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But Sico's eyes lingered on the copper cylinder in Mel's grip. Not at the triumph, but at what it symbolized—the line being drawn deeper, the point of no return sharpening under fluorescent light.
The morning after the convoy arrived, Sanctuary carried a strange mix of moods. On one side of the compound, Mel and his ragtag crew were practically vibrating with energy, hurling themselves at the crates like kids unwrapping gifts. Sparks, hammer blows, shouts, and arguments had echoed through the science wing deep into the night, the whole building alive with the fever of invention.
But on the other side of Sanctuary—far from blueprints and machines—the air was heavier, quieter, almost funereal.
Sico walked the path toward the prison block with a slow, measured stride. His boots crunched on gravel, each step sinking deeper into the stillness that always hung around that place. The prison itself had been one of the newer additions to Sanctuary: a squat, reinforced structure of concrete and steel salvaged from the outskirts, walls patched with rusted panels and barbed wire. To some, it looked like a scar on Sanctuary's hopeful face. To Sico, it was necessary. Every republic, every dream of order, needed a place to put the dangerous and the damned.
Yet not all its inmates were simply dangerous. Some were complicated. Some were… necessary to keep locked away, even when part of Sico hated the idea.
Shaun was one of those.
When Sico reached the main gate of the prison, two Freemason soldiers stiffened and straightened, rifles across their chests. They didn't salute—he had told them long ago that this was no army of pomp—but they dipped their heads in silent acknowledgment. The older of the two, a broad-shouldered woman with a scar across her cheek, thumbed the intercom.
"President's here for a visit," she muttered into the grill. The lock clanged a moment later, heavy bolts pulling back with a groan.
Sico stepped inside.
The prison's air was different from the rest of Sanctuary—damp, metallic, tinged with antiseptic. It smelled like a place where the walls themselves remembered chains. The corridors echoed with his footfalls as he moved past cells, most empty, a few holding people whose eyes followed him through the bars. Raiders captured in skirmishes, mercenaries caught working for the Brotherhood, thieves too stubborn to reform—faces hardened by regret or rage.
But Sico wasn't here for them.
He turned down a narrower hall until he reached the last door on the left. A guard there opened it without question, revealing a cell that was more than a cell—it was something halfway between confinement and care.
Inside, Curie was bent slightly at the side of a cot, her headlamp casting a soft glow over the boy sitting quietly on the mattress. Her French-accented voice was gentle, precise, carrying the cadence of someone used to giving comfort through clarity.
"Très bien, Shaun. Hold still just a little longer. I must finish checking your lymph nodes."
Shaun sat stiffly, his thin frame leaning against the wall, his face pale in the light. His hair was shorter than when Sico had first seen him, cropped close as if someone had cut it in haste. His eyes, though, were the same—wide, sharp, restless. And now, a body failing him.
Sico stepped closer, his shadow stretching long across the cell floor.
Curie glanced up and smiled faintly when she saw him. "Ah, Monsieur Sico. You come at a good time. I am almost finished, but perhaps it is best you hear for yourself."
Her tone was soft, but Sico caught the edge beneath it. It was the tone doctors used when they carried bad news.
Shaun's gaze flicked up at him, unreadable. "Checking to see if I'm still worth keeping alive?" he asked flatly, his voice too dry for a boy his age.
Sico didn't flinch. He stopped at the side of the cot, folding his arms. "I came to see how you're holding up. That's all."
Shaun gave a thin smile that wasn't really a smile. "Well, you can tell your people their prize project is falling apart. Maybe you'll sleep easier knowing I won't be around to cause trouble."
Curie hushed him gently, her gloved hands brushing across his collarbone, pressing lightly at his throat. "Ne dites pas ça, Shaun. You must not give in to such thoughts. We are still learning what the Institute gave to you, what is natural, what is not. But…" She hesitated, and that hesitation said more than any report.
Sico's eyes narrowed. "But what?"
Curie lowered her hands, pulling off her gloves with slow precision. She took a breath before answering, folding the gloves together like she needed her hands busy to carry the weight of her words.
"The cancer," she said quietly. "Lymphoma. It is… advanced, though not without possibilities. His immune system is compromised. His strength—already fragile, as you know—is slipping further. I can stabilize symptoms, manage pain, perhaps slow progression. But without advanced treatments—chemo agents, targeted therapies, perhaps even pre-war gene therapy—"
Her words thinned out. She didn't need to finish.
Sico absorbed the news without moving, his face unreadable. But inside, something shifted, a quiet heaviness pressing against the edges of his chest.
Shaun gave a little laugh, hollow and sharp. "See? Even the miracle doctor says I'm a lost cause."
Curie straightened, eyes flashing. "Non! I did not say this! There is always hope when we fight, when we search. Do not twist my words."
Sico finally sat on the edge of the cot, the frame creaking under his weight. His eyes met Shaun's, steady, unwavering.
"You're not a lost cause," he said firmly. "Not while I'm alive. Do you understand me?"
Shaun's smirk faltered, though he tried to hold it. "And what, you're going to cure me yourself?"
"No," Sico said simply. "But I'll move heaven and earth to make sure someone does."
For a long moment, the boy stared at him, testing the words like a lockpick testing tumblers. His expression flickered—defiance, suspicion, something else buried deeper. Then he turned his head away, staring at the barred window where thin daylight leaked in.
Curie cleared her throat softly, breaking the silence. "For now, I will adjust his diet, increase hydration, administer mild sedatives to ease pain. He must rest often, and stress will only hasten the decline. But more than medicine, he needs… connection. Purpose. A reason to endure."
Sico nodded once. "Leave that part to me."
Curie studied him a moment longer, then packed away her tools. She gave Shaun's shoulder a gentle squeeze before stepping toward the door. "I will check again this evening," she said. "But please, Shaun—listen to me. Do not surrender to despair. You are stronger than you think."
When she was gone, the cell felt heavier, as if her absence removed the last thread of gentleness. Only Shaun and Sico remained, both staring at each other across the space between.
The sound of the outer door unlocking carried faintly through the hall. It was subtle at first—a metallic click, the whisper of boots against the concrete floor—but to Shaun, it was as loud as thunder. His ears perked up, not because he expected anything good, but because every interruption to his confinement carried a question: Who now? What do they want of me this time?
Sico shifted only slightly on the cot's edge, his eyes flicking to the doorway, and Shaun followed his gaze.
The door opened with a low groan. Light from the corridor spilled in, cutting a long bar across the floor of the cell, and in it stood Nora.
For Shaun, seeing her always twisted something in his chest. She looked so alive, so grounded in this broken world—armor scuffed but polished, face lined with both grief and determination. He had once thought of her as the enemy, a threat. But now, in these quiet visits, she carried something else entirely: a weight of choice that he could neither dismiss nor fully embrace. She was the woman who should have been his mother, yet wasn't. The paradox hurt in ways even his failing body couldn't distract him from.
Nora stepped in, the door clanging shut behind her. The air seemed to shift with her presence, softer somehow, as if even the concrete remembered what family meant. She moved closer, her eyes darting briefly to Sico, then settling on Shaun.
"How are you holding up?" she asked, her voice careful—gentle, but edged with the kind of strength only someone who had already buried too much could carry.
Shaun leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed though they trembled faintly with the effort of holding them there. "Same as yesterday. Worse than tomorrow." His tone was dry, but the bitterness was dulled now, exhausted.
Sico gave Nora a brief nod, rising from the cot. "I'll give you two a moment." His voice was steady, but his eyes lingered on Shaun longer than necessary before he stepped past her and out into the corridor. The door closed again, leaving mother and son—of a sort—alone.
For a while, Nora said nothing. She just stood there, her gaze sweeping over him with that instinctive maternal scan—checking the hollows under his eyes, the thinness of his wrists, the paleness that no amount of lantern light could disguise. It broke her heart, though she tried not to let it show.
Shaun was the one to break the silence.
"How's… the other one?" His voice cracked in the middle, not with emotion but weakness. He cleared his throat, then tried again. "How's the young Shaun doing?"
Nora blinked at him, surprised for just a heartbeat. Then her face softened, her lips curving into something that was almost a smile—tender, aching. She stepped closer, lowering herself onto the opposite end of the cot so she didn't tower over him.
"He's in good care," she said quietly. "And he's starting school now."
Shaun turned his head toward her, eyes narrowing. "School? In this wasteland?" He almost laughed, but the sound caught in his throat and came out more like a cough. "What kind of fairy tale are you spinning for him?"
Nora shook her head. "No fairy tales. Real classes. Books. Lessons. Other children. Sanctuary's been building it for months. We've got teachers—volunteers, some ex-scribes from the Brotherhood, even a couple settlers who used to teach before the bombs. It's not like before the war, not the way it was for me, but it's… it's something. A future."
Shaun stared at her, expression unreadable. "And he just… goes? Like a normal kid?"
"As normal as any child can be now," Nora said. Her hands folded in her lap, fingers tightening slightly. "He has friends. He plays. He laughs. He's learning what it means to be more than just… what the Institute made him."
That hit something in Shaun, though he tried to bury it under a sneer. "So he gets to live the life I never did."
Nora's breath caught, but she didn't flinch from it. "Yes," she said softly. "He does. And that's why I have to protect it. To give him that chance."
Shaun turned his face away, staring at the barred window again, the light pale against his cheek. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence between them wasn't empty, though—it was thick, full of ghosts.
Finally, his voice broke it, quieter now. "And what about me? What do I get?"
Nora's heart twisted. She reached out, hesitated, then let her hand rest gently on his thin arm. "You get me here," she said. "Even when it's hard. Even when I don't have answers."
He didn't pull away, but he didn't lean into it either. His eyes stayed on the window, though his lips pressed together like he was holding something back.
"Do you ever look at him," Shaun whispered after a long pause, "and see me?"
Nora blinked, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. She swallowed hard. "Sometimes," she admitted. "But he isn't you. He's his own person. And so are you."
That broke something in him—just a flicker, but enough. His chin dipped slightly, shoulders sagging as though the weight of those words pressed down on him.
"I don't know if that makes it better," he murmured.
Nora's hand squeezed his arm, firm but tender. "It has to. Because you're still here. And while you are, you're not forgotten."
The sound of footsteps outside the door pulled Nora's attention away from Shaun's frail face. The rhythm was unmistakable: measured, deliberate, with the faintest metallic jingle of tools or instruments brushing against cloth. Sico and Curie. She knew it before the door even creaked open.
The cot dipped slightly under her weight as she shifted, still keeping one hand resting on Shaun's arm. He hadn't moved since her last words, his gaze fixed stubbornly on the barred sliver of window as if it might offer him an escape neither of them could give.
The door groaned open again, and in stepped Sico first, broad-shouldered, filling the doorway with his shadow. Behind him, Curie entered with the careful poise of someone who carried both knowledge and uncertainty in equal measure. She held a small case in her hands, its clasps clicking softly as she set it down on the nearby desk.
Shaun turned his head, eyes flicking toward them without much energy. "So," he muttered. "The whole family's here now." His voice was thin, but not without its barbed edge.
Curie offered a small, practiced smile as she moved closer. "Bonjour, Shaun. I thought perhaps today we might try a different diagnostic—"
But before she could finish, Nora's voice cut across the air like a sudden crack of lightning.
"I want to put him in cryo."
The words dropped into the room with a weight that made everything else stop. Even the faint hum of the diagnostic equipment seemed to falter, as though the machines themselves were holding their breath.
Sico froze mid-step, his head turning sharply toward her. Curie blinked, startled, the tiny smile vanishing into stunned silence. Shaun's eyes widened, the dullness burned away by shock.
Nora didn't waver. Her face was pale but firm, her hand still on Shaun's arm as though to anchor both herself and him in the storm of what she'd just said. "I want to put him in cryo," she repeated, softer this time but no less resolute. "To halt the cancer… while we take time to search for a cure."
For a heartbeat, nobody moved. The weight of the idea pressed against the concrete walls, reverberating in the silence.
Finally, Sico exhaled, a long, low sound that carried both disbelief and memory. He stepped forward, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers before letting his hand fall to his side.
"Almost all the pods in Vault 111 were scrapped," he said, his voice steady but edged with something heavier—guilt, maybe, or regret. His eyes flicked briefly toward Nora, then to Shaun. "By me. I had them dismantled for parts. Cooling systems, power conduits… Sanctuary needed it. But—" He paused, as if the words themselves weighed more than he liked. "There should still be a few left. Enough, maybe, for one."
Curie's lips parted, her brows knitting together as she considered it. She took a step closer, her hands folding lightly in front of her chest. "Madame…" she began carefully, her French accent lilting through her words, "I can… agree with this plan. It would—how you say—buy us more time. But you must understand…" Her eyes softened, her gaze moving between Nora and Shaun. "Even before the war, with all the most advanced technology and brightest minds… there was no cure for cancer. They tried. They fought. They failed. That is not to say it is impossible, but…"
Her voice faltered for the first time, and she let out a slow breath. "…but I cannot promise how long we may search without success."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Shaun stared at them all, his chest rising and falling in uneven breaths. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again as if he couldn't decide which of the thousand things pressing against his throat deserved to escape first.
"Cryo," he finally whispered, almost spitting the word. "You want to put me back in a freezer? Again?" His eyes blazed suddenly, the weakness in his body fighting to be eclipsed by fury. "Haven't I lost enough time already? You want me to wake up decades later and find everyone gone again? Another wasteland? Another graveyard of people I never got to know?"
Nora's throat tightened. She leaned closer, her grip firming on his arm. "No," she said fiercely, her voice shaking not from doubt but from the enormity of what she was asking. "Not decades. Not this time. Just long enough for us to try. Long enough for us to keep hope alive. Without it…" She faltered, her eyes shining. "Without it, Shaun, we lose you. And I can't—" Her voice broke, the words catching in her throat. "I can't lose you. Not like this."
Sico's jaw clenched. He looked between them, his broad frame taut with conflict. Memories of frost, of the endless cold in Vault 111, of Nora's face behind the fogged glass, flickered in his mind. He remembered tearing apart those pods, cursing them for what they had stolen. And now, here they were again, asking one of them to be salvation instead of a tomb.
"Listen," he said finally, his voice low but steady, cutting through the swell of emotions in the room. "If we do this, it won't be easy. The pods left are in rough shape. Power's unstable. Seals are weak. We'd need Sturges, maybe even the Institute's techs, to get one running safely. And even then—" His gaze fixed on Nora. "There's no guarantee. Not for the machine, not for the boy."
Shaun's laugh was harsh, broken by the rasp in his chest. "The boy. That's what I am now, huh? Not Director. Not Father. Just… the boy you're trying to save."
"Oui," Curie said softly, her eyes shining. "The boy. And that is no small thing."
Shaun's head snapped toward her, ready to retort, but the words seemed to tangle in his throat. He looked away, eyes burning, jaw tight.
Nora reached out, her hand cupping his cheek for the first time. He flinched, but she didn't pull back. "Please," she whispered. "I know it's asking so much. But give me this chance. Give us this chance."
Shaun's eyes lingered on Nora's face for longer than he meant to. He tried to hold on to the anger, to the bitterness that always rose when people spoke of choices for him rather than with him. But her expression broke through all of that. There was no command in her gaze, no calculation like the endless debates in the Institute's council rooms. There was only rawness—pleading, yes, but also something older, something bone-deep. The kind of love that didn't ask for permission because it was so tied to survival that it had forgotten how to let go.
He looked away, jaw tightening, but he couldn't stand it. Not the wet shimmer in her eyes, not the tremor in her hand against his cheek. Not the way her voice had nearly collapsed under the weight of saying she couldn't lose him. He wanted to argue, to spit out that cryo was a coffin made of ice. But he couldn't. Not now.
A long, ragged breath escaped his chest.
"…Fine," he whispered.
The word felt like it belonged to someone else, but once it was out, it lingered in the air, heavy, final. His eyes dropped, and he added, almost too quiet to hear, "If it's what you want… I'll do it."
Nora's lips parted, and she inhaled like she'd been holding her breath for hours. Relief washed over her face, softening the lines that grief had carved into her. She squeezed his arm as though to reassure herself he was still there, still hers, even after surrendering to something so terrifying.
Sico didn't smile. He didn't even nod. Instead, he turned sharply toward Curie, his voice clipped, heavy with command but threaded with trust.
"Stay with him," he said. "Keep him company. Keep him calm. Nora and I—we've got work to do."
Curie's head lifted, her eyes wide but steady. She nodded once, firmly, as though accepting a sacred duty. "Oui. I will not leave him." She stepped closer to Shaun's bedside, her hands folded gently in front of her, her gaze carrying both warmth and a quiet kind of resolve.
Shaun snorted faintly, h