#cant get over sarah being born in lost hills actually dshjgfjsgdf

[nishaapologist]

California Dreamin’ (Fallout 4, First Sentinel AU)

��Do you remember much about California, or were you too young to remember it?”

Rookie has a weird obsession about Sarah’s being from California, sort of. Maybe that’s a little harsh, actually, but Sarah didn’t think they’d be so fascinated by it when she’d mentioned it in passing once. To her, it’s more of just a fun fact rather than something of weight, of importance; more party trick than anything of real substance. But Rookie had just stared up at her with their big brown eyes when she’d mentioned the merchant she’d travelled to Boston with had guessed it in one (Erin, her name had been, smiling widely as she’d made the leap of logic that nobody born and bred in DC could pick up a tan as well as Sarah can), before bombarding her with questions she couldn’t answer.

So, Sarah pauses from where she’s painstakingly stitching ballistic weave into her Minutemen longcoat, bulletproofing it to high heaven and then some, and she bites her lip as she looks at her wonky stitching. She’s never had a skill with this sort of stuff, not like Rookie does, but this feels like it should be a personal undertaking… even if Rookie’ll probably redo it all in the dead of night anyway. “Too young, yeah,” she admits after a long moment. “I was only… three, maybe four, when we left Lost Hills.”

What few memories she has of the time before DC are very... split, she would say, all strongly divided into light and dark; of menacingly long hallways and a spread of open desert. None of them are of specific people or times, but that’s just fine. She’d never planned to actually return there again anyway.

Rookie hums, a low note in their throat signalling an undertone of disappointment, the sound muted from where they’re sat at the dining table across from Sarah’s armour workbench. Sarah’s not sure if it’s directed at her own poor memory or at her terrible handiwork on her coat, but neither of them feel like good options.

“That’s a shame,” they murmur after another second, drumming their fingers across the table’s mottled surface. “Did your dad ever tell you anything about it?”

“Bits and pieces, here and there.” Sarah scowls down at her needle, willing for it to stitch itself together. “Mostly on the politics, I’ll be honest, both in and outside the Brotherhood.”

“Like?”

It actually takes Sarah a few seconds to wrack her brain for answers to that; lately, she’d found she’s been discarding a lot of information that has little to do with surviving Boston’s many enemies, and given how many foes are scattered between the ruined skyscrapers and down in the boggy swamps, that’s a lot of information to forget. “Like, the, uh… the NCR, and the other local factions. The hierarchy within the Brotherhood, talking about all the other divisions, the Elders, the… boring shit, you know.”

Rookie, tragically, doesn’t look bored; rather, they seem more fascinated than ever. “What’s the NCR?”

Sarah squints down at her own hands, and then looks to Rookie with wide eyes like she’s just realised something fantastical. “Honestly? I do not even vaguely fucking remember. They’re, like… a republic? Got a president and stuff, lots of bureaucracy. I think they use paper money, too? I dunno why I remember that.”

Now it’s Rookie’s turn to pull a face. “Ew, paper money? That’s what they prioritised?”

Sarah shrugs, and then hisses when she jabs the needle into her pad of her own thumb by accident. It wells up like a blot of red ink, sinking into the whorls and twists of her thumbprint, and it glints in the light of the low-hanging bulbs. “California is weird like that. Sure am glad I’m over here, actually.”

Rookie looks contemplative for a moment. “I dunno,” they start, speaking slowly as if they need to sound out every syllable. “I think it’d be nice to see the sun more than twice a year.”

“Uh-huh,” Sarah says before she presses her thumb to her mouth, and she grimaces at the iron tang. “Well, you just tell me when you wanna die of heatstroke, and I’ll make the arrangements for us to move right away.”