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The sky over the Mojave was unusually clear that evening. No Radstorms were visible in the distance, no black smoke hung over the ruins of old roads and even the occasional gunshots that usually echoed somewhere among the destroyed houses were absent. Instead, only the endless silence of the desert spread out beneath them, as the last golden rays of the sun fell on rusty car wrecks and the warm wind swept through the dry grass.
Lucy sat close to Cooper on the roof of a half-collapsed gas station, her head resting on his shoulder, while Dogmeat slept curled up beside them. Below them, nothing but darkness and silence stretched for miles and for the first time in a long while, the world didn’t feel cruel. Not friendly, not sacred, but at least exhausted. Tired, just like the two of them.
Cooper had been holding the same cigarette between his fingers for several minutes without really taking a drag. The ember slowly burned its way down while his gaze hung somewhere in the distance, where the stars twinkled over the Mojave. Lucy, meanwhile, noticed every tiny change in him. The way he sometimes took longer to get up. How his hands trembled more often now. How his breathing sounded heavier at night when he thought she was already asleep.
She never said it out loud, because Cooper still looked at her as if he wanted to stay strong enough for both of them and because Lucy was slowly coming to understand that some people still try to protect others even when they themselves have long since fallen apart.
“You know,” she murmured softly at some point, looking up at the sky, “I think the world looks much more beautiful at night.”
Beside her, Cooper snorted softly. “That’s because in the dark, you can’t see how broken everything is.”
Lucy lifted her head and looked up at him. “Or maybe,” she said, “because even broken things can be beautiful.”
He didn’t answer right away. He often didn’t anymore. But Lucy felt his hand slowly reach for hers until his fingers slipped between hers. Firm. Warm. Familiar.
And suddenly her heart ached with love.
Because she had known it for a long time. Maybe for weeks. Maybe even longer. Cooper was tired. Not just physically, not the kind of tiredness that sleep coulld cure, but that deep, heavy exhaustion of a man who had lived far too long and had only kept going because of her.
And Lucy herself was growing weaker, too. The injury from a few months ago had never really stopped hurting. Sometimes she’d lose her breath in the middle of walking, sometimes she had to stop until the pain in her chest slowly subsided. They’d never talked about it because they both shared the same fear: that speaking it out loud would make it all real.
The wind grew a little cooler and Lucy automatically moved closer to him. Cooper immediately raised his arm, pulled her closer to his side and wearily kissed her forehead. So natural. So full of love.
And that was exactly why Lucy suddenly began to cry.
At first, only quietly. A barely perceptible tremor. But Cooper noticed it immediately.
“Hey.”
His voice had grown hoarse.
“What’s wrong, Darlin’?”
Lucy shook her head against his shoulder, even though tears had long since been streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t want you to go first.”
The words clearly hit him hard. She could literally feel his whole body tense up. For a long time, neither of them said a a word. Down below, somewhete, the wind rustled against an old street sign, while the night lay still all around them.
Then Cooper exhaled heavily.
“I don’t think I know how to exist without you anymore.”
Lucy’s breath caught in her throat. He rarely spoke so openly. Perhaps because someone like Cooper Howard had learned to bury his feelings deep enough so they wouldn’t eventually kill him. But tonight he was too tired to keep his walls up.
“Then…” Her voice broke off mid word. “Then don’t leave me alone.”
Cooper closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, there was something in them that Lucy had never seen in him before.
Peace.
Sad ans quiet peace.
His fingers gently ran through her brown hair. “Okay.”
Just that one word. But Lucy understood immediately.
And suddenly it felt as if her heart were breaking and finally finding peace at the same time, because she knew he was thinking exactly the same thing she was.
They were tired. So incredibly tired.
And maybe love sometimes meant not just wanting to live together, but refusing to leave the other person behind alone.
The night grew colder as it went on. At some point, Lucy had rested her head in Cooper’s lap while he gently ran his fingers through her hair and together they watched the stars. Neither of them spoke much anymore. It didn’t feel necessary. Some people love each other for so long and so deeply that words simply aren’t enough anymore.
“Do you remember,” she sighed at some point with her eyes closed, “the first evening we spent together? The one when you were still dragging me through the desert with that stupid lasso?”
A soft snort came from above. “You mean the evening when you thought I was going to kill you in your sleep?”
A faint smile flitted across her lips. “I just thought you were emotionally unstable.”
“I was.”
Lucy laughed softly, but tears immediately welled up in her eyes again. “I was so afraid of you.”
“You should have been.”
“And now I’m afraid of a world without you.”
After that, there was silence. Lucy suddenly felt Cooper’s hand pause in her hair, and when she slowly looked up, she immediately noticed the tears in his eyes. Not many. But enough to break her heart.
“Lucy…” His voice sounded hoarse. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in the last two hundred years.”
She started crying again. Not the first nor the last time that night.
Because Cooper Howard didn’t talk about feelings. Not like this. Not openly. Not without some dry joke or sarcasm to hide behind. But tonight, there were no more walls between them. Only love. Raw and painful love.
Lucy slowly sat up and crawled closer to him until she was sitting on his lap, placing both hands on his face. “I think,” she whispered through her tears, “I would have found you in every life.”
Cooper chuckled, but the sound broke off mid laugh. “That’s unfairly romantic, Vault Girl.”
“You love it.”
“I do.”
Then he kissed her slowly. Not desperately. Not hungrily. But as if it were a farewell. As if they both wanted to remember every single feeling of it for eternity.
The wind whistled throgh the dark Mojave as they sat forehead to forehead, holding each other as if they could stop time itself.
“I’m scared,” Cooper admitted in a whisper at some point.
Lucy swallowed hard. “Me too.”
“Not of dying.” His voice grew even quieter. “Just of… you being in pain.”
Lucy nearly broke down at that, because even now his greatest fear was still her.
She kissed his forehead gently and closed her eyes. “Then just hold me tight.”
And that’s exactly what he did.
As morning slowly crept over the Mojave, Lucy and Cooper were still sitting up there on the roof of the old gas station. Clinging tightly to each other, as if trying to disappear into one another.
The first rays of sunlight painted the sky a soft orange and gold, and Lucy thought fletingly that she had never seen anything more beautiful. Not in the Vault. Not in the Wasteland. Not even the stars.
Only him.
Cooper eventually noticed her gaze. “What?”
Lucy smiled faintly. “I’m trying to memorize your face.”
Something inside him visibly broke. He immediately pulled her closer and buried his face in her hair while his body suddenly began to tremble.
Lucy felt it immediately. “Coop?”
But he didn’t answer. She just noticed the trembling and then slowly realized that Cooper was crying. Really crying.
“I wanted more time with you” he whispered against her shoulder. “Damn it, Lucy… I wanted so much more.”
She held him tight, gently stroking his back and fought desperately against her own tears. “I know.”
But that only made everything worse, because there was nothing left to say. No more grand promises. No hope. No salvation.
Just the two of them.
Lucy slowly lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his fingers. “Will you find me again?” she asked softly.
Cooper looked at her as if she’d just ripped his heart out of his chest. Then he rested his forehead against hers.
“In every damn life.”
Lucy smiled through her tears.
And eventualy, as the sun slowly rose higher and bathed the world in warm light, they lay down together. Lucy with her head on his chest. Cooper’s arms wrapped tightly around her. Dogmeat close by her side.
The wind blew gently across the Mojave, and there at the end of the world, Lucy and Cooper held each other tight until their breaths slowly grew calmer.
Slower.
And slower.
Until finally, neither of them was alone anymore.