Hank Maclean was eagerly chatting with you regarding your outlook on sleep deprivation in individuals when you heard loud jeers and whoops. Shrugging that off, you continued to engage with Hank’s conversation when you heard ‘That’s that Cooper guy, isn’t it?’
“I’m so terribly sorry, Hank, but I think my boss is doing something stupid,” you interjected, concern pulling your eyebrows tight as you started out of your seat. “Please, let’s finish the conversation later, okay?”
Hank had nodded, like the eager-to-please puppy dog he was. “Of course! Thank you for your time!”
Swerving through intoxicated bodies was a skill you’d perfected during your time as Cooper Howard’s assistant, but it was something you really hated doing: especially when they were jostling around and punching their fists into the air. You’d finally pushed through the crowd, anticipation knotting in your sternum. “Oh my…”
There, in all his movie star glory, was Cooper Howard, straddling a mechanical bull with his shirt unbuttoned and alcohol muddying his mind. His pants were tightened as he slid up and down the back of the machine, highlighting one of the features that had gotten him scouted in the first place. Head thrown back, face pulled tight in— was it displeasure? Pleasure? Confusion? Pain?— something you couldn’t quite see. His adam’s apple bobbed as swallowed, and you really tried not to look back down to the area under the white shirt you’d ironed that very morning.
You didn’t have to spend any more time mentally cursing yourself out for looking at your boss’s junk before he was bucked off the bull, landing on the inflated plastic.
As the cheers started to dissolve, you weaved through some more people to get to Cooper’s side. It almost pained you to see Cooper’s confused eyes darting around to something— anything.
“Cooper…” you muttered, reaching down to help the man up.
Eyes dilated and locked on you, Cooper’s heavy arms wrapped around the shoulders of your fitted blouse. “Y/n,” he murmured, leeting you pull him around like a ragdoll.
Barbara had just reached you when Cooper was babbling about houses and leaning his head against your shoulder. She approached you swiftly, eyes concerned. “Can you take him back to the hotel? I need to stay for awhile,” she asked in a low tone.
You nodded, saying, “Yes, I will. Have a good night.”
It was easier to lug Cooper around when you got outside, the fresh air invigorating you and giving you a little more patience to deal with the repercussion’s of your boss’s actions.
The taxi ride was spent with Cooper’s head resing on your shoulder and drooping to your chest to your thigh as he fell further into his sleepy stupor. You’d played the game beforea: every time you moved him, he just fell right back to where he was before. You’d felt guilty of his actions before, but by your fifth year with the Howards, you didn’t care much anymore.
“‘M tired, honey,” Cooper slurred as you wrapped an arm around his waist and led him into the hotel. He stumbled and tripped over his own feet, but you were just thankful that sleep was in sight for the both of you. “Jus’ wanna lie with’ya,” he whined, eyes closed.
“You’ll lay down soon, Cooper,” you assured him, hitting the call button of the elevator. Cooper agged against you; a koala attatched to a branch.
Cooper sighed. “Will you?”
“Will I what?” You asked. “Come on, Coop, elevator’s here. Watch your step.”
“Will you lay with me? Bar-Barbara can’t. I don’t-I don’t want her.” He informed you drunkly.
You pushed the button to your floor and adjusted Cooper’s hold on your shoulder. “I don’t think so, Coop. Why don’t you want Barb to lay with you?”
Cooper heaved a miserable sigh. “She’s gonna kill us, y/n. Her’n’House. I gotta-you gotta stay. I don’t want you’n Janey to die. Please lay with me, y/n.”
Cooper breathed heavily beside you. Other than his breathing overshadowing yours, you heard the hum of the elevator moving up. Up to the faux safety of your hotel room, to the public eye, to the role you played perfectly.
“We’ll see, Cooper,” you said, voice cracking.
There was nothing to see. Cooper’d had you in his arms the second you’d stepped out of the bathroom from changing your clothes and brushing your teeth. “Cooper,” you said, stuggling against his locked arms, “I need to go to my bed, okay?’
“No.”
“Okay,” you said patiently. “Cooper- Oh my goodness!!”
Cooper, drunk, pulled your body off the ground and carried you to the massive king bed literally four whole feet away. He put you down and didn’t wait to hear your protests before laying down on the bed with and arm wrapping around your waist and pulling your backside against him. You tried to move but it was difficult when his leg was thrown over yours.
“Cooper, let me up,” you tried again. “Honey, I need to sleep in my own bed and you need to sleep with Barb, okay?”
Cooper pulled you even tighter to him at Barb’s name. “Stay here,” he whispered tiredly.
After a minute of silence, you realized you were not, in fact, getting out of this and going to sleep in your own bed. “Coop are you going to turn the light off?”
He hummed. Reaching back toward the lamp, he fumbled for the cain before pulling down and letting darkness fall around the room: blanketing the two of you in an unprofessionally intimate silence. Cooper hummed again, this time in a higher tone, more content.
You told yourself you would forget the heat of Cooper’s hands around your waist and boobs, but when he sleepily kissed the nape of your neck to the back of your eyes, you knew you were going to struggle in the morning.
Chapters: 1/33
Fandom: Fallout 4, Fallout (Video Games)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Female Sole Survivor/Original Nick Valentine, Sole Survivor/Nick Valentine, Jennifer Lands/Nick Valentine, Nate & Female Sole Survivor (Fallout), Nick Valentine/Original Female Character(s), Female Sole Survivor/Nick Valentine, Female Sole Survivor & Nick Valentine
Characters: Sole Survivor (Fallout), Georgia 'George' Ambrose, Original Nick Valentine, Original Fallout Characters, Eddie Winter, Nick Valentine
Additional Tags: Slight Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Pre-War United States (Fallout), Pre-The Great War (Fallout), Moral Ambiguity, Mystery, Intrigue, Neo-Noir, noir, Detective Noir, Canon-Typical Violence, This Story Has Layers, Like an onion--prepare to cry, Bethany Esda could NEVER, Canon–Divergent? More Like I’m Filling All These Plot Holes (Like I Filled Your Mom Last Night), You Must Be This Tall to Ride the Nuka–Coaster, Dialogue Heavy, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, NO TODD NO MASTERS
Series: Part 1 of Beyond The Gathering Shadow
Summary:
In 2075 Boston, justice is an illusion-and survival means navigating a rigged game with a loaded deck.
Assistant District Attorney Georgia Ambrose has made a career out of picking fights she can't win. Detective Nick Valentine has made a life out of surviving them.
When Operation Winter's End throws them together against Boston's most untouchable crime lord, they find themselves navigating a city built on lies—where loyalty is just another commodity, and the truth is a death sentence.
As nuclear shadows lengthen and personal boundaries blur, trust becomes their most dangerous.
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Okay, we’re finally live 🍾🎉
TL;DR: this WIP is scaffolding for a larger post-war trauma arc. Told from Nick’s POV (my human Nick), it’s a shared delusion—something warm and safe George builds in her head after the bombs, where they live in SF and run a PI agency together.
It's an AU inside her head, and later a shared delusion with Synth Nick for...reasons I cannot reveal lol.
By the time he reaches the topmost step, Nick Valentine is seriously reconsidering every life choice that’s led to him still craving cigarettes while his very pregnant partner—who could go into labor at any moment—is lapping him like it’s nothing.
Ten properties. Ten. They’ve circled the city more than once these past weeks—her leading, him trailing, revisiting old haunts from med school. She’s been narrating the rhythm of San Francisco like a private tour guide with a vendetta against nostalgia.
It’s no Chicago.
And definitely not Boston.
The building’s over two hundred years old, and it’s a miracle it’s still standing with the San Andreas fault humming beneath it. Still, there’s a charm to the place. Nick has to admit: it’s got her energy. Stubborn. Enduring. Full of stories. Still standing.
"You coming, Valentine?" she calls from the landing, one hand pressed to the small of her back, the other holding the realtor's business card. She’s haloed by afternoon sun through dusty windows, and for a moment, he forgets the ache in his knees.
"Just catching my breath, muñeca," he calls back, hauling himself the last few steps. "Not all of us are powered by hormones and spite."
George laughs, the sound echoing off empty walls. "The agent said there’s roof access. Can you imagine? A garden up top..."
He tries not to wheeze. He’s a few weeks into trying to kick the habit, and her grandparents—well into their eighties—find his withdrawal deeply entertaining. Her abuela even patted his hand over Sunday dinner and whispered, "The devil you know is better than the one you don’t," before slipping him a Cuban cigar behind George’s back.
"A garden," Nick echoes, fishing the keys from his pocket. "We live on a farm right now, sweetheart."
She clicks her tongue and snorts—not annoyed, just pretending. "A farm isn’t the same as a rooftop garden, Valentine. Picture it—morning coffee, herbs growing outside the kitchen, the Golden Gate cutting through the fog..."
The lock sticks. He jiggles the key with the patience of a man who’s learned the hard way that force only makes it worse. Two centuries of humidity and neglect have warped the frame, but eventually the door groans open like something ancient and half-asleep.
"Christ," he mutters, stepping into what the listing had generously called a penthouse. High ceilings. Brick walls. Dust motes tumbling through shafts of slanted light. "This is..."
"Perfect," George finishes, waddling in with that late-pregnancy shuffle that somehow still looks graceful. She moves like she already lives here, fingertips trailing along the brick. "Look at these bones. These beams. That light."
Nick glances up. The beams overhead are massive—weathered survivors of earthquakes and fires and God knows what else. The tall, industrial windows need reglazing. The floor is battered hardwood, scarred but solid.
"Needs work," he says, but there’s no real protest in it. He sees it now—what she sees. The possibility.
"Everything worthwhile needs work," she replies, smiling at him the way she did the day he finally told her he loved her. “My brownstone on Pearl Street was older, and I refurbed it before I passed the bar.”
“You were ten years younger,” he counters, “and not about to pop out our kid any minute.”
Still, he’s smiling. The light glints off the silver at her temples and brings out the copper in her hair. It hits him all over again—how beautiful she is. How damned lucky he is.
She crosses to the far wall, where the windows frame the city skyline. “I’ve done harder things than renovate a building, Valentine. We both have.”
And that’s the truth. Nick watches her against the light, remembering the first time he saw her like this—in their Cambridge office, those early days on the task force. Before the real fight. Before the world turned inside out. Before they knew what they’d become to each other.
Lets do her super not relevant but still fleshed out Pre-War family of origin. This like, never shows up in any of my fic but eh.
Day 2: Immediate Family
Jeanne has a bittersweet relationship with family. In order to keep them safe during her Annexation resistance years, had to distance herself and this hurt particularly regarding her father. Between 2070 and 2077, she only saw her father and sister a handful of times.
Father: Hébert Vailant - A farmer and armature sculpture artist (he made strange lawn decorations out of reclaimed objects). Jeanne remembers him as gruff and thoughtful, and a great nature lover. Hébert was a staunch Separatist and supporter of the Quebecois Nationalist movement. They were close and he encouraged her interest in medicine from an early age. He was disappointment when she decided to join the army because she would serve Canada and not Quebec, betraying his political views.
Mother: Carole - Her mother was French (of the European variety), and divorced Jeanne's father when she was quite young. Her memories of her mother are fairly vauge: she was beautiful and kind, but distant, more of a far-away aunt than a parent. From Jeanne's understanding, her mother and father split because they ended up not sharing the same values or political beliefs.
Sister: Éloise Vailant - Jeanne's older sister ended up moving to France to stay with their mother for two years before Jeanne started secondary school, so they missed some formative sibling bonding. Éloise was very artistic where Jeanne was more athletic and analytical, and they had little in common besides enjoying some of the same music. Éloise moved to Montreal to pursue an art career while Jeanne was in secondary school, and they were in touch but not necessarily close.
Anyway, they are all dead now! But Jeanne was a farm kid through and through.
