[Redd]

Some things remained the same.

Sleepy eyes blinked open and the woman stirred in her bed, buried under plush red covers, November air now turning just cold enough that she was tempted to stay under the covers for... just a little longer. In the adjacent room she could hear the gentle clanking and steady jets of the Mr. Handy, as it fussed, presumably in an attempt to keep the house clean.

With a small sigh, she pushed back the sheets and braced herself for what was hopefully the morning air. She was working on a tight schedule today and sadly, lying around in bed wasn't on the agenda.

[Redd]

Others, did not.

The room was pitch black and it took a moment fingers lightly touching the cold, rough brick to find the light switch to a grimy old bulb that barely seemed to grace the room with it's glow. Her feet slipped into boots, worn with use, simply to walk across old, rickety wooden planks to the bathroom, if it could be called that and blearily blinked at the dusty mirror and a tired stranger looked back.

More than a dozen scars had managed to find their way onto her face. Fingers lightly traced the most prominent of these, a gash along her right cheek from some raider blade, the wound no longer troubling her, but the feel of it still foreign beneath her fingertips. The rest, a nick on her lip, a gouge from her nose and a few scrapes on her eyebrows and forehead where from the wild animals, just the Commonwealth claiming her as a wastelander.

[Redd]

Whether she liked it or not.

With another tired sigh, she ran her fingers through her short hair, still not used to it's length, if the eerie feeling was anything to go by. Long gone was her shiny, long, curled aurburn hair that she spent so long each day styling until it was just perfect. Instead, she'd - well, some Operator who claimed she needed to look the part of Overboss - cut most of it off, ending up with a shaved undercut, with long dark red hair falling over the right side of her face. The same Operator had convinced her to tattoo her neck too, white stitches, over a dripping red blood design.

[Redd]

That wasn't to say she didn't like the new look. From a practical standpoint, it was perfect. Along with the combat armour she'd picked up and repurposed, she no longer looked like the scared woman, dressed in Vault blues who didn't know a thing about the Commonwealth. She was feared by outsider Raiders, revered by her own gangs and most importantly, no one was ever going to try and screw her over again.

You'd think, she'd be happy.

[Redd]

Two gangs, armed to the teeth and ready to follow her orders, an entire theme park under her control, bustling with trade and travellers -- in addition to their increasing prescence in Boston, and a loyal boyfriend who made sure the whole damn operation ran smoothly. She'd taken over the Nuka-World operation and turned it into something. They were Raiders, sure but at least she could reason with them, steer them down less destructive paths.

But still, the woman before her was a stranger.

[Redd]

The old Corey would never do this. The old Corey was military, through and through. Raiders were an affront to the peace she so strongly fought for. They could be militarized, she'd rationalised once and indeed, they'd cleared ghouls, synths, mole rats and other Commonwealth monsters out of habitable areas, but raiders in fancy clothes were still raiders. They still were going to kill, extort and raid nearby settlements. It was like throwing more fat onto a fire, she had no idea how she ever thought it would work.

Well, she had but- clank.

"Oh dear."

[Redd]

She turned around to see the Mr. Handy hovering awkwardly behind her, trying to avert all three of his eyes from her. "Mum, I do apologise, these... Diamond City houses... never can quite work out where one room ends and another begins..." he muttered, spinning around on a dime and starting to float off.

Corey snorted and shook her head, fishing her old duster off a hook and pulling it on, before following him out into the main living area. "It's fine Codsworth, I was just... reminiscing."

[Redd]

"Missing the good old days?" he queried, two of his eyes swiveling around, the camera-like shutters readjusting for the light. The other eye and a pincer were concerning themselves with another object on the counter.

"Something like that. Wondering... how we all got here really." Corey sighed, sinking onto a nearby sofa and scratching the back of her head. The tin can was the closest thing to family she had left. Bought to help look after their child, and somehow it had survived the last 200 years with barely more than a bit of rust. Despite having a small circle of well-minded friends now, the Mr. Handy was one of the few who she really felt like she could talk to.

[Redd]

"How we all got here mum?" he repeated, before finally snatching up what he'd been fiddling with on the counter. He extended a limb, a beaten white bowl held firmly in a pincer, with what she could only assume was breakfast on it. She took it and another offered bottle of water with a nod. "I'm afraid it's not much, but we only had iguana left. Perhaps you'll feel better after eating? Always seemed to perk you up, you know. Before."

"Thanks." Corey pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged on the sofa and started to eat, not realising how hungry she'd been. It took a while to get used to Commonwealth food. Iguana soup, roast bear ribs, roach steak... it wasn't really... the food she was used to eating but pre-war food was heavily irradiated and... well, you had to survive somehow. Meat was... meat, right?

[Redd]

"Not a problem! But... Miss Corey, I fear that your worries are a little more concerning than breakfast." he replied cheerily, before dropping down into a more sombre tone. "If... you want to talk..." he trailed off, raising a buzz-saw in what she had to assume was a concerned fashion. It was sometimes hard to not find the robot emoting with either the flamer or the buzz-saw mildly entertaining.

"Yeah. It's.. well, you know it's the raiders." Corey leant back into the seat, tipping the rest of the broth into her mouth and wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket.

"You know, I had to wonder how you fell in with such rabble like that." he replied, gently taking the bowl off her and placing it on a nearby counter.

"Yeah... I... one sec." Corey sighed again and stood up to start looking for her bandanna. This conversation could be continued on foot, they may as well try to get going while there was still daylight. "Can you grab the gear for the road, we're probably going to have to crash somewhere overnight."

[Wild Pet Found]