Their victory rang hollow and Laura’s joy turned to ashes in her mouth. 

“No,” she said, her voice hoarse, as the vertibird began to ascend. Her eyes were fixed on McDowell, super sledge in hand, armor covered in blood and viscera. He had cleared the landing space, distracted the enemy sniper, dragged her out of the collapsing tunnel. He was stubborn, foolhardy and rude, but he was a brother. Wasn’t this a Brotherhood? “No!” Laura exclaimed, louder, and turned her head to lay the full weight of her accusatory gaze on the Paladin. Even within the confines of his unmoving armor, one hand on the railing to steady himself, she could see the stiffness in him. Something unyielding. He had made up his mind. She’d been so glad to see the vertibird and the others and shocked to learn that the pilot had passed, but all that paled in comparison to the emotions she was feeling now.

It would be so simple. One shot between the pauldron and the cuirass of the T60 power armor would shear his arm clean off; the Paladin would be dead within a minute. Then she could convince Lancer Brown to descend and rescue McDowell. For a long, horrible second she seriously contemplated the idea and her fingers tightened around the grip of her .50 caliber rifle. And then she looked away, the moment gone, her angry resolve broken. The Paladin was her commanding officer. Waiting for the Knight-Sergeant jeopardized the entire mission by exposing them to the risk of a lunging Deathclaw taking down the vertibird. It was his call to make, not hers. Her anger was replaced by fear. Now she knew what she was worth to the New Canaanite. What any of them were worth. 

She trained her rifle on the landscape below, like a good soldier was supposed to, but she couldn’t see for the tears in her eyes. 

[hr]
[indent][i][sub]featuring [@Stormflyx][/sub][/i][/indent]

After the vertibird had landed, Laura jumped out of it and onto the ground below with a wince and a groan. Her sprained ankle, heavily abused during her frantic sprint back to the warehouse after Chowder’s arrival, was protesting vigorously to the idea of carrying her weight. The same fear she’d felt before crept into her chest again. She had to be able to keep up. Moss wouldn’t save her if she got left behind, she knew that much now. 

She listened to the Paladin’s orders impassively and kept her gaze averted. When he was done, Laura glanced at Owen and Patty and pointed to her foot. “I need the doctor to take a look at this. Be with you in a minute.”

Hobbling over to where Dr. Kinsley was, Laura grabbed her attention with a halfhearted wave and conjured up a wan smile. She couldn’t hide the fact that she had been crying, however, and made no attempt to do so. “Good to see you made it in one piece, doctor. I got your message.” She had recognized her handwriting from the ‘prescription’ that she’d written Laura earlier. “Chowder’s a real hero, you know that?”

The doctor eyed Laura's walk, the slight drag of her foot with each step. Another sprain, she thought - and Moss wanted her to do a search of the area, she had tsked at the suggestion,  but otherwise kept quiet on it. She wasn't going to further upset the apple cart. Still, Harper had readied her medical roll, and gave the young Initiate a small smile. 

Laura's appraisal of Chowder's deeds was more heartwarming than she'd expected it to be. Harper cast a glance to him, curled up and resting now under her seat. She thought on how proud Alex and Victoria would have been to hear that. Their ever present ghosts occupying her mind, "he's a good dog," she said softly in response, the words catching in her throat. 

"Sit," Harper said, indicating to an empty chair with a wave of her hand. The wetness and redness on Laura's cheeks and in her waterline did not go unnoticed. "I'm glad to see you too, Grimshaw. Are you alright?" She asked, her brows arching in a measure of concern, her voice lowered more than usual.

The Initiate did as she was told and sat down on the appointed chair. She did not reply to the doctor’s question at first and it looked for all the world to see like she was sinking, deflating, into the seat of old wood and long memories. Then she sighed and wiped at her cheeks. “Knight-Sergeant McDowell and I explored the warehouse before you guys arrived. We found those Deathclaws that came out of the ground in there, chained up to the wall, with a bunch of Super Mutants watching over them. It was so strange…” 

Her voice drifted off until her eyes snapped back into focus. “They spotted us and I collapsed the tunnel behind us with my explosives during our retreat. I thought that would keep them down there, but I guess you should never underestimate a nest of Deathclaws, huh? Well, anyway, he pulled me out of the collapse after the blast knocked me over. I’d be paste if not for him,” Laura explained and she smiled faintly. [i]There is work left to do.[/i] So stoic. “I’d be dead if not for Gregory. Big, stupid, brave Gregory.” 

Cradling her sniper rifle on her lap, as if the cold metal of the killing instrument could somehow bring her any comfort, Laura shook her head. He got his hero’s death after all. “So, no, I’m not really alright, doctor. I’m sorry.”

Once the Initiate had sat, Harper drew down to her knees to better assess her. While placing her hands on Laura's ankle, the doctor listened to her words. As she began undoing the laces of her boot she continued to listen without comment or interruption, carefully taking the boot off and placing it beside them both. It sounded like they'd been through their own share of hell, and perhaps those left with the aircraft had been lucky. Would she have survived the conditions they had been in? Would Brown, Algarin, and Brown? She looked over towards them, watching them where they were. With a shake of her head she sighed.

"Don't be sorry," she eventually said, placing a hand on Laura's leg gently, giving her a faint smile as she turned her head to face her again. "Everyone is in shock, you're allowed to process this however you need to. Don't be sorry." 

Laura was a grown woman, and yet when Harper caught her eyes, she saw a young girl, innocent of all of this and untouched by violence and the reality of survival in the wasteland. It was an injustice to the woman that Harper [i]knew[/i] she was, and the woman who had apparently blown the tunnel… But it was something she couldn't switch off. No matter how much she tried. With tears in her eyes and a choked voice, she was a child again. She withdrew her gaze with another shake of her head, focussing again on Laura's ankle.

"I don't really want you walking on this…" Harper remarked with a click of her tongue. "But I can bandage it, and you can do your mission… But then you rest…" For a moment, she found herself holding her ankle, running a thumb carefully over the bruised skin. 

It was comforting and a little surprising that Dr. Kinsley said there was no need to be sorry. For all of its strength, that kind of compassion and understanding was rare in the Brotherhood. But then the doctor hadn’t been for the Brotherhood for very long, either. They were both relative outsiders and newcomers. Laura nodded and cleared her throat. “Thank you, doctor,” she said, a little more power to her voice. She looked down at Chowder as well and her face broke out into an earnest grin. 

“You should’ve seen him, doctor. He came running so fast, faster than anything I’ve seen, barking all the way, guiding those ferals flawlessly into the ranks of the enemy. We were under siege by raiders, you see. That’s where I got this,” Laura explained, and lifted the large rifle in her arms. “The Paladin sent me out to hunt down the enemy sniper. Chowder found me after I was done, and then we ran back to the warehouse together.” 

She fell silent for a moment and looked back at the doctor. A frown had appeared on her face. “There was a moment, before that… before the Paladin sent me outside… it was like he’d lost it. He was talking about going [i]back down[/i] into the tunnel, speaking incoherently, jabbing his finger at everyone. Then he recovered and came up with the other plan. I wanted to do it right to help him keep his cool,” she blurted out and the tightness of her jaw suggested what she thought now, in hindsight, of her concern for the Paladin’s state of mind. Then Laura sighed. “Well, anyway, Chowder did great.”

That was a cause for concern. So the Paladin had lost it? She glared at him while his back was turned, unaware that there was quite as much ice in the stare as there was. Harper bit at the corner of her lower lip before she got to wrapping Laura's ankle. The wound the heavy bandage tightly, and, considering that the Initiate had quickly moved the conversation on, Harper would too. But she certainly wouldn't forget it.

"He was probably just showing off," she huffed dismissively, waving a hand at Chowder. Her words were harsh, but there was an uptick of a smirk across her lips. "Poor guy is tuckered out now, excitement has caught up to him… I'll let him sleep while Brown and I fix up the bird here." 

Laura laughed at that. “He’s earned it,” she agreed before looking down at her swaddled foot. It felt much better now that it had some support. She just hoped that it would still fit in her boot. “Looks good, doctor. I’ll do the perimeter recon and then take that rest you ordered.” The Initiate tucked her hair behind her ear and wiped at her cheeks and eyes again, exhaling a deep sigh while she did so. “How do I look?” she asked suddenly, keeping a neutral expression while she presented her face to the other woman for inspection. 

"Rest, and elevate it," Harper added, with a finger pointed at the ankle. "See me afterwards. I'll stick you and Brown together… Two working legs between you…" she commented in less of a structured sentence, and in more of a spoken train of thought, giving her forehead a rub with the back of her hand. "And you look good, all things considered. Better than me…" she grimaced, the ghoul splatter still present on her person. "But that's a given, you've still got plenty of years of youthful glow ahead of you." 

“Says the radiant twenty-seven year old redhead,” Laura joked with a smile. “That’s what you look like, at any rate.” Talking to Kinsley had made her feel much better even though it couldn’t blunt the loss of McDowell completely. It was good to know that there was somebody among the recon team that cared about her as more than just a tool to complete a mission with. She hoped the rest of them were more like the doctor and not like Moss. She put her boot back on, got up and tested her weight on her foot. It still felt a little sore but it would carry her just fine for now. 

She placed a hand on the side of the vertibird. “See you in a minute, doc. Take good care of her,” Laura implored with a smirk and gave the machine a hearty slap. 

“Oh! I almost forgot.” Laura lifted the strap of her laser rifle over her head and held out the entire weapon for Kinsley to take, along with the fusion cells that powered it. “Take this, just in case any creepy-crawlies come calling, alright?”

Harper held out her hands and took the weapon, her eyebrows raised and her mouth hung open. "Huh," she said, shrugging her shoulders in surprise. It was a fancy gun - or at least Harper thought so. Big too. Her eyes widened at it, and it made her wonder when exactly had been the last time someone had willingly given her something. "Well, gee, thanks kiddo," she added, turning the weapon over to observe it. 

Eventually she nodded, and looked back to Laura. "Be careful on it. You start running you risk further damage, you fall on it you risk further damage… If it gets too much, turn back around." The serious tone was back, as if it had made her feel uncomfortable to sit in the happiness of a gift for too long. "Definitely no setting explosives…" Harper warned with a sharp glance. 

“No explosives, no running, got it,” Laura grinned. She waved the doctor goodbye and returned to the others, a little bit of a spring back in her step.