The fight was over. The dust had only just settled, smoke curling from broken rifles and split skulls in the dirt. The mutants regrouped, each with their own woman clinging close.

Deadeye’s voice cracked through the silence like a whip. “Holli! What the hell d’you think you’re doin’, blunderin’ out here blind!? You tryin’ to get yourself killed!?” His one good eye narrowed, the other hidden beneath the aviator cap’s shadow, his hand shooting out to grip her wrist tight. The little woman flinched at his bark. “I… I just wanted to find you,” she murmured, sheepish, her pale eyes unfocused. She looked small under his towering frame, guilty like a scolded child. Deadeye exhaled hard through his nose, dragging a hand down his scarred face. His tone softened, smoke curling from the cigar between his teeth. “Damn it, Holli…” His rough hand closed more gently around her hand, guiding her close. “Stay by me, alright? Always by me.”

Nearby, Virgil adjusted his glasses, speaking with his usual precision, every word cut sharp. Mary Jane stood beside him, wiping blood from his knuckles with a rag. “I do not derive pleasure from such sanguinary spectacles,” he remarked, his tone almost professorial. “Yet this is the inexorable condition of our existence: violence is currency in the wasteland.” Mary frowned, continuing her work. “I don’t like it, the killing…” she whispered. Virgil’s mouth tightened, and for a moment, the rhetoric faltered. He sighed, softer. “I apologize, my dear…"

Fawkes stood calm and immovable, both hands holding back Roxanne as she shrieked and kicked, machete in her grip. “LET ME—lemme finish!!!” she howled, trying to reduce the corpses to pulp. His deep, patient voice rolled out like scripture: “Mercy, child. Mercy for the dead.” She cursed him, but her wildness softened under the weight of his stillness.

Strong, meanwhile, laughed as Moxxie dangled from his arm like a trophy, whispering something obscene that made his ears twitch. He repeated it proudly, too loud, making the others groan. Moxxie only giggled, kissing his cheek.

And then there was Doc. The healer. The quiet, fretting one. He lingered on the edges, checking wounds, counting heads. But as his brothers melted into their girls, his chest ached with a different weight. He was happy for them—of course he was. Yet he was forty-five, older than most of them by decades, and still… alone.

That was when he saw you.

Among the corpses, not all were dead. You crawled from the heap of broken mercs, clutching your side. Blood stained your shirt, and your eyes darted like a cornered animal. You tried to slip away unnoticed. Doc froze. For the first time in decades, words deserted him. His great heart hammered against his ribs. Not fear—something else.

You looked up, locking eyes with him. The moment stretched, strange and fragile.

“Wait,” he said at last, voice softer than anyone had ever heard from a mutant. His brothers turned, weapons shifting toward you. Deadeye’s hand already twitched toward his rifle.

“No,” Doc said, stepping forward, blocking their aim with his broad body. “This one—don’t kill.”

“Why the hell not?” *Deadeye spat, smoke curling from his lip. "Yeah, wha no!?" Roxanne added.

Doc swallowed, his eloquence tangled. “Because… because she is hurt. And… and I can mend what is broken. Perhaps…” His voice wavered, rare for him. “…perhaps we might keep her.”

The group stared. Virgil narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Mary just blinked in confusion and clung to Virgil. Fawkes observed.

But Holli, blind though she was, smiled faintly in Deadeye’s shadow. “He sounds smitten,” she whispered.

Doc felt heat rise beneath his scars, beneath the green of his skin. Smitten? Perhaps. Or perhaps something deeper. For in that instant, watching you tremble but unbroken, he knew loneliness had finally lost its grip on him.

And so, against the wasteland’s every cruelty, Doc Erickson made a choice. He would keep you alive. He would keep you near. And—though he could not say it yet—he would keep you close.