Aim to Please

12 | Vault 95

The pattern only continued: Aurora would wake and fight against a hallucination, and MacCready would calm her back down. It was a good thing he kept her weapons far away from her. Sometimes her episodes would happen days apart; one night she had three.

MacCready had found that the only thing able to bring her back was his touch. One time he had sat beside her through the whole night, holding her hand to keep her nightmares from happening. But getting an hour or so of sleep before jolting awake and watching over her for the rest of the night drained him. So, he came up with the idea of sleeping beside her so he could keep a hand on her.

It worked great; they were both able to get more sleep and when he felt Aurora twitch with the start of a nightmare, he'd touch her, and she'd calm down. His growing attachment to her wasn't so great, though: MacCready knew he had always been attracted to her, but her being this close and in his bed was torture. His ability to get more sleep quickly depleted as he forced himself to keep a distance between them—she'd sleep fine, but he would be up the entire night with immoral thoughts. One morning, he woke completely refreshed but found himself wrapped around her. Another, he found her curled into his chest with him holding her—it had felt so good.

Then two and a half weeks passed; Aurora's voice returned, but her hallucinations took a different turn: she became sexually aggressive toward him. MacCready woke one night to find her rubbing against him, egging him to join her. He had never been through a tougher fight than when he pushed her off him; he had to tie her hands to the bed frame to stop her from turning to him. Not knowing what he would do with him being aroused and her right beside him, he slept on the floor but within arm's reach to touch her if she had a nightmare. Every night he waited until she fell asleep to tie her hands and untied them before she woke so she wouldn't be embarrassed.

He told Dr. Amari about her new episodes.

"I've never heard of these side effects before," she said. "Whatever chem the Gunners used on her must be new; I hope it doesn't get popular."

"There must be something we can do."

Dr. Amari looked at him with a sly grin. "Why? She's gonna run you dry?"

Yes, I can't hold back much longer.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't jest. Aurora's in terrible shape and neither of you should be put through more." She thought about something long and hard. "I have heard about something said to cure addictions... but it's dangerous to get to and there's no guarantee that it'll do what we think it will do."

"We have to take the chance that it will. What is it and where?"

"It's supposed to be a machine used to take toxins out of a blood system, curing addictions. It's in Vault 95; far to the south." She looked at him. "Are you sure about this, MacCready?"

There wasn't a second thought. "Yes, for her sake and mine."

***

MacCready and Aurora headed south for the five-day travel to Vault 95; he told her why they headed there but still kept her sexual attempts to himself—she didn't need to feel ashamed and demand that he stay away from her at night, scared that she might try something. He also worried about how she would make it through the night—and what he would do; most of the nights he sat on watch but when he did sleep, he kept her held tight to his chest, practically encaging her arms, and she slept without incident.

On their journey to the vault, their opposition greatly grew in size and intensity—they had to fight Radscorpions, who can burrow into the dirt and appear behind you, many Feral Ghouls, and two Deathclaws at the same time. After finally reaching the entrance into Vault 95 built into a hill, it nearly killed them: grenade mines, Gunners, Assaultrons, and machine gun turrets guarded it.