Chapter 10: Brain Matter

Julie woke up feeling a very warm thing pushed up against her breast-bone and being squished by her mounds of fat, when she finally regained some of her senses she remembered that she was holding the Master Chief's arm tight to her body. Julie got a light blush on her cheeks and loosened her grip on John's arm sitting up very slowly trying not to wake him if he wasn't already awake, when she moved to sit up the Chief's head turned towards her as he sat up as well, "Well good morning John, I hope you slept well," she said as she sat up and kissed the large man on the cheek as she had done before, while moving the covers off of her and lightly setting her injured foot on the floor to test it. When she barely felt any pain she stood up and walked slowly over to the dresser trying to tease the Chief to the best of her abilities the entire way, "I slept well, seemingly better with you than without," Julie was slightly surprised to hear him say that but loved hearing it come out of his mouth all the same. When she pulled out the clothes that the Chief had brought her yesterday she was about to attempt to put them on when she felt strong hands grab her arms gently and then take the clothes from her, "I can do basic things by myself ya know, my ankle's feeling better anyway," Julie said as she turned to face the John who was currently separating her clothes by part. "Don't fight and let me help my partner," he said in his deep gruff voice with some sweetness in his voice instead of his usually fully monotone voice, it seemed to Julie that his military shell was beginning to crack. "Fine," she replied with a light blush on her face as she waited for the Chief to get the first part of her clothing with Julie standing in nothing but her panties not caring that she didn't have a bra on as the Chief had already seen her this way before, John pulled her vault pants out and opened them before bending down and helping her put her hurt ankle into the pants carefully as to not let it get hurt again. He then helped her with the socks that she had, finally he handed her, her shirt as she drug the shirt over her torso and fixed her 'assets' to where they were comfortable in the tank top before looking back up to the Chief and smiling with a thumbs up, "Thanks John," she then pulled her leather armor back on and holstered her pistol after getting everything in its place. She turned expecting to see the Chief still watching her get dressed but he wasn't anywhere in the room, she walked out into the hallway and peeked into the guest bedroom where she caught him putting his helmet back on with the rest of his armor already back on. "Are you ready to go big boy," Julie said with a sly smile on her face. "Big boy?" the Chief said seemingly confused, "Nothing John," she replied with a small laugh as she turned walking down the hall with a smile plastered on her face, the Chief quickly followed behind her as they both exited the house heading outside for the first time in a full day for Julie. She walked over to the settlements cook that Preston had assigned after discovering their skills at cooking, when she got to the chef she got two plates of food and walked back to the Chief who was standing a few feet away watching Julie as she got the food. "Here you go Chief, breakfast" she said as she handed the Chief his plate with a small smile before beginning to start on her own plate, not paying attention to the Chief as she had before as he took his helmet off to reveal his war-battered face and his deep blue eyes.

When they had both finished Julie took both of their plates back to the chef and crew before returning to the Chief to see him standing at the ready with his rifle in hands, "Alright ready to head back to Diamond City?" Julie asked as she reached the Chief's side. John simply nodded and Julie began walking towards the settlements entrance and beginning their long trek back to the 'Great Green Jewel' of the Commonwealth. Julie having almost completely forgotten what she was searching for as she had gotten so distracted with the Master Chief but as she walked she thought about what she needed to focus on and what she needed to do to find Shaun.

When they were about halfway to diamond city Julie spotted a man in power armor ahead of them near the bridge to cross the river that flows in the city, she told John to get lower and sneak so that they could hopefully not alert him. But as they got closer they saw that he had some sort of symbol on his power armor and it was colored the same as the other people's uniforms around him, she then decided to stand up and announce their presence. "Hello!" she yelled to them from about fifteen feet away, the group jumped in surprise and quickly turned and pointed their guns at Julie to which the Master Chief began to reach for his rifle but she shook her head no at him, "Hi, we come in peace, we were just passing by and saw you guys and were wondering who you are," she said to them as they began to lower their weapons but kept both hands on them. "We are the Brotherhood of Steel and you pass along civilian along with your…" the man in the power armor stopped speaking as he saw the Master Chief standing next to Julie. "You may pass civilian but you robot must stay with us as to keep it in safe hands," he said with a small grin, Julie was shocked at the man's seemingly order to her but she laughed quietly to herself and then looked at John and whispered, "When I say you can attack, but don't until I give the signal, ok?" the Chief nodded with a quick nod and began to stretch all his limbs and joints. "First of all this isn't a robot or a suit of power armor before you ask this is a man and I don't think you'll be taking him," she yelled back at the them before continuing, "Now we don't want any trouble so if you'll let us through there wont be any violence involved but if not…eh," she said while shrugging her shoulders and stepping closer to them closing the distance to ten feet. Then men and single woman of the group began to laugh at her while the man in power armor stared her down, "You'll not be crossing this bridge unless you leave that man or thing with us," he said very seriously. "Ok he can stay with you guys but lets see how long he does," she said as she looked back at the Chief and nodded at him, John's head went from looking at Julie to staring down the man in the armor and he moved so fast that none of them had the time to react before he was already on them.

He grabbed the first guy and swung him around before smacking him against the man in power armor killing the unarmored man immediately and knocking the armored man over, the Chief then grabbed the other man in the group by the head engulfing his entire head with his large hands before launching him backwards with a solid kick to the chest and Julie watched as the man's now lifeless body skidded across the pavement before coming to a stop about thirty feet away. The Chief turned to the armored man next and placed his large boot on the man's chest before beginning to push down, Julie again watched in amazement at the pure strength of this large man as the entire chest of the power armor began to cave in around the Chief's foot and completely destroy the power armor. The man in the armor began to scream in pain as he could only watch as John pushed to armor together with him between it, but eventually his screams stopped and the Chief pulled his foot out of the mangled mess of the power armor and put his focus on the last of the group which was the only woman who was shaking in pure fear as she looked back and fourth between the Chief and the man now dead in the power armor on the ground. "No Chief, not her," Julie said as she walked up behind the man and looked at the woman who was frozen in fear, "Leave her, I will deal with her," the Chief nodded and walked away a few feet as he began to move the bodies of the dead men. Julie turned back to frightened woman, "It's ok were not gonna hurt you, all I want for you to do is to go back to whoever is in charge of your group and tell them that the minutemen are willing to make peace with them, ok?" Julie waited for a reply from the woman and watched as she slowly nodded her head. "Ok good now were gonna leave so you may do as you wish whether you wanna go back to your people now or do something with these dead men's bodies it doesn't matter to us," Julie said as she turned and walked back to the Master Chief as he finished up moving the bodies into an organized line with each one next to each other perfectly in line. They then continued on their journey to Diamond City as they crossed over the bridge and were both ready to be done with this journey as Julie had already seen enough things today and just wanted to make it back to the city and find her missing son.

When they made it back to Diamond City it was about mid-day and Julie was pretty drenched in sweat as it was one of the hotter days in the commonwealth, which was not something Julie liked to endure. So when they got to the front gates she began to jog not caring what kind of stares she got from the guards as she 'bounced' up the stairs with the Chief right behind her, when they got down the rest of the stairs she immediately knocked on Piper's door hoping to find a more private place. When Piper answered the door Julie noticed she had taken off her coat and had on a tank top of sorts on with some homemade jean-shorts on, Julie quickly said hello before entering her friend's home. As soon as she had made it inside she quickly slipped her arms through the tank top and let it hang around her waist, "Julie what are you doing," Piper said as she pointed to Julie's bust seemingly sitting out in the open, "Don't worry Piper he's seen 'em before, and it's a long story before you ask," she said as she stood and let herself cool down. Julie stood in her friends living room with no shirt on currently holding her hands on her hips as Piper stared at her in amazement and confusion while the Master Chief, well he did what the Chief normally did and just stood by the door unmoving and unfazed. After about a minute or two Julie pulled her tank top back up and over herself and fixed everything for a second time today, "Ok I'm ready to head back to Nick's if you are Chief, oh and thank you for letting me come in suddenly Piper," she said as she looked back and fourth between the Chief and Piper, "Of course but you've got some explaining to do after you find your son," Piper replied with the Chief nodding a yes at Julie. "Ok sorry to just barge in and then leave right after, Piper" Julie said as she opened the door to exit the woman in questions house, "No its ok I understand but don't be a stranger," she replied watching the pair leave, Julie waved goodbye to her as she exited her friends home and began the short walk to Nick's detective agency.

When they knocked on the door and Julie heard Ellie call them in Julie saw Nick sitting in his chair looking at some cases with his glasses on and a cigarette in his robotic mouth. "Hey Julie, where's your son?" he asked as he looked behind her but only saw the Master Chief coming through the door, "I didn't find him Nick, but I did find Kellogg," she said as she got a hint of anger in her eyes remembering the man that had taken her son and killed her husband. "Oh, well what happened to him?" Nick asked as he took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair while staring at Julie, "He's dead Nick," she replied remembering how the situation had went down. "Ahh, well that's not the best situation but we can still make it work," Nick said taking the cigarette out of his mouth and putting it out in the ash tray, "I know this is gonna sound weird but do you have some of his brain or something close to it?" Julie was shocked by Nick's question and shook her head but as she went to speak she saw John's arm reach from behind her and hold something out to Nick and she saw that he had some gray metal looking thing in his hand that had some pink fleshy looking stuff around one side of it. "I pulled it from his head," the Chief said as Nick took the weird looking device from the Chief, "Huh, don't know what this is but it could be useful," Nick said as he handed the thing to Julie who took it with the utmost disgusted look on her face as she grabbed it with two fingers and gave it back to John, who took it in his hand and put it in a hidden pocket. "Alright well since you have that we're gonna need to go to Goodneighbor, there's a doctor there who can get us his memories from that there chunk of his grey matter," Nick said as he stood up from his desk, "Here I'll mark it on your pip-boy's map so that way you guys can head there whenever you want, but I'm gonna go ahead and go over there, I've got some catching up to do anyway," Nick said as he put the location into Julie's pip-boy and then walked out the door to seemingly start heading to Goodneighbor. Julie followed Nick out the door but stopped by the Valentine's Agency sign and then turned to John, "So what do you want to do, do you wanna go ahead and go over there or do you want to stay here for the night and head out in the morning?" she asked looking dead at his visor, he looked up at the sky and scanned it for a second before looking back down at Julie, "We should wait and head out in the morning, as to not get caught in the dark," he replied. "Ok then, well since were staying there's actually been something I've been wanting to do, come on," Julie said as she grabbed the Chief's hand and semi-dragged him behind her and all the way to the elevator to the Mayor's office before riding it up to the broken window that was now a doorway and stepped in front of the mayor's secretary. "Hi I would like to buy a house here please?" she said as she looked at the secretary, "Ok that'll be 2000 caps," the secretary replied Julie then pulled out her caps and set them on the desk. After the woman checked them all she handed Julie the key to her new home in Diamond City, as they were riding the elevator back down Julie was doing all kinds of celebratory dances in her excited state that the Chief had to grab her to keep her from falling off of the elevator. When they got over to the home's door she put the key into the handle and unlocked it before looking back at John and opening the door, what she saw though she wasn't super happy about, it looked like a storage closet with nothing but a bunch of trash in it. "Oh boy, now this is gonna be a pretty big project, but it's a good thing I've got my 'big boy' to help me with it," Julie said as she lightly tapped John in the ribs with her elbow, the large man looked confused but Julie simply shook her head and walked into the house looking at the rest of it to figure out everything that would need to eb done to it. "Hey I found the bed and stuff up here John!" Julie quietly yelled to the Chief, she heard his heavy footsteps coming towards her and then turned back to the dresser and began to take off her entire outfit carefully setting each piece in one drawer and saving the other one for John and anything he would want to put in it. After she took off her top off and set it in the drawer she bent over to take her shoes off and felt her ass bump into something solid, when she looked between her legs she saw John's long and powerful legs standing behind her, "Oh well John I didn't know you were there," she said as she stood back up and turned to face the man. "Are you gonna take off your suit?" she asked as she began working on her pants instead, "Yes," he replied with that gravely voice shaking Julie to her very core, "Ok well the bottom drawer is all yours so you can put whatever you want in there and I guess you can set your armor on top of the dresser," Julie said as she finished taking off her pants and set them in her drawer before quickly taking off her shoes and socks and heading to the bed, watching the Chief as he took off all of his armor. When he finished he walked over to the bed and climbed in beside Julie facing towards her, "Chief have you ever kissed someone before?" she asked the man while snuggling up to his chest, "No I haven't," he replied looking at her with his cold-steely blue eyes but she knew there was a hint of happiness in them. "Well then I guess there's a first time for everything," Julie said as she leaned in and kissed John on the lips and John kissing back in the best way that he could but at that moment Julie didn't care whether it was good or bad. When they finally broke the kiss Julie was gasping for air while John was barely breathing hard, "I love you John, I just wanted you to know that," Julie said as she put her head onto the Chief's chest and closed her eyes, "I love you too Julie," John said back with a small smile on his face, meanwhile Julie had the largest smile she could manage plastered onto her face. That night she slept better than she ever had when she was a baby and she would remember it for the rest of her life.

(A.N. Hey guys I know its been way too long since I came out with a chapter and I'm upset at myself for not taking more time on working on this one but its here and I hope that you guys like it. I don't know what to fully say to you guys about why this took so long, it was mainly just because I couldn't think of what I wanted these two to do throughout the chapter, so if you guys have any ideas for what the Chief and Julie should do or encounter next please let me know cause I will gladly read them and if I can make them fit correctly into the story ill put them in. But anyways thank you guys so much for being patient with me, love you guys and see you in the next chapter)