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There were a million relentless foes in the Mojave Wasteland. Both big and small, vicious and cruel. The worst of the lot beat down on the unlikely trio as they exited a valley and walked out into huge expanse of hard packed sand and rock. It would take them all damn day to cross this stretch of ground, he kept a punishing pace but she and the damned dog kept up. He turned in his head in the blistering (a hundred degrees would be a conservative estimate) and glanced at his traveling companions under the brim of his tattered tan cowboy hat with his dark brown sniper’s eyes. Out here, the sun could you kill as quickly as a rad-scorp or raider. He had to make sure they stayed moving.
The canine seemed ok. Dogmeat to him but CX404 or just ‘404’ to her. The Vaultie had discovered a laser barcode on her while giving the mutt some scratches during chow time. The lab-engineered (damn Conclave had too much time on their hands) Belgian Malinois was panting up a storm but her eyes were bright and she was zipping back and forth, sniffing every bit of brush she could find. The saddlebags full of extra supplies they’d put on her were still secure so he paid her no further mind.
He was fine himself. As a ghoul, extreme temperatures didn’t really bother him. The burned, scarred and hairless quasi-undead body under his ragged brown trenchcoat, pants, boots and washed-out trail shirt and ammo belts was immune to most things. He didn’t need much rest or food or water. Wounds, provided he kept his head on his shoulders and his heart in his chest, healed fast and without medical attention. He could even sew on body parts to replace any he’d lost. A somewhat dainty and pale digit wiggled in his right glove. The most helpful part of being a ghoul in this blasted Wasteland was that he was immune to the nuclear radiation that the entire globe was fucking soaked in. He had been able to survive the post-war world for over two hundred and nineteen years because of these attributes.
Cooper Howard was one tough son-of-bitch.
But being a ghoul wasn’t all functional immortality and being able to drink rad-water. There was a lot of bad that came with it. All ghouls physically changed. Some lost all their hair, some turned greenish, pale white or in his case, all over scarred tan. All ghouls lost any spare weight or flesh, they were all skeletal and had sunken-in eye sockets. Another standard among ghouls was they all lost their damn noses. His empty sinus cavity itched just thinking about it. All these visible differences led to them being hated, ostracized and hunted down in most surface communities. When you looked like a damned movie monster, people tended to treat you like one. Not that they treated each other much better, enlightenment was in short supply in the Wasteland.
Of course, there were was a valid reason to fear ghouls. The main danger of being a ‘necrotic post-human’ for others and the ghoul themselves was going feral. No one knew what caused it or why every ghouls eventually had to reckon with it. But you basically lost what was left of your humanity and you turned into the zombie-creature that the Fleshies always feared you to be. You became a mindless eating machine; filled with rage and violence. Once you passed a certain point, there was no coming back. But there were ways to hold off the progression. By ingesting, usually through an inhaler, the right mixture of chems could keep you halted at a certain point. He had plenty at the moment so he wasn’t worried himself either.
Cooper was worried about her.
But not as much as he had been as when they started out from the Observatory on this death-or-glory ride.
Lucy MacLean, formerly of Vault 33, was a different gal nowadays than the wet behind the ears kitten in a shiny Vault-Tec jumpsuit who pointed a tranq-gun at him in Philly. The blue and gold jumpsuit was still there but it had lost that corporate sheen. It had been ripped and slashed, sewed and stitched up and was now covered in dirt and dried blood from their last fight. It matched the wearer better. That scared and mouthy Vaultie who he had tortured and mutilated, been spared by and met again further down the trail.
Damned if she wasn’t a survivor.
The young woman marching behind him was scanning the horizon with those giant hazel doe eyes but she wasn’t gawking at all the new anymore. She was scanning for threats; her shoulders were loose and her knees slightly bent. Lucy wasn’t sightseeing; she was ready to dodge in case someone opened up on them. She wasn’t a tourist anymore. The rifle on her shoulder, the blaster on one hip and the machete on the other were like his weapons. Just about the only thing clean and oiled on her. That shoulder-length dark brown hair that been fucking shining when he first met her but now? It was dirty and lank, the vitality leeched out of it. Her olive skin, which had felt as smooth as silk the first time he grabbed her face in the L.A. dessert was now rough and dry and reddened by the sun. The fierce heat and light of the Wasteland had done a number on these lips too. That plump and pink cupid’s bow was now cracked and dry, split open in places. Cooper didn’t really have much in the way of lips anymore, but what was left of them twisted as she gulped in the heat and licked an equally dry tongue over her own.
“You need a drink, sweetheart?” The tone he used he was half-mocking and half-concerned. She frowned at him.
“I’m fine Cooper Howard.” He looked up the blazing sun, once he lifted the brim of his hat, it was like an open furnace on his mottled skin, he felt the heat pour down his nose hole. Mildly unpleasant to him so that meant hellish for her. The ghoul bounty hunter inclined his head and addressed her sardonically.
“I guess I’ll just truss you up again and drag ya the rest of the way when the sunstroke poleaxes your stupid little ass.”
The vault dweller rolled her eyes at him…...but then she took the canteen off her waist, unscrewed the cap and took a quick swig. His eyes focused on her hand as she did. The lady’s paws were rougher too, cut and scabbed up. Knuckles skinned from throwing a punch, they were surface hands now. That new finger with its dark flesh stood out, his chin jutted forward as he looked at the replacement digit she had gotten at the slavers that he had sold her to. A feeling twisted his gut, a new feeling or rather, an old one.
‘Regret? Guilt?’
Maybe none of that shit, maybe all of it. Cooper thought about it at night sometimes, when she and the dog were sleeping and he was keeping watch. For over two centuries of searching and surviving, the former leading man had been forced (chosen) to play a different role. The bad guy, the bounty hunter, the villain who killed with a smile on his hideous face.
The Ghoul.
But the script got revised and he wasn’t a one man show anymore. All of sudden he had a co-star in this horror movie and God save him, hope as well. And to think, he almost lost that one-in-several-lifetimes-chance because he needed fucking vials. She was Henry ‘Hank’ MacLean's fucking daughter. One of the bastards who stole his life and murdered the world. He been in one the rat nests when the bombs dropped, got frozen in their BUDS program and at some point, been taken out of the freezer to run one of their breeding farms and had himself a daughter. And then thanks to Moldaver and her own quest for the fusion gizmo, he had a chance. To find Janey, to kill the cock-knockers who doomed him and to finally get the truth from them…...from her.
And it was all thanks to little Miss Golden Rule.
Her inconceivable act of kindness to him outside the Super-Duper Mart saved his life and gave him this chance. It only seemed fair to Cooper that she got her shot too. Then they’d be even. Plus, she was damn good bait to get her daddy out of whatever new hole he’d dug into. At least that’s how he felt a month ago when this little journey started.
Lucy MacLean annoyed the unliving shit out of him for many reasons. She never shut up and she needed so much sleep, RadAway and food. The Ghoul had forgotten how much care and maintenance Fleshies required. Aside from hunting and killing; Cooper didn’t spend much time with them anymore. And she never shut the hell up. Then was all the damn “we have to help these people Cooper Howard!” How many times had they lost a whole fucking day helping out dipshit settlers not get eaten by hungry Fiends or breakout a captured pack of ghouls out of a slaver caravan? Small wonder they had lost young Henry’s trail more than once. And she never fucking shut up.
He should say to no to her more.
But…...she had been pulling her weight. With the fighting, scavenging and he had to admit, dealing with people along the way had been easier with Little Miss Big Smile and Friendly Handshake. In fact; when they set out, he had thought he would have to more concerned with keeping her ass alive. Cooper should have realized that she was a whole lot tougher than he thought, she didn’t need near as much herding as he thought she would.
‘Why did you cut her bonds when giving her to the slavers? Why did you give her that ghost of a chance?’
She finished her drink and gave him a bratty, or as close to she could get to bratty, look as she returned the canteen to her waist. Some muscles atrophied but they never really died. Cooper did a little mental heavy lifting and did something that felt…...odd to him. The words were almost too….small somehow. Like he was trying to put on boots that didn’t fit well anymore.
“Good work with the Legion pricks, by the way.”
Lucy brightened at that, perhaps because he didn’t say it sarcastically or because it gave her an opening to start yapping; maybe both. The young woman trotted up to his side and began to keep pace with him.
“So, you do agree that my flanking maneuver was correct strategy for that situation?” Cooper shrugged and grunted.
“Did the job.” The former vault dweller looked extremely pleased with herself.
“I agree! When we came upon those oddly costumed raiders lying in wait at that old airstrip, I could see immediately how the standard U.S. Armed Forces infantry flanking maneuver 1-1A could allow us to defeat an entrenched foe with superior numbers. Aren’t you glad that you listened to me? Yes, it is likely that you would been relatively unharmed from your suggested ‘ go in guns-a-blazing on those motherfudgers’ tactic but I’m glad we avoided injuries all together.”
He just grunted again but by the pattern they had established, she took that as a valid response. Lucy wiped the sweat off her forehead and continued.
“I’m still mystified by a regional army in the former United States choosing imperial Rome as a motif and model of government. I wonder how their ‘Caesar’ came up with it. It miffs me a little, if I’m being honest. Don’t get me wrong, I love the classics! I taught a whole unit on the Roman Empire back home but it just feels so……unpatriotic. I think even our rampaging slavers should draw from American history. Say, why didn’t you ever do any gladiator movies?”
Another part of the pattern was the sudden leap-frogging in topics she did. Cooper had learned she could start a conversation with a maudlin observation about the difficulty of surviving in the Wasteland and end it with a chirpy explanation of how to make a perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That time they had gotten to an argument over strawberry versus grape jelly that lasted over an hour.
“Didn’t have the look for them. My agent always said that my face was too American, that I couldn’t pass for an ancient fella.” She raised a hand and waved away the opinion of a man two centuries in his grave.
“That’s poppycock Cooper Howard. You had real range! I bet you would made an excellent Julius Caesar or Marcus Antonius! I would wager if Vault-Tec hadn’t waged that scurrilous campaign against you (and the world hadn’t been consumed in thermonuclear fire) that a wide varieties of roles would have been available to you!”
‘Cooper Howard. Heh.’
The brunette continued to babble as he mused on the way she had taken to saying his name since discovering his old (true) identity after that fracas at the drive-in. Not only was Lucy MacLean a vault dweller, the daughter of one of his worst enemies and a general pain in his undead ass……she was also a fan. Seen all his flicks, more than once. Apparently young Henry had maintained his devotion to the filmography of Cooper Howard.
The smug little prick.
Had he smiled at Cooper’s onscreen antics, laughed with his daughter and son and then had he smirked? Smirked at the black and white cowboy who he left to burn? It had enraged him to no end and made him want to never think about his damn movies again until she started yakking about them. Lucy knew of his pictures; even the ones that didn’t do well like Herd Them Dawgs! She was filled to the brim with questions and comments and not just about the films themselves. She wanted to know about filmmaking, the cameras, costumes, trade-craft and what they ate for lunch. Lucy loved history and wanted to distract herself from the fact that she was on her way to kill her daddy. She wanted to know about before.
Now Cooper was never one for the sad-sack ghoul circle jerks where they’d all sit around and mourn what was ash and dust. He had something the rest of them didn’t, a past that was also the present. Janey and Barb were out there somewhere and he could still find them if he stayed alive no matter what he had to do. The rest of it? Hollywood, hamburgers and the American flag? He tried not to think about it; just ignored it like a wound that hadn’t healed right.
Until her.
The Ghoul discovered something else with Lucy. The past didn’t seem to hurt as much with her. Cooper found if he stayed away from the subject of his family; he could even enjoy it. He could enjoy the widening of those already giant eyes as he described something utterly mundane like the LA freeway, airplanes or growing up on a ranch in Bakersfield.
“You could fly other continents in less than a day?”
“Wait…wait….you could have how many toppings on a piz-za? Please describe each one in detail!”
“You had a dog and a cat when you were growing up?”
She was amazed by all the shit he took for granted when he had it. Talking about it with her did make him sad sometimes but not how he expected it to. It made him sad for her. A gal like Lucy deserved a normal life. One where she was worried about taxes and not being eaten alive. A life where she married for love and not because she lived in an ant colony that needed breeders.
Lucy MacLean deserved the world he failed to save.
Fuck.
Where was all this coming from?
Damned if this girl wasn’t making him go soft. When did that happen? When she dropped those vials in his hand or when he sewed her finger on stump? Cooper was pondering that when she said something that caught his attention. The nigh-immortal ghoul had taken to treating her stream of conscious yapping like the car radio. It stays on, you’re not really listening to every word but you’re tapping your finger on the wheel to the rhythm of the song. But when some lyric or phrase jumps out at you, you turn your head to the dials. Which is why what she said next really caught his attention.
“……but after seeing that gas-powered trebuchet manned by cannibals, I don’t think anything else on surface can surprise me anymore.” Cooper snorted and then threw out a guffaw for good measure.
“Sweetheart, you haven’t seen the half of what weird shit can crawl of the rad-holes to bit you on the cock. Don’t let surviving a few showdowns and backstabs make you too big for your britches.”
Lucy frowned; first at his profanity and then at his insinuation. Her jaw jutted forward and she didn’t back down.
“I am not, as you referred to your new deputy in the classic Railroad Rangers, a ‘tenderfoot from back East’. I have survived raiders, Fiends, robots, ghoul attacks, my dad and might I remind a certain bounty hunter, I survived you. I am quite confident that I can deal with whatever this place can throw at me.”
He threw back his head and laughed with the sun in his face, that pissed her off and she glared at him. Which didn’t bother the ghoul, her pouting face with the high cheekbones didn’t exactly help buttress her point. This girl; he did give credit for making it this far but they had a long, long way to go. He took a few steps ahead and turned to step in front of her. Cooper smirked at the Vaultie as she skidded to a stop.
“That a fact, Miss MacLean? You can handle anything the Wasteland can throw at you?” She shuffled her feet at his stare.
“Ye-yes.”
“You can handle, oh I know don’t know, rad-storms that could strip the flesh from your carcass before you could whistle Dixie? You thought that Mr. Handy was problem? Wait until you’ve got to face-off with still functioning Assaultron. Fancy talk or that pea-shooter on your hip ain’t gonna do ya much good when their head laser cuts you in half like a loaf of bread. And honey, you don’t even wanna know about Deathclaws.”
With each description, he took a step closer and now their boots were toe-to-toe. The ghoul loomed over the human. She gulped and nodded, snorting out her little pointed nose like an angry filly.
“I didn’t say that I’ve seen everything in the Wasteland but I know I’m ready for it when it comes.”
He chuckled and clicked his tongue. She always had answer for everything. He leaned down further, getting in her personal space. Lucy stiffened, he could tell she slammed the brakes on flinching away.
“What about me, Vaultie? You ready for anything I can throw at you?”
She had a temper; fire hidden behind all that corporate team speak and big smile. It flared in those hazel peepers as she stared in into his sunken dark brown orbs without blinking. Lucy raised her chin, and showed him her pearly whites as she growled at him. (She somehow still had a tube of toothpaste and rubbed it on her chompers each morning.)
“Since we’ve met; you’ve murdered half a town in front of me; pistol-whipped me, waterboarded me and cut my finger off. You are an arrogant and mean son of a…...gun. But guess what? I’m not scared of you anymore. You don’t have surprises left for me.”
The wind howled around them, kicking up dust. Neither moved, Cooper saw the muscles in cheek twitch and she pulled back one of her shoulders. He realized what was happening, she expect him to act like an asshole and swing on her or sweep her legs out. Lucy thought he’d try to teach her a lesson that way. She was a smart cookie; it was a sensible thing to expect him to do. But even after two hundred years, the ghoul still a few surprises in left in him.
There was less than an inch between their lips.
No time for her guess what he was going to do and he was quick as a rattlesnake.
Cooper’s lips met hers and he kissed her before she realized he had moved. It had been a very, very long time since he’d kissed anyone but he still remembered how to kiss a beautiful woman. Hell, he used to do it for a living. The former actor bent his head to the side and kissed the gal like there were cameras on them. Lucy froze like a deer as he pushed her head back slightly, he felt her tremble and her eyes closed half-way and her mouth began to open.
Was she about to kiss him back?
No.
Lucy’s eyes bugged open, he was shoved away as she planted both hands on his chest and shoved hard. But he was bigger and ghoul strong. So he didn’t move, instead she stumbled backward and onto her butt with an outraged squawk. The woman glared up at him as Dogmeat padded over and sniffed her face. Lucy wiped her lips with the back of her hand and snarled at him.
“You dirty old sneak!” Cooper hooked his thumbs on his gunbelt and cocked his head at her.
“I thought you said you were ready for anything Miss MacLean?”
“You know gosh-darn well what I was talking about!”
Cooper just shook his head, she had a lot to learn still and they had still had a ways to go before they made camp for the night. Enough ruminating and grab-ass. He put his right hand out, palm up.
“You should be grateful; you just got a smooch from The Man from Calabasas.” Lucy blushed under her sunburn; that was something he didn’t notice. She grumbled as she smacked her right hand into his and he tugged her to her feet.
“Who knew he’d taste like old Cram?” Cooper laughed at that as he turned back to the direction they’d originally been heading.
“Shit, given what you’ve eaten before, that’s half a compliment Miss MacLean!”
They continued across the plateau. Him chortling, Dogmeat sniffing and her grumbling about how down right discourteous he was. Cooper didn’t think much about it about it at the time. Just having a spot of fun in the middle of a perilous journey that would most likely end in one or both of their grisly deaths.
Cooper Howard didn’t know that it wasn’t just a kiss. It was their first kiss.
He didn’t know he’d repeat the story often with a smug grin in the years to come.
That Lucy would tell it with a blush on her face…...every time.
That Janey would sit between them in front of the cooking fire and ask to hear it again with a crooked smile that she got from her father.
Or that a fella named Norm would stir the pot of rad-rabbit stew and groan about hearing the Kiss story yet again before shooing Dogmeat away from the vittles.
Cooper Howard didn’t know he had happy ending at the end of this picture.
Not yet anyway.
The sun beat down on the trio of travelers as they walked toward that ending.