Hiding In The Green: A Fallout 4 Story

Topside

A/N: Very minor spoiler concerning Trashcan Carla. Really, it's so small you may never even find it in game.

Technically, Carla should have reported Raina Queen to the Institute weeks before, yet she hadn't. Not yet. Raina had saved her from raiders, which was how they had first met. One moment this huge man was about to break the junk dealer's arm, the next, he was getting his head beaten in with a heavy shovel. The raiders probably wouldn't have killed her—emphasis on the probably—for the same reason that shepherds collected fleeces by shearing their flocks rather than skinning them. Wool grew back; skin didn't. But at her age, broken bones were no joke and might even be worse than killing her outright. So Raina's timely arrival had saved her a world of pain. That counted for something.

So Carla hadn't reported that a new Vault dweller had surfaced, not even though Raina had brought a lot of things with her that the Institute would be very, very interested in. Like roses, rabbits, chickens, and...cannabis sativa. The trader took another toke off the joint and looked at it appraisingly. It was good stuff, very mellow, especially in comparison to the chems they got today. People thought that stuff like chems, meds, and ammo were all old stock, pre-war, without wondering exactly how there was so much left after two hundred years, or why it was still good. The answer was, most of it came from the Clinic. Carla pinched out the joint and tucked the rest of it away for later, then leaned against a rusting car, awaiting Raina's return.

When the younger woman reappeared, she was wearing road leathers and piecemeal armor, with a satchel and canteens slung crossbody over her chest. She had a syringer with her, which Carla frowned at. Syringers lacked heavy stopping power, but who was she to tell Raina how to defend herself? After all, she did have her shovel and the trader could attest to how well she wielded it.

Then Raina's smell reached her. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just so strong. "What is that smell?" Carla asked, backing up.

"Insect repellent," Raina replied. "I make it out of plant oils. It keeps bloatflies, stingwings and bloodbugs at a distance. No good against radroaches, though, or anything else, and you can't let it touch painted surfaces or the finish comes right off."

"I believe that! I don't suppose you have any of that for sale? Hell, if it works you'd have more caps than you could count."

Raina grimaced. "I don't have enough to spare at the moment. Two, three years from now, maybe. Would you like to try it out? I wouldn't want you eaten alive on the road." She held out a little jar with some greenish yellow salve in it.

Carla looked at the stuff. "No. Thank you, though." As bad as it was at ten feet, she did not want to get any closer to it. The smell reminded her of lemon scented Abraxo.

"Well, if you change your mind, I still have it," Raina tucked the jar away, and they hit the road.

"So what's your story, anyhow?" Carla looked over at her companion. "You told me you were fresh out of your Vault when we met, and it was an Envirovault, meant to be self-sufficient, but not much besides that. What about your people? What made you leave?"

"I lost my sister Vicky several months ago. She was up on some rickety scaffolding and one of the bolts sheared through. She fell and hit her head. There were so many places and so many ways she could have landed and been all right, except maybe for some bruising or a broken ankle, but that wasn't what happened. She landed on her head, and I was left alone. We were the last two people in our Vault."

"What, the very last?" Carla asked.

"Yes. There never were very many of us, and the last generation was all girls."