For a clandestine organization, in his opinion, The Railroad was a little too on the nose. From having its headquarters underground to the parallels between synths and slaves, (Julia had not been amused with the comparison and she'd made it known to Desdemona) to the sneaking around at night and the code words... They were a joke. Then, there was that sleazy guy with the inexplicable sunglasses and the extra medium t-shirt. Deacon. Why did he look so goddamn familiar? He hated the way he talked, the way his voice crooned whenever he was close to Julia, the way he towered over her. The man had made a career of being a bald-faced liar. Pun super-fucking intended. Because fuck that guy.

Naturally, the Railroad was going to squeeze all they could get out of Julia before agreeing to examine that Courser chip; they proved his theory by sending her on the most inane quest: hitch a ride to Lexington, say some secret password to get into their old safe house and then...kill a bunch of synths? Wasn't it their entire life's work to save synths? Did reprogramming them not work? (He seriously didn't know; robots, much like aliens, fell into that uncanny valley and they gave MacCready the sweats.)

Several bruises, flesh wounds, and dead partner corpses later, Desdemona had the gall to ask her to join her club. No drinks, no food, just an invitation to work more, for free. Julia opened her chapped lips to speak, but no words came out. There was a foggy, unfocused look in her eyes and an ashen tinge to her naturally vibrant skin.

"Well?" Desdemona demanded.

"Lemme borrow the boss here for just one second." It wasn't his place to speak, but that never stopped MacCready anyway. He grabbed her wrist and towed her to the back room. "You're not seriously thinking of joining them, are you?"

Her fingers raked through her roots and she sighed, slumping against the wall. "I don't know, Mac...I don't know what to do anymore. Every day I don't find Shaun is a day he's probably out there thinking I abandoned him."

"Hey, look. I get it. But you won't find him if you work yourself to death."

The wrinkle between her brows told him that was the wrong thing to say, so he smoothed his hands down her arms as if that would iron away the damage.

"And I know you don't have much of a choice. All I'm saying is, let me help you."

She gave a languid blink.

"When was the last time you ate?"

Julia sighed. "Yesterday."

In Sanctuary, it'd be past dinnertime right now. "Jesus, boss." He patted her shoulder. "Let me help you on this one."

"RJ, I can't afford to mess this up."

"Hey, I'm not gonna mess it up. I can be charming." Though with how frustrated he was, that quality might not translate well. Julia's shoulders sagged and, when she nodded weakly, MacCready took the helm.

Deacon and Desdemona seemed to be in the middle of an argument when he stepped back into the room, but MacCready had neither the time nor the patience to indulge them.

"Listen up: Boss is offering the blueprint for the, uh..." Crap, what was the name? Whatever. It didn't matter. "The only way to get into the Institute. Now, she ain't gonna get in your way if you wanna go and free all the synths or whatever, but she's done enough for you. The Institute has her son and he's the priority. Now, you can either take it or leave it."

His voice echoed throughout the stony crypts and he had to resist the urge to cringe. Behind those mirrored glasses, he couldn't tell what Deacon was thinking and he hated that. Desdemona, however, had her arms crossed and a scowl hanging from the fine lines around her mouth. But they were considering it and that was good enough for him.

"Finding her son comes before any Railroad mission. Otherwise, the deal's off. Are we clear on that?"

Desdemona tapped her spindly fingers against her opposite arm. Her nostrils flared before she spoke. "Fine. We will work together, seeing as we've determined we can trust you. You may leave the Courser chip with Tinker Tom and we will signal you when it's done."

MacCready managed a half-hearted tip of the hat to her and led a moribund Julia away to their shared room at the Rexford. He left her in the bed while he elbowed his way through Claire's kitchen and sauteed a handful of silt beans and Cram slices in brahmin butter. He tossed them onto a plate with all the finesse of a drunken lay and woke Julia up with a few taps to the shoulder.

"I didn't know you cooked," she mumbled sleepily.

"I have kitchen duty at least four times a week when we're in Sanctuary."

She slurped a buttered silt bean pod into her mouth with childlike delight. "Yeah. Prepping."

He shrugged. "It's a survival skill. I had to feed myself and Duncan somehow."

Julia gave a thoughtful nod before polishing off her plate and licking the traces off her fingers. When she'd said she'd last eaten yesterday, had she meant at breakfast? She set the plate aside and sank against the headboard with a pleased little sigh.

"You gotta stop doing that, boss." When her response was a dumbfounded tilt of her head, he continued, "It's not gonna do anyone any good if you work yourself to death. I mean, I get that you're worried. I do. Trust me. But you can't do everything by yourself."

In the stretch of silence he thought he'd offended her again, she let her legs hang off the side of the bed, perched her elbows on her knees and rubbed her hands against her face. "I'm tired, Mac. I'm so tired. But what choice do I have?" She stretched out her hands—spreading them, contracting them, and he watched the ligaments slide over her knotted joints, swollen and darkened. Looked painful, like each knuckle on her fingers had been sprained. "Everyone needs help. And I wanna help, but it's..." She shook her head. "Whenever a problem gets fixed, twelve more pop up. But if I don't keep going, I'm not gonna find him."

The wrinkle between her winged brows made a quick reappearance before a vacant look glazed over her eyes. It wasn't the first time he'd seen it happen. After some of the town meetings at Sanctuary, or a particularly harrowing favor on behalf of some settlement, Julia tended to space out and few things got her to respond other than brusque physical contact. She shut down and hid in that shadowy world of the recesses of her mind, something he of all people knew wasn't good.

He recalled the instance when, as a 7-year-old, he'd seen one of the bigger kids getting his limbs torn apart by a Super Mutant down by Murder Pass; how he'd ended up back in his bunkbed somehow, but all he could see was dangling, pulpy fibers and bones, how all he could hear were screams and the popping of tendons and sockets; how months later, he'd felt nothing and often fell into an empty corner of consciousness, hiding in the dark and quiet, and how he'd never been sure whether he liked it there or not.

Maybe she'd found her own corner where she could breathe. Or maybe she was cowering in it against the weight of the Commonwealth, against the bone-crushing pressure of having to claw her way through her pain in the name of the closure she might not ever receive; in which case, it was no longer a refuge, but a death trap.

He placed the steel jack from his pocket firmly in her hand. Recognition dawned in her eyes like rays of sunshine peeking through the twilight fog.

"I never did teach you how to play, did I?" she asked with a rueful curl of the lips, much to his relief.

"Nah, boss. You didn't."

It was a fairly simple game, from what she explained—throw the jacks in front of you, bounce the rubber ball, pick one up, continue catching the ball whenever it bounced, pick the rest with each bone, one at a time—although, if he were being honest with himself, he was far more enthralled with the peals of laughter racking through her body whenever she missed, the way she leaned her head on his shoulder for support, the way her springy coils brushed against his neck, how her teeth flashed all pearl-like behind her pillowy-soft lips. A throaty chuckle rumbled in his chest as he watched her for a while, imagining the barefoot curly-haired little girl in the holo and what she would have been like had she lived with him back in Little Lamplight, instead; how her infectious giggles would have echoed through the caverns if she ran after him during a game of tag. He would bet a hundred caps she would have been good at hide-and-seek. Probably would have the type to tuck herself under the stairs for hours. Would she have been one of the kids that claimed to be friends, only to leave him behind? Would she have waited for him on the outside?

Things could have been so simple for both of them.

Things seldom were.

"You alright?" she murmured, looking up through her dark lashes, head on his shoulder.

She could have been the one: the first clumsy kiss under the clubhouse stairs, the awkward grope under the clothes, the heat of discovery between two novice bodies, the warmth of comfort wrapping him up like a comforter at the end of the day; all-accepting, all-embracing, the solace of a lock sealing all his secrets—dirty, precious, embarrassing, fragile, painful, beautiful. Knowing she'd keep every single one of them and treasure them equally.

When he realized he'd been staring, heat crept up his neck in vines and blossomed over his cheekbones and the tips of his ears.

Instead of making fun of him as he expected her to, she offered him a reassuring smile. And like the pull of a magnet, he was drawn to her lips, brushing so gently against them like she'd break under his barbarous touch, awash with relief when she relaxed against him and he felt her sigh, felt her fingernails softly raking through his hair. His heart was threatening to burst like overripe fruit, to rip out through his ribcage.

Just as his tongue sought the silky underside of hers, the hand in his hair pressed back against his shoulder, their foreheads and noses touching, heavy breaths mingling. But rather than seeing the full-blown lust buzzing around him like an electrical charge mirrored at him, there was the hesitation of eyes averted; and while (in his mind) she was savoring the taste of him on her lips, on her tongue, there was something else, something solid and weighty and unpleasantly rough and wordless.

"This is wrong," she finally said.

His heart sank. "Why?"

She huffed wryly and pulled her heat, her comfort away from him. "Where do I even start?" But no matter how many times she parted her lips or took a deep breath, it seemed to be lodged there, pressing and uncomfortable like something stubborn wedged between her teeth, and no amount of pulling and picking would get it out.

"Is it because of Nate?" He would understand that, at least. Grieving, he had learned, was messy, and it ebbed and flowed unpredictably. MacCready couldn't say he was over Lucy—he might never be—but there was a space in his heart that cried out to be filled, a part of his soul yearning to move on.

Julia laughed, a sardonic scoff. "It should be, shouldn't it?" He heard her sigh, heavy and disappointed—whether that was with him or herself was unclear. "But, no. I..." She nibbled at the dry skin around her cuticles. "It's nothing. Forget it." Picking and picking and picking.

"It's -obviously something," he said and took her wrist away from her mouth, to stroke it with his thumb. "Can't be any worse than anything else you've told me, can it?"

She shook her head, gaze low, and her throat bobbed. "RJ, you know who I am. I hurt Duncan. Why are you doing this?" Her voice was soft, unsteady.

Why was he doing this? Sure, the pressure in his loins was urging him to find relief, but he could easily do it himself, or with several others in Goodneighbor. Hell, he could go to the Memory Den and relieve some of the hottest things he and Lucy had done together. Yet, here he was, eager to savor the woman who'd caused his family so much pain. What was wrong with him?

Julia had done so much harm, so much good and she tore at the seams of his logic. There was no rhyme or reason, only existence. Only radical acceptance.

"Yeah," he replied in a low voice. "I remember."

"I can't..." She sank her head into her hands like she couldn't bear to look him in the eye. "Even if you could—I don't deserve your forgiveness. Don't forgive me, Mac. Don't forgive me. Otherwise..."

Had he forgiven her? Duncan's cries, while they no longer presented as a specter in the corners of his nightmares, still lingered like whispers at the back of his neck. The anger was a slow, steady simmer, barely bubbling, and yet still present. That Julia had anything to do with this felt like a bruised-over stab wound between his ribs (though it could have been the literal stab from Winlock's patsies earlier). A dull ache, nowhere near as sharp as it was on impact. But still there.

But he could see her. All of her. Imperfections and virtues and the quirks of hers that made his stomach flutter giddily, and the knowledge that she'd stick with him.

"Otherwise, what?"

Her expression shattered and she breathed a loud, shaky sob when he brought her close. Her arms flailed to get away for a moment before she fell still against his chest and cried, and cried, and cried. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know. I'm so sorry."

What could he say? He wasn't at the point of absolution. Not yet. What she had done, the consequences it had brought on his family... None of that was okay, nor would it ever be, regardless of whether it was accidental. The only true repentance is changed behavior, she'd once said. Had she? She'd been honest with him since then, and without her help, Duncan would have still been sick... A lot of people would have been worse off without her.

So, how did he feel?

Torn. He was torn.

"I know," he said, even through the ache in his chest. "I know."