Fallout of the Heart

Chapter One

As I watched Richard – Sorry, Nate – get ready in the bathroom mirror, I could see just how bad his nerves were bothering him. We had that stupid thing at the Fraternal Post tonight, and he absolutely hated the thought of getting up there before all the men and speaking to them. Which was odd, considering the fact that if he had lived his dream to become a JAG, he'd have been speaking in front of people quite often.

'It's because I feel like such a fraud, Ness – I mean, Nora. I know we both agreed to this cover, quite enthusiastically on my part, I might add – but I just, I just sat behind the desk all day, while you were the one out in the field putting your ass on the line. It should be you up there.' He had said to me before bed last night, and on one hand, he had a point. But on the other hand, I had no more desire to be up there speaking than he did. I hated being in any kind of limelight, that's why I was always undercover and wearing a different face, it's what I excelled at. That, and getting shit done, but that was what allowed me to pick the ops I wanted.

Still, he did have a point. We should have begged off, claiming issues with the baby or something. This was supposed to be a quiet cover, a married life to blend in and live out the rest of our days as a reward for our exemplary work – and protection from the last op we had worked together that had almost gone sideways. My mind shuddered away from that thought as I gently took my place in front of the mirror, watching Codsworth go flying past in the background as I steeled myself for what was going to greet me.

It always was jarring to see a new face in the mirror every time I got a new one for an op, though you would have thought I'd have been used to it after ten plus years. This, this was something new though. I was done with all of that, and yet I'd never see those eyes the color of the Caribbean ocean again, nor would my hair ever be such a dark red that it rivaled wine in this lifetime as we knew it. To be fair, this new look with pale blue eyes and a medium brownish-red was as close as I had ever gotten to seeing my original face since I first went deep undercover, but I mourned the loss of the woman I used to be.

Not even Sergeant Nessia Shepard, but the bright and naive Nessia Shepard who had grown up near her extended family's farm and had wanted nothing more than to get into the science of growing food. The Nessia Shepard that was fascinated by the world and particularly loved history, who wanted to use the knowledge of the past to make the world a better place. That last had been the hook the Army had used to snag me in – damn them. They took my dreams and passions and butchered them.

And for what? The war still raged around us, every day we wondered if they were going to drop the nukes or not. Things were so tense right now the hidden bunker base had called us just a few days before, offering us a spot inside to wait things out and see what might happen. I had wanted to go, but Nate had raised the counter argument that the nearby vault had offered us a spot as well – all we had to do was say yes the next time the rep came by. I wasn't sure we could trust Vault-tec as far as we could throw them, but he had asked me if we really wanted Shaun to grow up in the military? Did we really want to expose him to the very thing we had run away from?

I had been quite pissed at that comment, but I couldn't argue with him, deep down. Neither choice was great, but in the end he was ultimately right. I didn't want Shaun to be part of the military world. I didn't want them to use him like they had used us. And I didn't want him to know some of the things we had done, either. I didn't want him doing worse, in the name of freedom. Better for him to be Shaun Roberts, son of Nate and Nora, a happily married loving couple, than to be Shaun, son of Nessia Shepard and Richard Miller, two platonic ops partners who'd taken the same cover to offer each other safety after the nightmares of war.

That's not to say that I didn't love Nate – I did, it wasn't, it was hard to explain. I guess it was more like how people in the olden days would be part of an arranged marriage, and learned to love each other through proximity and exposure. Still, it was more like the love of a friend than someone madly, passionately in love with their mate. At least, for me anyway, I couldn't speak for Nate. I had always suspected he felt a little more romantically inclined towards me than I did towards him, but that was okay. We had a lifetime to figure it out.