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He knew what had happened right away.
The darkness inside of him wondered if he had somehow indirectly caused this through willpower alone. Her awful wrenching sobs were near echoing through the otherwise quiet neighborhood. The synth was stood stiffly at her doorstep, hands clenching and unclenching. He pushed past the old robot, his artificial face still frozen in a daze.
He found her on the floor of what had been her kitchen once, lying breathless amidst broken glass. Vera didn't look at him. The remnants of what had been John's coat clutched desperately in her shaking hands. She didn't flinch away from him. Not this time. A sick contentment was born in his gut when she held to him as though he were her last anchor to the world. God, yes, this was everything.
Her remembers when they met. He couldn't forget if he had to. How pathetic it had been, replaying her voice over the decades, realizing that his memory had warped it. He remembers her artificially flushed cheeks and pretty coral lips when she had answered the door in that fateful day. She was wearing heels and looking down at him. Her dark hair was curled into ringlets that touched just past her shoulders. Manicured nails. But she hadn't done anything to hide the dark circles under her eyes.
Her hair was straight now, not as silky but just as pretty. It's still long, long and girlish like it hasn't adapted to the harsh reality of post nuclear apocalypse. A ponytail would be too easy for enemies to grab, so she instead keeps it in a bun most times. He remembers the way he had to suck in a breath the first time he saw her with it down again. It eased the cruel dimensions of her face and made her look.. still somehow smaller and soft. Like she had been to him back then.
He pretends he doesn't see the tears hitting the pillow as he makes love to her from behind. She prefers it that way. A shaky hand clasped to her sneering lips that she hid from him. She gasps a name that isn't his, never his. Never. His.
He doesn't remember his name, and even if he did he knew she wouldn't care to know it.
She turns away from him when they finish, curling into herself. He hesitantly holds her from behind, trailing his ragged flesh over her soft thigh. His traitorous cock twitching unabashedly against her backside. He wasn't proud of the man he had become. Man being a generous term. The long and hard years would've done the same to anyone, rotting and bitter. Bitter about rotting? What difference did it make? His life turned to ashes in his fingers and he could do nothing to stop it.
They both had changed. She wasn't quite the same either. The feminine curves she had that fateful day had given way to a new form, sinewy and muscular. She was still gorgeous to him. Even the many new scars and marks peppered across her pale flesh. It hurt him too, knowing she would always be stronger than he, physically and mentally.
It was bliss for a while. Waking up next to her, trying to ignore the tear soaked pillow beneath her sweet face. He'd kiss each of her cheeks before moving to her barely responsive mouth. She felt like heaven, so delightfully smooth against his own scarred skin. Preserved like a picture, while he had turned into a monster. He'd nuzzle his face against her neck, inhaling the faint soapy sweet smell that was Vera. Oh, he would shower her with praise forever if he could. It was always genuine. She was too polite to not smile at his affections. He supposed he was lucky she had some sort of skewed sense of what was desirable. Hell, maybe being frozen had done something to her brain. No one could genuinely love a monster.
He had to keep track of her eating and drinking for a time. Had to be sure she wasn't giving her food to the dog when he wasn't looking. It had happened before. Fuck, he would even spoon feed her if that meant she would take it. He couldn't stand to lose her. No. Not again. She was his queen, unaware of the true breadth of his love for her. He'd sit next to her at the old vanity with the cracked mirror, smooching her temple and filing her nails with utmost care. He'd make her laugh as much as he could just to hear it. Even if they were fake, he had to try. Once upon a time he had been so charming and charismatic. He wanted to be that man again for her.
It wasn't hard to keep her holed up away from the others. But they would keep coming and asking after her. The not so little following she had built over the years. Loyal to a fault. They loved her too, but not like this. The little gifts and offerings for her piled up around the front door of her house. He bitterly wondered what it felt like to be so honored.
The old robot had shoved him against the wall one night, tossing around words like vile and taking advantage. The synth scowled in disgust, leaving the suited and smiling ghoul to his fantasies. Nick would never understand. No, he was a just machine where he and Vera were the same. Pieces of an almost unrecognizable past, faded in the memories of everyone else. Two people who had lost everything.
He begged her not to leave Sanctuary Hills.
His caged bird. Vera was not the fragile woman of his mind. He had seen her slice the heads clean off of her enemies, that self assured smirk quirking her soft lips. Yet he had a crawling sense that he would never see her again. He knew she would throw herself recklessly into a fight she knew she couldn't win. That she would join her beloved again.
Please don't leave me..
He is sniveling and pathetic, clutching to her leather jacket desperately. He waits for her to push him away but she doesn't. She holds him for a long time and rubs his back.
She leaves.
He slept on her side of the bed, burying himself in her lingering scent. He doesn't eat anything and drinks sparingly. What's the point anymore? He is alone again. Alone again and it's terrifying. He had his little piece of the old world and now it too was ripped away from him. Sloughed away like his old flesh. This hurt more surely.
When she came back it was with a new name.
Overboss.
New blood spattered on her clothes, new scars, new name. He was the small one this time, crumpled into her arms frail and weak as ever. He ignores the track marks on her arms and the way people don't meet her eyes anymore. What she has done doesn't matter because she's back.
She's back and most importantly, she is his.