Untarnished, She Shines With Honour // Arthur Maxson x F!Sole Survivor

Chapter Seven

"I would ask you if I was keeping you up, but I know you'd be up anyway." Ridley wears a sly grin, leaning against the door frame of the observation deck. Wet blonde hair brushes her shoulders. "Took us damn near close to a day to secure the fort, and another to inspect the shells we secured. I apologise for the delay. I'd have been back this morning, but I didn't think you wanted to discuss business while I was covered in mutant viscera." She grimaces at the sound of her own words. "That wasn't the best way of putting that. Sorry."

"Thank you for your consideration, though I assure you I've long since built up a tolerance," Maxson replies softly, his voice lacking the same humour hers holds. Night has long since fallen, the view outside the Prydwen dark and foreboding. A radstorm glows emerald on the horizon, the flashes of lightning visible even from this distance.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her incline her head, sharply angled brows furrowing as she steps towards him. "You alright?"

The grip of his clasped hands tighten, trimmed nails leaving small crescent moon indents on his skin. "Paladin Danse gave me a report of Fort Strong. Outstanding work, soldier."

Ridley's face falls, crestfallen. "Thank you, sir," she says dejectedly. "It was an honour fighting for the Brotherhood."

Her words sound so forced they make him grimace. He knows it's only a response to the sudden formality of their interactions. Ingram is right. He's been showing her too much favouritism. This affair is a political one, and exists only to see the end of the Institute. The Minutemen's knowledge, in exchange for the Brotherhood's resources. There isn't anything else about this.

He turns ever-so-slightly to look at her, noting the way her teeth catch on her lower lip, and her downcast eyes as green as the radstorm looming in the distance. They spark with the same electricity. "Eleanor," he says, and her head snaps up at the sound of her name. "You did a good job."

Try as she might, she cannot hide the now-familiar crimson that creeps up her neck at the praise. There is a difference, he has noticed, between the woman standing before him, and the General. The latter is loud, and brash, and demands attention. The former just looks... tired, like she's slowly drowning with every breath she takes.

Ridley runs her tongue over her cracked lips. "Thank you," she repeats, but it's softer this time, and she meets his gaze. "But there's still a lot to be done."

He wants to suggest that they take this relative peace to take a moment to breathe, to collect themselves before they continue their mission. He knows she wouldn't agree to it. She won't stop until she finds her son, and he cannot ask her to just so he does not have to worry about the health of another one of his men. It's his concern for her as her Elder that is the source for his worry, he tells himself, but he knows the truth.

"You're right about that," is what he says instead, scratching at his beard, hair as black as the night outside. "That doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate this victory, even if we still have the matter of Virgil to address. If the Institute has the capability to teleport its synths, we're in for quite a fight. Proctor Ingram has finished the modifications to both yours, and Paladin Danse's suit of power of armour. I presume you'll be off come morning?"

"Not quite yet, I think," she replies. "It's... quite the journey, going to the Glowing Sea, even if we take a vertibird to its border. I'll be gone for the better part of a week and a half, so I'll need to get Preston to take over some of my responsibilities. Not to even begin addressing the matter of supplies..." She leans against the railing alongside him, her wedding ring glinting in the low light. "Besides, you owe me a private Fat Man lesson, now don't you?"

It's his turn to flush, having nearly forgotten their arrangement, but she doesn't seem to notice. Her gaze is on the Commonwealth, her unmarked visage twisted with grief.