onto his bed and lies limply like these are her quarters.“I have work to do,” he says, only half because he means it. The other half is to get a reaction, to hear that she wants to stay, that once is not enough.Her face is pressed into his pillow and whatever she says is too muffled to understand.He lays beside her and sighs. “Speak clearly, Nora.””I said,” she drags her body over his and collapses onto him, fingers brushing through the hair on his chest, “‘so what?’”He rolls his eyes, not that she can see. Her head lolls below his chin and his expressions are hidden from her. No, he rolls his eyes because he’s exasperated with himself. Because it will always be that easy for her to convince him of anything. Because he agrees.He lets her lay, undisturbed, across his form and their breaths fall into the same unrehearsed in-and-out.Damn her.
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He’s being filled in on the status of the injured knight that returned just an hour before, lying just behind him in medical, when the swing of hips catches his attention.He pretends it’s solely because she was on the same vertibird as the soldier Cade is treating, for professionalism’s sake. It’s not a lie; he would’ve liked to know she was alright, that the feral had spared her the gashes Knight Patel had been unfortunate enough to sustain.He’s badly hurt. Wounds as deep as half an inch in some places. Temporarily out of commission but he’ll make a full recovery with enough stitches and radaway.It’s only then—thank you, Knight-Captain, keep me abreast of the situation—that he is able to turn and chase and when he catches her, dammit, he has choice words already on the tip of his tongue.Every death, every bruise of one of his soldiers, weighs heavily on him. He’s yet to learn how to brush them off as if it’s mere coincidence that his men come back from missions he sends them out on beaten and bloody, or not at all.How much less prepared he is for her to be one of them.She weaves leisurely through the stream of bodies around her, in no hurry at all and still seemingly unaware of his pursuit. He will keep it that way, will stay far enough behind not to give himself away. It’s a straight shot from the med bay, wherever her destination is, and she marches past the armory, past Teagan, who is too busy bartering to notice the Elder, and down the stairs.They’re alone on the lower level of the Prydwen and now he realizes she must know he’s following her.Of course she does. She spins around raises an eyebrow. “Need something, Maxson?”Yes, he thinks, because you’ve been gone for a week, but he doesn’t speak these words or any others. They just aren’t enough.He presses her back against crates, revels in the laugh of surprise that bubbles from her throat, and he can hardly believe he went so many years without this. He wants so badly to kiss her, wants just as badly to chew her out for not reporting in sooner, but this time is stolen so he grazes her neck with his lips, with his teeth. Finds her pulse and presses a sloppy kiss into it and wedges his thigh between hers.Usually, it seems that she holds all of the cards. She has no room in which he can reasonably expect to find her when he craves her, no regard for the rules, no legacy to fill. But when he gets her alone and she surrenders to him—those moments, he knows, are his. She lets him break her, unravel her, strip her of all coherency and feel like he has any control in this situation.She comes to him on her own terms and they fuck on his.It’s a high that no other thing can compare to, the endorphins released when she says his name. It’s breathy and he takes that as an admission—the only one he’s likely to get—that she misses him when she’s away as much as he does her.They are practiced enough with the shedding of flightsuits to do it quickly and soundlessly for one another. When they’re down to their underwear, he turns her around and pulls her flush against him and he bites into her shoulder when she rocks back into him.“Awfully conspicuous, don’t you think, Elder?”He brings his lips to her ear. “This is my ship. You’re mistaken if you think I won’t fuck you on every square inch of it.”She reaches between them to squeeze him through his briefs and he grunts, furiously spinning her back around and ripping the garment away. He makes quick work of her bra and panties and then he lifts her, hitching her onto his hips and balancing her weight so he can guide himself into her.He almost feels bad for foregoing all of their usual build-up, but she’s ready when he slides inside of her and he has to bury his face in the crook of her neck to keep quiet. Nora moans and he feels the vibrations in her throat, swears he would do anything for that sound.He thrusts slowly, savoring the warmth of her, the way her walls feels around him, like home, before he reluctantly pulls out just to press back into her harder. This woman, whom he’d feared he’d lost to the Commonwealth. A land he would never forgive if he did.“Why didn’t you report in?” he asks between shallow breaths. “You know better, Knight.”It’s always hard to talk to her like this, when she’s half gone, mad with need. Her legs wrap more tightly around him and he can’t help but drop his hand between her legs and brush over her nerves until she’s forgotten his question and her eyes flicker, open and on him but unseeing.To her credit, she tries to answer anyway. “Was... I didn’t... oh, fucking hell, Maxson, do you want an answer or not?”He doesn’t. Or rather, he does, but he has a higher priority.He lets it go, trades interrogations for messy kisses and nails up his back. He ducks his head to take her nipple into his mouth and runs over it with his tongue, over and over as her fingers pull at his hair and she whines desperately for him to even it out. He obeys, but he remembers why he hates this position when his thighs begin to quiver beneath him.He’s nothing if not disciplined. Consider it a workout. Multitasking.She’s got all the signs of a woman on the cusp: the twitching of limbs, sharp and light cries with every cant of their hips. Her face and neck are bright red, flushed with longing, and the sight almost makes him lose it. He holds desperately, determined to finish her first, and his thumb coaxes her into orgasm under strict orders not to stop, don’t you dare stop, please.And then he comes to a string of oh fuck yes Arthur holy
God, his left hand reaching across her back to clamp down on her shoulder as he presses his body against her, making up for having to pull himself away and spill on the floor. In a perfect world, the world where she comes from, there are other methods of preventing conception but he can’t afford to be wistful about that which he’s never known.He drops her to her feet almost immediately, one hand at her waist to keep her steady and one by her head leaning on the crate behind them that, frankly, he is impressed remained in place through all of their manic movements.They’re both covered in sweat, warm and exhausted, but they stay close, his nose beside hers, watching each other and waiting for the silence to be broken.She knots her fingers in his beard. “Ambush.”He grins and his lips seek her palm, says into the skin there, “No—Reparations.”Boots scrape the floor above them and startle them into dressing. He’s more than a little impressed to have gotten away with such a lapse in judgement. There are no doors to the lower level, nothing to creak and alert them of a presence beyond their own, and there would certainly be hell to pay if they were found out.But Arthur is past the point of no return, past giving up their affair—and dammit, he hates that word but he can think of no other—for the sake of rules that he is the first to cite in any other context.He still has to ask. “Why didn’t you come see me?”She smiles as she pulls the zipper up to her collar. “You that concerned about me, Maxie?”He hates that name. Hates it enough to scowl at her, a feat he can’t often manage for long.She sighs, slipping her boots on. “I don’t want you to lock me up here, okay? I need to be out there or I’ll go stir crazy and I know that you worry—”“I do and I will. But, Nora,” he tilts her head up to his, and he could fall into her brown eyes and drown, “I won’t lock you away.”“Good to know,” she winks and slaps his ass, and he can’t catch her wrist before she climbs the stairs and leaves him to his own thoughts.He should probably clean the floor.
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The voice of his second-in-command drones on, delivers the pertinent information from the file before him. Arthur’s eyes skim the document, thin in comparison to others, but his mind is far from the words on the page. Kells insists on briefing the elder on the status of his missions in progress every week, but today, Maxson is restless.There's no chance he'll remember this once Kells leaves the room. He’ll have to reread the files himself.He brings a hand to the bridge of his nose and pinches until some of the pressure in his head is relieved. It’s only just after noon. There’s still an overwhelming amount of work to be done. And as if Kells can sense his growing headache, he suggests they move on to the last file.Maxson closes the manila folder and tosses it onto the table. The only one in his hands now is marked ‘Laviolette, Eleanora’. That name on its own can make him weak in the knees. The few times he has said it aloud, she’s mocked him for the way he butchers it. Too American, she says, but it flows like water from her tongue with beautiful precision.Kells continues without pause and reads from bullet points in his notes. Arthur thinks all he needs to know is that she’s killed a courser, a fact he hasn’t forgotten out of sheer awe. She’s supposed to have sources that will decode the courser chip, although she’s yet to present him with anything specific. He doesn’t know how she’s going about the second half of her mission or with whom, but he doesn’t much care. Killing a courser affords her his trust and he hasn’t asked for details.He flips open the folder to keep from staring at her name, the delicate way she curves her letters in an old world script he’s never seen practiced by another. It makes his stomach flutter, strange and unfamiliar.But the inside, he realizes, is worse.She’s lucky, so goddamn lucky,
he was the one to open this. It could have been Quinlan or Kells or Danse and they would have written her up on the spot for her lack of professionalism. But Maxson won’t. He knows these pictures are reserved for him and feels a groan build in his gut.Part of the wonder of seeing her this way is that he doesn’t know where she managed to find lingerie. It’s a frivolous luxury in the wasteland to spend precious caps on anything so skimpy and impractical. Perhaps she’s just that frivolous. Or maybe, he thinks, it’s hers. Stuffed for hundreds of years in the back of a chest, perfectly preserved for such a time as this. It would explain why it fits her so well.The other part that is just as curious, if not more so, is where she managed to locate a working camera. Surely, he believes now that she has contacts with an assortment of available resources. He's as impressed as he is nervous, caught off guard like she wanted him to be, and he fights to keep his eyes from the photographs. Wherever the damn report is in this folder, he’s not going to find it without going red in the face and Kells is still in the room.He can’t focus, couldn’t if his life depended on it. He rubs at his forehead and instead of listening to the lancer-captain, he’s wondering where she is and how difficult it might be to get her alone in the middle of the day. It’s certainly risky with the number of soldiers milling about. He plots all of the possible excuses to steal her away until long after Kells has disappeared.Even now, he dares not look at those pictures.
He needs a walk. He needs cold water. Or Nora. No, not Nora. He's laid out rules in his head for her
and rule number four forbids him from pulling her from her work. It's indecorous. Not like an elder. Not like a Maxson.He isn’t looking for her, he assures himself, but as soon as he steps out of his quarters, there she is. That’s how it always seems to be. She’s as unavoidable as the dawn, but that’s no small comfort. His is a world of uncertainty, of loss and carnage, in which nothing is guaranteed and everything he values is on the line.Against his better judgement, she’s one of those things, but at least up until now,
she's managed to stay alive.She stands beside a squire and looks to be instructing her on weapon maintenance. Danse is just behind them, listening and interjecting when he deems necessary. His first thought is that it's a wonder Kells thought her suitable for mentorship. But then, that may have more to do with her paladin than any merit of her own. Danse’s sponsorship is insurance that she stays on their side. The Brotherhood can't afford to lose her to other factions.And God knows Maxson can't afford it, either.It's this thought that persuades him to leave her, to turn back and let
her work. It's better for the Brotherhood, better for Arthur, better for Nora if there aren't feelings wrapped up in what they do. Spontaneity, he decides, is a thing of passion. He needs to stick to schedules. Clockwork sex. It can't be anything more than a way to blow off steam.He'll burn the photographs like they're evidence and they are. They mean that she thinks of him when she's away.Yes. He should burn them.Maybe.She steps up to the window of the observation deck and he turns because the color he sees out of the corner of his eye is not one he expects.“Is that regulation?” He nods to the vault suit.It’s a rhetorical question. It’s most certainly not.She grins, pleased as can be with her small defiance. “Nope.”He can only chuckle, because now that he’s been with her privately, he knows that she can take orders. It’s only in public that she insists on things her way, and she knows how to navigate the tightrope that is her superiors. Maxson will let her get away with certain things if only to see what she’ll do next. She’s never gone too far as of yet and he finds it amusing that uniform, of all things, is where she chooses to breach protocol.“Don’t let Kells see it,” he warns, turning back to faint stars and
a
ravaged Commonwealth.“Yes, sir.”It’s quiet, only one knight posted for guard duty just behind them. He’s facing the opposite way and Maxson's imagination runs wild. He wonders
how much they can get away with and then he stops himself because that would be spontaneity.She clasps her hands in front of her stomach. "Did you get my pictures?"His mouth curves, fights to frown and smile at once. He hasn’t forgotten them—hasn’t been able to—in the hours since he first laid eyes on them, but now, at her reminder, his heart pumps slightly faster. “Yes. At a most inopportune time.”She coughs to cover her laughter and he lets himself look her over. Her profile is damn near perfect. He doesn’t know which angle he prefers to look at her from; they’re all equally disarming. Her eyelashes curl up, thicker than any he’s ever seen, or at least that he's noticed. The slope of her nose is graceful, flows seamlessly into her lips like she's a fucking sculpture. It can't just be that she's less irradiated than the rest of them. It can't be that all prewar women were so flawless. It's just her, he thinks, and it's uncanny how she matches his taste.He can’t help it. He drapes an arm around
her and pulls her into him, plants his lips on her forehead. It’s the most contact they’ve had in days and it’s oddly satisfying, despite how tame it is. He doesn’t know what that means.“What are you doing tonight?” he asks, low enough so as to be unintelligible to the guard.Her hands find their way into the space between his suit and his coat, and for once, they're still. She's not trying to tease him; maybe she's too tired. He should be so lucky. “Scrubbing Danse's armor. I spilled Nuka Cola on it.” And when he opens his mouth to question her: “Don't ask.”He was used to being alone before her, but now, the idea of another night by himself sounds unfulfilling.
He sighs and she feels it so she nips at his jaw.“How late will you be up?”“Late enough.”“I'll report in when I'm done,” she says and he feels her hand slide below his hips, between his legs.Damn this woman. He lets himself say her name. Her first one, the full El-uh-nore-uh like he doesn't unless she's really frustrated him, and she has. It's one thing to make him work for her and quite another to do what she's done today. He breathes it into her ear, the sound ragged.
She gives him that siren smile and he feels the turn of the reel. She lures him in like she was made for him and he'll bite every time.His fingers pinch at the blue fabric and release. It hits her skin with a satisfying snap. “Wear this.”“Yes, sir,” she whispers and pushes out of his arms.She looks at him with a confidence that could level all of Boston and it shakes him to his bones. If ever he has been in the presence of his equal, it's with her. His head turns to follow her as she leaves because he is rapt, can't say he's ever felt the concoction of chemicals that he does when she's near.She crawled out of that damn vault solely to kill him, slow and drawn out. He's made his peace with it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Warm water soothes
the tension from weary muscles and when he sighs, he realizes how tired he's been.Leadership will turn his hair gray, has already. Nora finds
the silver strands when her hands comb through his hair on the few
nights she's stayed and not run. She teases him for it, but Cade insists it’s no laughing matter, that regular nights off are vital to his wellbeing. A bath, he’d suggested, could work wonders for his blood pressure.
The tub in his quarters has been scrubbed spotless, and even though it looks foreign and unnecessary, the knight-captain had gone through too much trouble getting it on the ship for Arthur not to at least try.So far, he’s unimpressed.He leans back and closes his eyes. The ceramic against his neck is cold and uncomfortable. Baths, he thinks, are a pre-war luxury best left in the history books. Such a horrendous waste of water—His eyelids flutter at the click of the latch but he doesn’t open his eyes. It’s too late in the evening for it to be anyone looking for the elder in him, and even though she’ll render his attempt at decompression useless, even though his heart beats more quickly just knowing she’s close, he’s not about to kick her out.He waits for her to speak first, to offer explanation for her brazen invasion of his space, but he only hears the scuff of her boots over the floor until he feels her. Strong hands kneading his shoulders and working the knots away that baths are
too impotent to undo.“Stressed, Elder?”“Not unreasonably. Is there any particular reason you feel within your rights to barge into my quarters unannounced?”It's a meaningless question. She has done it before and will do it again because his objections are for appearances. Smoke and mirrors. He's still a Maxson and Maxsons don't do this, whatever this
is—especially not so enthusiastically as he does.Her teeth nip lightly at the tip of his ear. “Send me away, then.”He won’t. They both know and the noises he makes when she runs her hands over his chest only confirm this.He hears the smile in her voice when she speaks, though he still doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t dare to disturb the moment.“Whose idea was this?”“Cade's.”Gentle lips press into his shoulder and travel up the slope of his
neck, where they latch and suck.The rumble in his chest is appreciative, contradicts the words he thinks he should say. “It’s supposed to be relaxing.” “You’re not relaxed?” she mumbles into the skin below his ear.“Not hardly.”He turns his face into hers and any faux concern he can muster for Cade’s recommendations dissipates into apathy and mingles with the steam in the room. His head spins for the lack of oxygen in the air and the only words he can summon are get in.She strips and as soon as her fatigues hit the floor, she’s stepping in between his legs and around his hips until she’s seated in his lap and facing him. Her fingers tug at her hair tie and gold tumbles out of it. It’s angelic. She’s angelic, and he would know just from that single display of irresistible grace, if he hadn't from her file, that she doesn't belong here. Not in the wasteland, not within miles of him, let alone in his quarters. He's scarred, on his face and everywhere else, and his military training and family name have made him a rigid soldier and little else. She's none of these things, so much more than what he should ever expect for himself. Why, of all people, it should be her that warms his sheets night after night, he can’t make sense of.On paper, they look laughably dissimilar.
Somehow, those details never seem to stop them.His eyes drift over her and there’s a groan stuck in the back of his throat. He has never seen so much concentrated beauty before and he leans forward eagerly to mark her for himself.His mouth seeks her jaw but Nora has plans. She catches him with her teeth before he reaches his objective and bites down on his bottom lip, transforms his want into a wild and desperate need, but this woman under his hands is one he doesn’t know.Because Maxson is used to hard and fast, and whether it’s lust or impatience, they have always been more furious passion, fiery push and pull, than romance. What she’s doing to him now breaks any precedent they’ve set.He racks his brain for another time a woman has kissed him this way and comes up empty. The slow glide of her tongue over his is driving him out of his mind and every other collision of their lips steals wounded sounds from his chest. She smiles into his mouth at his sweet pain—and it is painful, but he’ll drag it out anyway.Her hands roam his ribs, feather-light, and trace every velvet scar. She doesn’t ask for the stories. Hasn’t even asked about the long-healed gash on his cheek like the others before her did. He would tell her. He would be painfully transparent with Nora and his breath catches as he realizes that he
wants to tell her.
Nothing has ever alarmed him so much.Her fingers wrap around his cock and his vision blurs but with a grunt, he’s able to summon enough will to undo the hold of her fingers around him.The absence of her burns. She’s right there, willing, but he just can’t stomach it in the moment. He’s hopelessly confused by the churn of his gut and she is, too.She opens her mouth and squints, about to question it, and then she changes her mind and her jaw slowly shuts again. He’s glad; what would he say, anyway? He wants to please her, wants to be pleased, but this arrangement grows less and less palatable by the day.It doesn’t feel as easy as it had, once.They sit and stare and read each other’s faces and all they hold. He knows she’s confused by the creases between her eyebrows and the tight corners of her mouth and he waits her out until she voices it.“I don’t understand you sometimes,” and shakes her head like she’s working a particularly difficult equation.He sighs instead of answering. They’re on the same page, then, because he doesn’t fucking understand any of this either. He leans back and rests his arms on the rim of the tub, examining her for irritation or any sign that she believes he isn’t worth the trouble. She meets his gaze coolly, undeterred, raises an eyebrow after he stays silent.“Why did you ask me in here?”He furrows his brow deeper than usual. “It’s a crime, now, to want to be close to you?”“No, it’s–” She’s worked up and starting into a rant but she stops herself so quickly that he’s again struck by the juxtaposition between this rendezvous and all the others they’ve had. There’s control here that neither has ever bothered with before and he wonders if it’s a step forward or back. “Fine,” she says, when she’s once again fully in command of herself. “What do you want?”He keeps his expression solemn, like he does outside of this room, like he does for the others and like he used to for her.“Maxson,” she urges impatiently, and then, when he fails to hide the cavernous disappointment he feels when she reverts back to the informality of his surname, she corrects, “Arthur.”He’s ruining this. It’s the last thing he means to do.Unthinking, in a potent rush of chemical fear through his veins, he rises to meet her, chest to chest, and holds her against him. She’s slow to react. She holds her hands out so as to avoid touching him any further, and he thinks the damage is done.Little by little, she softens. Molds to him.
She thaws completely when he presses his lips to the crown of her head, and then, she sighs so quietly that he only knows it by the breath that tickles his collarbone.“Don’t understand you,” she repeats.He nods against her temple. “I know.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He finds her lying on a table in the mess, the way he had found her once before he knew anything he shouldn’t about her. It’s an obvious trap, a callback to those simpler days. It’s for that very reason that he’s so tempted to fall into it. To reminisce.She’d lain, all those months ago, that very same way, knees bent, but with a comic book held open above her. Hadn’t so much as flinched at his presence, and she doesn’t now.He knows she’s aware that he’s stopped, that it’s because of her, for her. He knows it by the roll and tap of her fingertips against the table top like a metronome. Perfectly paced, a countdown to when they both know he’ll give in. Her eyes are closed but somehow, some damn way, she knows.He sighs, long and exaggerated. “I believe we’ve had this conversation already. Spare me.”She cracks open one eye and tilts her head back to better see him. “Ingram said it was fine.”“Did she really?”“Well, she told me she didn’t have time for my shit. Roughly translates to ‘carry on’, I think.”He plays along. Steps closer to her and drops into the seat nearest her head. He has papers in his hands destined for Kells but the longer he sits in Nora’s presence, the more he curls them in on themselves.She turns her head to face him. Looking down on her this way, he realizes how small she is. How vulnerable, despite the predatory way she often seems.His heart constricts. “Nora.”“Okay,” she groans, rolling her head back to stare up at the ceiling. “So maybe it’s a really rough translation.”He chuckles, though he thinks he shouldn’t. It only encourages her.She smiles, a brief glimpse of teeth between full lips, and then it falls flat. She taps out her slow and measured cadence once more before she speaks. “You’re avoiding me.”Arthur curls the papers more tightly in his fist.“Why?”When she looks him boldly in the eye, he can’t move. Doesn’t really want to. She’s warmth to his frostbite. He feels quite literally like he’s melting the longer he looks at her, and then he can’t help but put his hand in the furnace.
Inevitably, every time.His knuckles brush against her jaw and up her cheek and her skin turns red against his.Yes. Incomparably warm.It terrifies him. Stops feeling inviting and starts feeling scorching, but his hand stays because all the years before her are still more painful than this. He struggles around words that have been said and rendered meaningless countless times before, but it’s apparent that he’s in too deep to turn back now.And all he can think is that he should’ve guarded himself better.She squints at him and looks every bit the way she did last week in his quarters in a lukewarm bath.Don’t understand you.“You can break this off whenever you want, Arthur,” she says, so slowly that he wonders if it hurts her to make the offer the way it hurts him to consider it.“Is that what you want?” he finally asks.Without breaking eye contact, she moves her legs over the edge of the table and sits with her back straight. The pride with which she holds herself is just as seductive now as it had been when she’d stumbled off a vertibird, hands stained with mutant blood and far, far too much of her own. When he’d told her to be more careful and she’d only answered with her teeth bared in a twisted smile. She almost never looks happy, but she always looks confident, if now shaken. Like the threat of his withdrawal means something; the first and only intimation that she’s as dissatisfied as he is. Papers forgotten, his hands fall to either side of her hips, palms open but not quite touching her. God forbid someone walk in on this moment and further complicate what Maxson is already struggling to untangle.Her eyebrows draw together and he thinks she’s about to give something away. Finally offer a part of herself besides the physical. Her fingers sweep over his and he flips his palm up, an offer to hold her hand. Lovers, friends; whatever they are, they are not nothing. She pauses and then, like she expects to be shocked, she warily covers his hands with hers.“It’s not me,” she says quietly, voice breaking.However she intends it, it feels like rejection. “What does that mean?” he demands, suddenly burning.“It means,” she sighs, closing her eyes, “you, whoever you’re going to end up with, isn’t me.”Maxson grinds his jaw. “Why are you saying that?”She throws her hands up, voice higher with her frustration. “Because you need to stop looking at me like that!”“Like what?!” he shouts, standing.“Like you...” she heaves, running into the same words he has and just as unwilling to voice them. “I just... miss you.”“I’m right here. Nora.” He breathes a laugh that sounds bitter even to his own ears.She rubs at her eyes, catching tears before they can fall, and it makes him so goddamn upset, both to see her this way and to know that she’s committed to take that facade of hers to the grave. But it’s impossible now, what she wants. He’s lost his ability to keep her at arm’s length, though she tries in vain to do it for him.She couldn’t be more different, this Nora. Distinctly unlike the one he’d been introduced to on the command deck, all bright eyes and cloying smiles.
What Maxson recalls when he sifts through the memories of firsts is steadfast boldness that had triggered near-instant regret. Worried he’d sealed his fate, damned himself to rumors and reprimands that he couldn’t hope outlive, and still not enough to keep him away from her. What he wants to tell her is how much more risk he’d assumed in all of this than her and how he inexplicably finds her to be worth it.After a moment of recovery, she murmurs,
“I ship out tomorrow.”“I know.”“0700.”Softer, this time. “I know.”She swallows, studying her boots. At the last second, she looks up with dark eyes. “Fuck me goodbye.”He reaches beneath her chin and his thumb runs over her bottom lip. She breathes out heavily, a sound he has come to associate with desire. He knows her, knows her so well, closer to her than anyone and he still craves more. He brings her face up to his and kisses her with the hope that he won’t have to say anything for her to know why he’s unable to keep them going like this. He doesn’t fight her when she impatiently presses against his lips with her tongue and seeks his. Leans into her because he’s starved himself and she’s beautiful sustenance.He slows their pace as her lips race against his, holding her hands away from where they attempt to undo his buckles. She presses into him harder and feeling unsteady, he steps back, sliding his hands up to her arms and gripping her with the force of the effort it takes to rip himself away.She looks to her right, hands in her lap. Always hiding. Proof that leaving her the space to think about them, though unceasingly painful, is necessary.“I’ll see you off,” he promises. He waits for her to turn to him and when she doesn’t, his lips brush against her temple.He gathers his papers and wills himself to walk away. His bones grow colder as he leaves her behind and he can’t ignore
the dreadful pang of possibility, the reminder that all good things must die.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Vibrant conversation and laughter emanate from the mess. The soldiers gathered there are filled with alcohol and they’re a merry bunch when intoxicated. Rightfully so. This occasion is one to celebrate.They have schematics and parts and now, time is the only thing between the Brotherhood of Steel and infiltration of the enemy. Eight long months in Boston, forsaken by any god long ago, and the end is in sight. There’s a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel and Maxson thinks that’s deserving of revelry.What he doesn’t recognize, and what Nora does, is how perfectly distracted everyone is. Even Quinlan has been convinced to indulge and is three sheets to the wind, gesturing wildly as he regales a scribe with one dramatic tale or another. Arthur smiles to himself from where he stands, observing in a corner, his first and only beer hovering at his lips.He runs a tight ship, careful not to turn his men into alcoholics while they’re deployed and under incalculable stress, but a little frivolity is in order. Been earned, even.Ever the opportunist, Nora breaks away from her conversation with a man who cranes his neck to watch her leave. Maxson would be lying if he’d denied having watched them. Jealous and possessive, at first, and then pleased at her obvious disinterest and her clear dismissal of him as she makes her way across the room toward the Elder.He’s never before felt the specific type of nervous she implants in him. He watches her approach with his stomach in knots and when he can’t trace the source of the feeling, he chalks it up to youth and inexperience. All he knows is she makes it difficult to swallow, his mouth dry and his limbs shaky at the promise of her attention. That she even wants to be near him in a room full of undoubtedly interested soldiers expands his pride to rival the mass of the Prydwen.She makes him invincible. Unconquerable. Bulletproof. And after their last interaction, he was sure she’d abandoned ship. So sure they’d run their course.Evidently, they haven’t.She leans against the wall beside him, empty-handed, but he knows she’s had a drink. Is counting on it, assuming it affects her the way it does him. Half a beer and he’s repentant and carefully ripping his eyes away from the curve of her hips.“Maxson.”“Knight.”“Having a good time?”He lifts the corner of his mouth, relieved beyond words to speak so lightly with her again. “I’m entertained, to say the least.”They both look for the source of sudden
cheers to see a man and a woman balancing bottles on their heads, competing to see who can hold it the longest as they sway dangerously from side to side.“To say the least,” she agrees with a dimpled smile and inches closer. He wonders if it’s conscious, or if he’s a black hole, pulling her in and apart.She has to feel something.“I left something,” she blurts without any preamble, kicking at a divot in the floor.He's about to ask what when she faces forward and sighs. This is difficult for her. He closes his mouth and lets her take her time.“Down at the airport. I left something. I was hoping you could take me to retrieve it.”The pink at her cheeks darkens to red, screams for him to read the subtext. This is a pretense and his blood turns molten in his veins. He hasn’t talked with her since her quiet return to the ship after a three-day reconnaissance in the north—and even then, she had stood quietly in Danse’s shadow as he briefed Maxson, speaking only when spoken to, and that hardly qualified as conversation. It certainly wasn’t the one that needed having. She was avoiding him, he’d thought, and he’d promised to let her, but now he thinks she’d instead been considering.He nods, sharp like he does on duty, in case there are any onlookers, but he’s too muddled to look anywhere but Nora. “Yes, ma’am.”They slip away easily. There’s too much noise, too much action for anyone to notice their disappearance. He uses up all of his stores of willpower to keep his eyes on the back of her head as they leave, but he does it. He’s immensely grateful to have remained sober enough to command a vertibird as she slides into the passenger seat. This was almost a missed opportunity. One more hour, a couple more drinks, and he would’ve been forced to say no.He pulls the headset on just to ease the lancer on duty. Yes, this is Elder Maxson. Yes, I’m alright, lancer. Just descending to the airport. No need for alarm, but even as he relays Nora’s excuse, it sounds as false and flimsy as it is.The perks of leadership, if there are any, are how little those under his command are willing to question him. What he says is gospel.He lands them on the helipad and when the rotors stop spinning, they’re left with the silent desertion of the airport. Something is sitting heavy on his chest and hers and neither moves at first. He can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen her this quiet, but it doesn’t feel dreadful, this moment. Rather, it feels like there’s a new gravity in their actions that demands to be acknowledged, so they do. Quietly, with only the sound of their stuttering breaths, they accept that this night is leaden.“I... I’m going to... get that, uh, thing,” she mumbles, undoing her seatbelt. “You
can meet me out back.”He nods. “Alright.” But in the back of his mind, he knows she’s no good at this—transparency—and half expects her to run away and never return.She doesn’t. When he’s through wandering the ruins and ensuring he’s aware of the posts of all the guards on duty, if they’re within hearing range, he steps out of a back door onto the uneven sand and sees her form submerged in waves up to her chest, hair slicked back and dark with water.Her clothes have been abandoned in a heap on the shore, tucked behind the wrecked body of a pre-war airplane. He deduces from the lack of undergarments there that she isn’t yet fully bare. If he knows her at all, he knows she’s an awful tease, but he suspects this has more to do with her reluctance to be vulnerable than anything else.He can’t blame her. His body is buzzing chaotically, pleasant and terrible at once, as he drops his coat to the ground. It feels strangely final. Signing his name on some line before he even knows what he’s really agreeing to. He hesitates and watches her arms arc as she cuts through the water. And then, his decision is cemented with the undoing of his flightsuit and the discarding of worn boots.He approaches the shoreline, slow to douse himself in the bitter cold of the ocean. It’s only her silhouette that can coax him further than knee-deep and when he ventures even further out, he’s sucked into her vortex inescapable, held there by forces beyond his control.She’s within arms reach. Usually, when she’s this close, he can’t help but put his hands on her. Tonight, he just marvels instead. Marvels and wonders. What they are, what she wants, how long he can go on this way, fucking an unattainable woman. Maybe he shouldn’t have come at all.If she can feel the tempest raging behind her, she doesn’t show it. She speaks evenly without even looking at him.“How many rads do you think we’re taking?”“So long as we don’t stay out here long, it’s negligible.”Now she turns, just one shoulder bending back, and he steps up until their bodies are flush. He brings one hand to her upper arm and holds her loosely, her flesh prickling under the warmth of his hand.She presses her cheek against his chest. “I used to love the beach. Used to go all the time. It’s... less fun now.”He rests his chin on the crown of her head and his eyebrows draw together at the broken skyline before them. Significantly more disturbing, he assumes, if you’ve seen what it used to be.“Everything used to be better. I used to be better, too.” She shifts in his arms to face him with a grim smile curving up the side of her face. “Is that what you want? Skeletal remains of some once–great thing? Are you so used to all of this
that you can’t tell when you’re settling?”He studies her for a moment before he flicks his eyes up to the toppled buildings that compose Boston. He doesn’t see the resemblance. “No.”“No?”“I’m perfectly capable of making informed decisions.”She scoffs, shakes her head at something in the distance. Her hand slides up to his chest and draws simple patterns that warm him from the inside out. “You’re so young, Arthur.
You don’t know what you want.”He knows better than to think these concerns are recent. Sometimes, she’s next to him, under him, and her eyes are a pained sort of vacant. He should’ve been more careful. Shouldn’t have let himself yearn to fill that emptiness. He can, dammit, he knows he can, but she refuses to let him and somehow, that’s worse.She must see his eyes harden. “Look, all I’m saying–”“I heard you. I know what you’re saying.”“Arthur, don’t be that way.”He drops his arms to his sides and she sighs, reaching for his hands.“Arthur–”He grinds his teeth together and forces words through them that shred him on the way out. “I don’t think we should have done this.”He shouldn’t have followed her out here. Now, he’s sure. She’s too damn stubborn to ever change.Nora crosses her arms over her chest. “You’re overreacting.”“Oh, I am? You make me so—” Furious. Worked up. Goddamn exhausted. Heated. He presses his lips together and her eyes fall to them as they both wait for him to fill in the blank with any number of applicable words. “So...”She fucking smiles,
and it ruins his life, that smile. “Grouchy?”“Don’t help me,” he snaps, though he can feel that the sight alone of her easy grin is making it harder to hold his expression rigid.“Ornery?” she continues, drawing herself up on her toes until their eyes are level. “Cross? Senile?”“Senile, certainly.”She splashes him. “Damn right, you are.”He wipes the water from his beard. She watches the movement of his hands, awaiting his retaliation, but all his time in his quarters hasn’t dulled his quick reflexes. He flicks his wrist powerfully and she turns away from the downpour.“You’re still two hundred years old, darling,” he reminds her.He catches her arms as she goes to splash him again and pulls her roughly towards him. She laughs loud and uncontrolled and, a stupid grin on his face, he scans the shore to see that they haven’t alerted anyone to their presence. She twists in his arms, sending wild ripples out from their bodies, and squeaks when he throws her over his shoulder to still her.He sloshes back toward the beach, Nora struggling against his back, but only playfully. He drops her onto the sand inches from where the tide is and covers her fully. Presses himself closer when he sees her teeth chattering.Moonlight is good to her. All light, he corrects, because every memory of her is absurdly lovely, unsurpassed by anyone he’s known. It will be a kind of death to release the frantic grip he keeps on her, one he’s been grieving prematurely, and now, he needs to know.But for a second, he’s knocked speechless, captive to his appreciation. Can’t think of a damn thing to say except, “you’re so fucking beautiful.”Her eyes dilate slightly and fall to his lips. Hers part expectantly.In his hopeless affection, he turns blunt. “Do you fuck anyone else?”“No,” she whispers.“And us?”He can tell she knows she’s run out of time by the discomfort she betrays. He decides that this is hard enough for her; he pulls her closer, his lips to her ear, so she doesn’t have to face too much at once. Doesn’t have to face him. “I think you know I can’t have you like this anymore, Nora. Not without knowing. What is it we’re doing?”Maxson hears her swallow. He’s braced for the worst case: a long wait and a firm rebuff. He’s a fucking idiot for doing any of this at all. For holding onto hope like he has and for as long as he has.She takes a few breaths through her nose. “Christ, I... don’t want to lose you.”“What does that mean?” He leans back and her eyebrows are drawn, like the honesty is actually killing her.“Fuck, Arthur,” she cradles his face, “I’m so bad at these things. Please. Don’t make me say it. You already know.”His hand grips her jaw tightly. “I love you.”She mashes her lips together and nods.Good enough.He brings her mouth to his roughly, guiding her to him with fingers laced into her hair. She lets him lead for once and he’s worried he’s broken her. So worried, he pulls back to read her expression, but her arms wrap around his neck and she licks over his bottom lip, erasing all of his fears and any thoughts at all.Maxson picks her up and carries her toward the airport, to somewhere less conspicuous while he still can, though she’s determined to make it as difficult as possible. She runs her nails over the skin of his neck as warm and labored breaths fan out over his ear and make him stumble before he drops them near their clothes.He takes his time as he peels what little they still have on away, half because she thoroughly wrecks his motor skills and half because, for once, he wants to just feel her, doesn’t care about getting off. This time, she is not a thing to be devoured. This time, she’s life itself and he savors her like the last pure air in the Commonwealth: untainted, unirradiated, the last of its kind.Slowly like this, he realizes, she’s prone to volume. He has to remind her to be quiet even as he fights his own natural reactions. She pushes him back to sitting and straddles him so she can control the pace and bite back moans against his shoulder and whether it’s the shock of intimacy after so many weeks without her or that now his heart is implicated in the act, he’s completely overwhelmed and near bursting in almost no time at all.The roll of her hips quickens. She takes him in all at once, groaning when he fills her, and then lifting herself almost completely off of him. His mouth hangs helplessly open and he spills heavy, breathy moans against her neck. He doesn’t want to come like this. He wants all of her pressed to him, closer than she’s been to anyone else. He throws her onto the sand with no regard to the way it sticks to their damp skin. They’re both already a mess and all of that can be fixed later but now—now, it’s only
Nora, keening and desperate, that he can stand to focus on.“Nora,” he pleads urgently.She thrusts up to meet him and looks so absolutely perfect that way that he can no longer hold on. His fingers find her clit and brush over her nerves and she must have been on the precipice because, just as he removes himself from her, she cries out and it’s his name that reverberates off of the airport at a pitch that makes his ears ring.He props himself up on one elbow and his other arm clutches her to his chest, unwilling to release her. Nora seems to cling to him just as tightly. They heave in tense unison, waiting for someone on night shift to come investigate the sound.They’d better. This airport had better be damn well-secured, or else—The effortful sound of boots through sand grows louder with the approach of a soldier. A knight, he presumes, by the shadows cast by the white glow of a headlamp.Maxson feels a rush of fear, but it’s weak and diluted. He knows it should matter what his subordinates think, what rumors get passed around, but the world would have to cave in on itself for him to be truly concerned about much beyond how he’s still ridiculously hungry for Nora: body, mind, and soul.Thankfully, the knight doesn’t move past the wrecked airplane. They scan the beach and, satisfied that no one is hurt or trespassing, they clomp back to the airport and Maxson exhales.He stands to brush himself off and helps Nora wipe most of the sand away, though he can’t help that there’s a significant amount in her tousled, wet hair. He chuckles to himself at the endearing sight and she stares up at him with a hint of a smile.He wonders if she feels any peace now that they’ve more or less worked themselves out.He thinks not.When she looks up at him, there’s a surface satisfaction with turbulence lurking beneath.
He raises a hand to her cheek and kisses her once tenderly, a vain attempt to calm those seas.It doesn’t.Intricate problems cannot have simple solutions. He knows this well.Still, when they’re back on the Prydwen, when Nora is slipping into his quarters as he scans the empty metal halls to ensure they aren’t seen, he fools himself into believing the beautiful lie that wilderness can be tamed.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When she returns from the Institute, she reports without hesitation to his quarters, and for the second time, he sees a stranger when he looks at her.She wears the face of a woman surrendered. His mind can’t reconcile this fragile thing with the Nora he likes to think he knows. It’s jarring, to say the least, couldn’t be more unsettling if those wretched scientists had relayed back a live grenade.She breaths heavier, shrinks herself until she looks the way she feels. There’s no question she needs help. Some sort of psychiatric intervention. But he won’t leave her to the scribe. Not his Nora, when he isn’t sure what’s happened to her.He should’ve sent someone else.The three of them sit in the Elder’s cramped room and he watches her as intently as the scribe does.
Her face is sunburnt across her nose, red and angry and dry skin. She’s been somewhere. Wandering, she told Cade, but Maxson doesn’t know what to think. In any case, it’s clear she is only physically present while the rest of her was wounded in some lonely corner of the wasteland.Scribe Burman jots something down hastily, but Maxson only hears the scratch of graphite across paper. He doesn’t waver from the woman before him, disturbed by the look in her eyes. Not delirious. On the contrary, she looks more awake now than ever.“How are you feeling, Miss Laviolette?”She squints suddenly, like the noise agitates her.“Do you have a headache?”“No,” she says, though her answer clashes with sunken eyes. She doesn’t look well, despite the tenacity still shining behind her irises.Maxson considers tossing the scribe out by his collar.“Alright.” Burman swallows, making more notes. Maxson doesn’t bother checking over his shoulder to try catch what he’s scrawling, though he should. It’s his job to know. But he’s pinned to his seat, held fast by the regret that saturates Nora’s gaze. It’s directed at him and his stomach sinks, falls so far and so fast that he’s light-headed.His fingers dig into the desk he’s leaning against, nails scraping the metal. That’s his damn fault. All of this.She hates him, he thinks. Hates that he let her go, even if she’d been the one begging for it. He’s the one that’s supposed to know his enemy, and he does, yet still he sent her into the lion’s den.She should hate him. He hates himself even more.The scribe looks up. “Any, uh, injuries, Knight?”Nora just stares at Maxson intently, squinting like she’s looking directly into the sun. He’s not sure she head Burman at all.The weight on his shoulders multiplies as he grasps just how much this mission has broken her. It didn’t need to be her in the first place. Why didn’t he just fucking send someone else?“Knight Laviolette?” Burman beckons.Still, she doesn’t look anywhere but her elder, pleadingly, painfully, and he’s had enough of all the procedure. It isn’t helping.“Are you–”
“Get out,” he hears himself say.“Uh... sir?”“She needs more time. I’ll inform you when you’re needed again.”Scribe Burman gathers his things and holds them to his chest. One hurried salute and he’s gone and then Maxson is free to devote all of his personal and professional attentions to Nora.Whatever she needs, he will give her.Her jaw tightens as she fights herself. There’s war beneath her skin, though what is being contested remains unknown. He wants to be her ally, is her ally, but she rarely lets him close enough to do real good.“What is it?” Maxson asks, tenses as he waits for the blow to fall.And it does. A sucker punch that leaves him black and blue.“I can’t,” is all she says, but he knows what she means.He blinks. “Can’t.”For once, she isn’t stone. Every emotion is openly displayed on her face, but what would once bring him relief now only makes him sick. She hasn’t changed, not so much as she’s been cracked open.He crouches in front of her, searching, comparing. “Can’t,” he repeats.She shakes her head and lets herself cry. Nora falls against his shoulder, leans all of her weight onto him, yet even her heavy presence, her full reliance on him to hold her up, isn’t reassuring. He wraps his arms around her, and it might be a trick of his mind but she feels more specter than solid woman.She drains herself onto him, spilling tears like waves, like stormy and uncertain weather, until she’s weak and limp. Strange, for Nora. She makes no sound beyond strangled breaths for a tortured few minutes.“I don’t want children,” she whispers.It seems to be out of nowhere. “That’s... that’s what you’re thinking about?”“You’re the last Maxson.”He knows where this is going. He pulls back and keeps a heavy hand on the back of her neck like an anchor. “That isn’t relevant.”Nora won’t accept that. She sighs as her body stiffens and she’s suddenly marble under his seeking palms.Already gone.“You say that, but it’s not true. It’s very relevant.” A deep breath. “And I need you to understand why I can’t stay.”“Petty details,” he shakes his head, resting his nose beside hers. His
fingers tangle themselves in her hair like he’s done before thousands of times, but never quit this desperately.She peels away and arches a stern eyebrow. “You’ve got to let go.”His instinct is stubbornness, to dig his heels in and refuse, but he gets the feeling she isn’t being entirely honest with him.“What aren’t you telling me?” he seethes, because secrets infuriate him. If he’s going to lose her, he won’t do it blindly.It’s almost as if he can see her building walls. At his pressing, she recedes into herself and presses her lips together.“I don’t want children. That’s the truth.”“And?”She grits her teeth. “Leave it alone, Maxson.”“Tell me what happened.”“Stop it.”He’s sick of interrogating her. He grabs hold of her upper arms and shakes her like it’ll loosen her mouth. “Dammit, Nora!”“Don’t— fucking—” She struggles against him, pushes on his chest, but he tightens his grip until she beats against him and cries out angrily. “YOU’RE GONNA KILL HIM AND I—”They both relax once it’s out. She sinks into her chair and he lets her go. Recoils, really, half-relieved to have forced it from her and with a sinking feeling that there’s hell to pay.He doesn’t want to know anything more, but his position requires it. There’s Brotherhood in his blood so he needs to know who she’s talking about. No matter how much he prefers ignorance.“Him,” he says.“Shaun is...” She blows a harsh breath out through her nose.Maxson hears what she doesn’t say, interprets the silence.
Institute.
In
whatever capacity, Shaun is affiliated with their greatest enemy.“I can’t... kill... my own son.”“I wouldn’t ask you to.”There’s enough tension in his jaw to keep him from giving himself away. Maybe that’s why those words don’t sound like the plea that they are.That, or she hears what she wants to.She makes to leave without saying goodbye and it’s salt in his wounds. It
feels wrong. That he has known and loved and fucked this woman, and that now it’s as if it hadn’t happened at all. Or, it should be. There should be no pit in his stomach at the sight of her leaving. He shouldn’t feel like he’s falling, flailing, losing his sanity and she shouldn’t make him so damn sad.
A better man wouldn’t need to bury those feelings because he would’ve already killed her in his mind. But
bury them he does. Not in opposition to experiencing them, but because in this moment, they will cripple him with the weight of their intensity.
“Eleanora,” he begs.
It doesn’t need to be this way.
She hesitates at the door. “I’m so sorry,” she finally says.
And that’s how she leaves him. On his knees in front of an vacant chair, hollowed out and speechless.They'll call her a deserter. But that’s all they’ll know. That Nora left—not the dirty details.He loves her enough to keep the truth of her Institute ties to himself. Enough that he’ll guard her reputation as much as he can. As if it’s Nora herself.When she’s gone and once he’s grasped it—admitted to himself that his nights, this ship are utterly empty—he thinks that he’s never really had his heart broken before.