The weeks have flown by since Isabel had moved in with Nick. Both Curie and Doctor Sun were pleased with her progress as she healed; Curie had even left for Sanctuary when the work got light enough for Doctor Sun. Isabel stayed in his house, trying not to signal her health to anyone who would take exception to it. Nick did his best to help distract her, often he took the time to teach her the ins and outs of detective work. At least, he taught her as much as he could from his office. He had been checking out books and buying papers for her. Anything to help keep her distracted from her boredom. He knew it wasn’t enough. She was semi-wild from a life of surviving in the wasteland. He didn’t want to see her caged like she had been, but it was how she got the best medical care she could in the Commonwealth.

  He entered Diamond City. Pleased that he had a successful case to close. Happy to announce to Isabel that the library did have a copy of “The Leviathan” and that she could spend her down time pouring over Hobbes’ arguments about human nature. He even took a moment to buy a copy of the latest edition of Publick Occurrences from Nat before making his way to his office.

  The detective opened the door to find Ellie working at her desk, but no Isabel. He walked into the office and made his way to his desk. Maybe he should get another desk for Isabel to work at, it would make things crowded. He would talk about it with both Isabel and Ellie when the time was right.

  “How did it go?” Ellie finally asked.

  “Ellie, I would start paying caps to have every case like this one,” Nick announced placing the folder on his desk.

  “It went that well?”

  “She went to the wrong settlement,” he explained. “She went to County Crossing instead of Finch Farm. I just had to walk her to the right one. Is Isabel asleep? I want her to close this one for me.”

  Ellie had turned her chair to look at Nick, but now she was shifting her eyes away from him. “Doc Sun gave her the official clean bill of health about an hour ago,” Ellie explained. “She left almost before he did.”

  Nick put on one of his plastic smiles for Ellie. “Well, being cooped up in here was rough on her,” he said.

  He opened a drawer in his desk and slipped the book from his pocket into it before closing it. He laid the folder on top of the desk; he can finish closing the case later. It was the first time since Isabel moved in that Nick didn’t have her to keep her company. His house was suddenly feeling very big and very empty.

  “If you need anything, I’m going to the Dugout Inn,” he announced as he placed a bowl of power noodles next to her. “I’ll see if I can pick up some rumors for some cases.”

  “I’ll call if I need you,” Ellie replied.

  Nick made his way to the Dugout Inn. He wished Isabel was with him. He could take that opportunity to teach her how to listen for rumors. How to get important information from overhearing half sentences. Maybe it was best that he did take a breather from her, all he could think about was kissing her for everyone in the bar to see. Not exactly the most subtle way to announce that she was his new partner.

  As he walked down the hall, he saw her talking to Yafim. He played with the idea of grabbing her and spending a few more hours with her before she ran off into The Wasteland. That was until he noticed Yafim’s expression, he looked down on her with a look of shame and fear. Nick almost expected him to start crying at his post.

  Isabel didn’t look much better. She kept leaning over, her legs were spread out and her body language was extremely animated as if she was unsure if she was about to get into a fight any moment or not.

  “I’m sorry, my friend,” Yafim begged, “it got sold for a profit. That was our deal.”

  Isabel looked at the floor and back at Yafim. “But I couldn’t come back within a month. Couldn’t you have made a dispensation?” She whined.

  “I did everything I could, but we did have a deal. I’m very sorry.”

  Isabel’s shoulders slouched forward. The straps of her backpack seemed to be the only thing that stopped them from folding together. She was folding in on herself. “I know, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. I’m sorry to do this to you,” she told him. She then turned around and almost ran into Nick. She backed up and looked at him with a horrified look. Her eyes were lined with tears that were about to escape. She then moved quickly past him and ran down the hallway and out the door.

  Nick never saw Isabel looking scared at him. He would rather gouge out his own eyes than ever see that look on her face again. He knew it had nothing to do with what he was, and everything to do with who he was.

  He turned back to Yafim. “What happened?” he asked quickly. He wanted to run after her but felt getting information first was better.

  “Marian and I made a deal a while back,” Yafim explained. “She gave us a ring in exchange for room and board with the intention of paying us back when she could.”

  “She never stays overnight in a settlement, not if she has a choice,” Nick pointed out.

  “The room and board wasn’t for her,” Yafim said. “They were clients of hers who couldn’t afford to pay, she paid for them instead. At first it was a simple arrangement, I let someone stay the night, and she paid me back a few caps every time she was in town.”

  Nick had a feeling he knew where this story was going. If he still smoked, he would light up at this moment to help distract him from all the implications of what Yafim was and was not saying. “Let me guess,” Nick interrupted. “Someone found out about her debt and came to you to tell you that you had the key to keep her in the Commonwealth and that if you let that trinket go, she would go as well.”

  “It was her brother, MacCready,” Yafim told him. “He said that going back where she came from meant she would die.”

  “So, you promised to hold on to it as long as you could? How did you evade her finding out that you were trying to trick her?”

  “I didn’t talk to her about it,” Yafim explained, “not directly. She kept bringing in people who needed a place to stay. So, I extended her debt. She just had to come back in less time than it would take for her to go to The Capital Wasteland and return. If she ever got close to paying off her debt, I just convinced someone who she brought in to buy more food or even booze. Once or twice, I had to make her debt seem bigger than it was.”

  Nick was torn between killing Ellie’s boyfriend and kissing him. “So, you cooked the books with the intention of forcing Marian to stay in the Commonwealth.”

  “Marian is a good person, she deserves to be safe,” Yafim explained.

  “She deserves to be free,” Nick muttered between his teeth. “So, what happened to the ring?”

  Yafim sighed in such a way that Nick felt the innkeeper was testing the weight of his own soul. “Vadim sold it,” he blurted out. “He didn’t understand the details about the plan, he just understood she was in debt to us and sold the ring.”

  “Let me make sure I got this straight,” Nick interrupted. “Marian gave you a treasured possession. I know it was a treasured possession because she isn’t materialistic. Woman barely understands money, but she understands weight and risk, which that ring would be unnecessary for both unless it had sentimental value. You promised to take care of it until she paid off a debt. Instead of protecting it, you used it to manipulate her movements and then were surprised that your brother chose to free her of her debt. Am I right in my understanding?”

  Yafim looked at their shoes. He wasn’t a small man, he was almost as tall as Nick, but the guilt he showed made him look like a boy who got caught doing something his parents told him not to do. “I did not mean to hurt her,” he said. “She protects so many people, I just wanted to help her where I could.”

  “She protects people who want to be protected,” Nick hissed. “Who did Vadim sell the ring to? Maybe we can get it back.”

  Yafim looked up and made eye contact with Nick again. Cold fear shot through the synth’s metal frame. “He won’t tell me. He keeps bragging about finding the solution to her problem and selling it for more than she said it was worth.”

  “I don’t understand the problem,” Vadim called from the bar. “She was in debt. I sold her collateral, and now she’s out of debt. She said it was worth three hundred caps, I was able to sell it for five. We can even give her all of the profit or use it for other people she brings in, and you don’t have to look at her debts every night. Everybody wins!”

  Yafim’s color changed to a bright red. The years of tension between them came to a boiling point when Yafim turned and started yelling. “THAT IS IT! I HAVE TOLD YOU MANY TIMES WHY I NEEDED THAT RING, BUT YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME. WE ARE DONE AS PARTNERS AND WE ARE DONE AS BROTHERS! I am leaving for Goodneighbor in the morning. You don’t have to listen to me nag ever again.”

  The whole bar went silent. All the patrons turned and were watching the drama between the brothers.

  Yafim turned to the room. “Everybody, out! Bar is closing early tonight!”

  “No! No!” Vadim cried. “Everybody stay. This is just…just a friendly argument between brothers. There is no reason to leave.”

  The patrons looked at each other, seemingly unsure which twin to listen to.

  Nick decided to put his two cents in. He walked up to the bar and turned off the radio. “Show’s over, folks,” he announced. “The bar will be open again tomorrow. You’ll have to deal with your families sober tonight.”

  The customers quietly started standing and slowly made their way out of the room. There were mutterings among each other. The gossip about this outburst would be through Diamond City before Nick left the bar.

  After the door finally closed, the waitress, Scarlett, hurried to lock it, leaving the bar empty with just the four of them.

  “You…you don’t mean what you said, do you?” Vadim asked, an uncharacteristic softness in his voice.

  “I have tried everything with you,” Yafim growled through his teeth. “I have tried talking to you, and you blow me off. I have tried leaving you messages on our terminal like you asked, but you don’t read them. You always do what you want and leave me to clean up your mess. Now you keep bragging to me about how you sold my friend’s possession and nothing I say seems to convince you that all you did was kill her. Right now, I wish it was you who would die.”

  Vadim was silent. He looked down at the bottle he had been drinking from. Nick wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Vadim sober.

  “Vadim,” Scarlett said quietly, “I think you should tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” Yafim asked. “That my brother never had a problem leaving me with his work?”

  “That nothing I do has ever been good enough for you,” Vadim said, quiet tears started building in his eyes. “You are just like mother, no matter how hard I try, I’m just a failure in your eyes. Just like I could never be more than a failure for her. No matter what I do, it’s always nag, nag, nag.”

  Yafim was silent for a moment, then he started talking again. “I didn’t realize that I was acting like mother,” he finally said. “I thought you were happy when she died.”

  “I wasn’t!” Vadim countered. “I wanted her to see me like this! Happy and successful, not a drunken lout like I am.”

  Nick placed his hand on Scarlett’s arm. “Let’s give them some space,” he whispered.

  The two of them left the twins alone to talk about the issues they had both been avoiding.

  After locking the door behind them, Scarlett turned to Nick. “I’ve been trying to get Vadim to open up about that for years. I’m sorry you had to get involved.”

  “It couldn’t be helped,” Nick comforted her. “We should probably let them work their differences out. Do you need a place to stay tonight?”

  “I can stay at a friend’s,” Scarlett said. “It’ll be worth it to not have to drag Vadim to bed after he passes out drunk, again.”

  Nick couldn’t help but agree that there was going to be a lot in that room that would change very quickly. He never doubted the twins cared about each other, but their different personalities had rubbed on each other for years. He wanted to help them out, but he needed to help Isabel more.

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  There were a few places where she may have run off to. He doubted she would go back to his place to cry, that was a vulnerability he doubted she would want anyone to see, even himself. She would have left the city to find one of her private haunts. Her apartment and the library were the two most likely spots. He’d found her hiding in some other places over the months, but he decided to check the easiest spots first.

  He found himself waving off two different guards who wanted to know why she was looking so distressed when she passed them. At least he was heading in the right direction. He didn’t bother trying to hide his own distress. He ran towards her apartment, relieved to see the door was closed. If it was opened, she wouldn’t have been in there and he would have to keep looking for her. Instead, he ran up to the door and knocked.

  “Marian are you in there?” he called.

  “Nick?” her voice responded.

  He suppressed a sigh of relief. She was in there, she was safe. Her voice sounded small, and she was hurting, but he could help her.

  “It’s okay, Doll,” he told her. “I’m here. Can I come in?”

  The door moved slightly, like she was leaning up against it. “I’m not any good, Nick.”

  “I won’t hold it against you,” he said. “But you left my home without saying ‘goodbye’, I just want to make sure everything is okay. Can I see you?”

  The door opened quietly. Nick looked in it to see Isabel. Her blue eyes were red rimmed, and her nostrils were flared. It was obvious she had been crying and was trying to hide it. Nick wanted to end her pain. He wished he could fix what had happened and help her stop crying. Unfortunately, the ring was gone, but he had to make sure Isabel remained.

  “Can I come in?” he asked gently.

  She moved to the side, giving him the space he needed to enter the room. He felt like he was in the room with a ghost as she closed the door. She looked at the door a little too long before turning to him.

  “I saw how you looked at me in the Dugout Inn,” he finally started.

  “Nick I’m sorry, I-” He placed a finger on her mouth to shush her. He withdrew his finger and gently started playing with her hair.

  “It’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”

  She looked from his face towards his shirt. “I had an heirloom,” she explained, “it’s been in my family for about one-hundred years before the Sino-American War. One of those things that get passed from mother to daughter on her sixteenth birthday. And I lost it.” her veneer of silence broke and tears started flooding out of her eyes.

  “Oh, Isabel,” Nick cooed while he pulled her into his chest. She buried her face into his shirt as she cried. He silently thanked Codsworth for cleaning all the smoke out of his clothes so she wouldn’t have to pull away in deference to her allergies.

  She pulled back from him and pawed at her eyes with the palm of her hand. “I’m sorry, I’m crying like a stupid child.”

  He took her other hand and gently guided her to the couch. “It’s okay, Darling, go ahead and cry. I’m not going to thank any less of you.”

  “Because you can’t think any less of me?” she joked lamely as they sat down.

  He wrapped his arm around her but cupped her chin forcing her to make eye contact with him. “No, because I care about you. Now, keep going with your story.” He thumbed a tear off of one of her cheeks.

  “I had been bringing people to Diamond City. They couldn’t always afford to stay the night and I didn’t like the idea of escorting people in the dark. So, I had been paying for them to stay at the Dugout Inn. It was supposed to be a one-time thing, but people kept needing help, and I couldn’t turn anyone away.” She went silent, forcing her face into his jacket.

  She didn’t have to finish the thought; Nick could fill in the blanks himself. If she turned people away, then other people would die. The people she was paying to keep in the Dugout Inn were clients she had brought to him. Probably since she first arrived, probably while the two of them were still fighting. She wouldn’t have admitted to helping him then, let alone bothered to tell him the true cost to her. And her pride and self-doubts would have stopped her from turning to him at any point after they had become friends. Once again, he had been profiting from her pain.

  “Oh, Sweetheart,” he said placing his cheek on top of her head, unable to verbalize all the emotions that his realization was creating. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  She sat up and readjusted herself in his arms. The way she fit was almost perfect. She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder, letting him feel her weight and gentle warmth.

  “It was the one thing I could do right by my family. And now, after all these centuries, I’m the idiot who couldn’t hold on to a stupid piece of metal.”

  Nick held her to his chest while stroking her hair, trying to comfort her how he could. “You are not an idiot, Doll,” he insisted. “I don’t partner with idiots. What you did, you made a sacrifice that saved lives. That’s not something many people can do.” He silently vowed to find that ring, but he didn’t want to make any promises to this woman that he wasn’t sure he could keep.

  “I guess I can look at the bright side,” she sighed. “I guess there’s nothing left keeping me here. I can go back to The Capital Wasteland, like I always wanted.”

  Nick felt an electric surge run up his spine. He did his best to hide the panic he was feeling. Instead, he leaned down and kissed the top of her head before talking to it. “I have been told that going home would mean your death,” he said, trying to buy himself time to think of an argument why she shouldn’t go.

  “Yeah, probably,” she admitted. “Things are worse there, people need help. I just…I can’t stay any longer, Nick, and I’m out of excuses for why I’m alive while others are dying.”

  He gently squeezed her as he thought of the only option he could think of. “Okay,” he said, “we can leave in the morning.”

  He felt her breathing hitch in a different way than it had been with her crying. She pushed away from him, looking straight at his face. “We?” She asked. “Nick, no. You belong here. I’m not going to take you away from Diamond City. I can go with RJ; I need to get Duncan anyway.”

  “You just said you wouldn’t be able to come back, Isabel,” Nick pointed out. “There is nothing that scares me more than having you disappear, and I would never find out about what happened to you.”

  She settled back into his arms, moving her legs so that they were on his lap. He pulled her into him, wishing that was enough to hold her in the Commonwealth.

  “It’s okay, you’ll forget me soon enough,” she said. “It’ll be like I was never here.”

  “Isabel, no,” he told her gently. “I don’t want to forget you. I think that may be the only thing worse than loosing you, is forgetting you were ever in my life.” He then understood that he was out of time. All his doubts and his indecisions were swept away. This was his last chance to tell her the truth. “Isabel, I love you.”

  She looked up at him. Her blue eyes were scrutinizing him, as if she thought he was playing some sort of trick on her. “Why?” she asked.

  “Do I need a reason?” Nick asked. “Because you’re frustrating, and stubborn and contrary and maybe the most exasperating person I’ve ever met. But you’re also caring, and passionate and intelligent and maybe the most self-sacrificing person I’ve ever met. I love you for everything you are, and I just don’t think I have it in me to let you walk out of my life.”

  “I have been nothing but a thorn in your side since the moment we met,” she countered. “I know you have been taking care of me, but it’s one thing to want someone to be alive and safe, and another to have them around all the time.”

  “I want both,” Nick explained. “You have been exacerbating since that moment you walked into The Third Rail, but I don’t think I’ve even met someone who challenges me the way that you have. Almost anyone I’ve met who has challenged me has been up to no good. You may be the first person in my life who I have to work to keep up without worrying that someone might get hurt if I don’t.”

  “I’m out of arguments, Nick,” she finally conceded. “I understand how you feel, but I’m not sure how I feel. I’ve lived without a future for so long that something like love just seemed cruel.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t want you to feel forced. I’m not going to demand that you have any emotions that you don’t. I just hope you care enough about me not to leave me here while you run off on a suicide mission.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly. “I promise I won’t leave without you.” She looked down; her eyes were shifting in the way they did when she was thinking about abstract things. “Nick?”

  “Yes Doll?”

  “I don’t know how I feel, but would you be willing to help me figure it out?” The coy smile on her face told Nick what she wanted.

  He never asked her for such things, but he had been wanting the same thing for weeks. He placed his hand on the back of her head and pulled it in for a passionate kiss. She kissed him in return, moving her body so that her legs straddled his. Her fingers moved nimbly as he felt the buttons on his shirt become manipulated and his shirt slowly open.

  He pulled away, keeping one hand on her cheek. “Are you sure you want to do that, Doll?” he asked. “I don’t exactly have a beach body.”

  She rubbed a hand over his exposed chest. “You said you love everything about me. I want to see all of you. Just like you’ll be seeing all of me soon,” she smiled.

  He leaned in and kissed her mouth. “How did I get to be so lucky,” he said into her mouth before kissing it again.

  He started removing her armor, if she got to take off his clothes, turn around was fair play. He listened to each clang of metal as her armor was removed. After her chest armor fell away, she leaned in, pressing her athletic shirt against his bare chest as her tongue forced its way into Nick’s mouth.

  His tongue welcomed the visitor and danced between their teeth as he explored her back with his hands. He tugged at the bottom of her shirt and moved it out of the waist of her pants. He explored the soft skin that was exposed until he started unbuttoning her shirt in return. Finally, the offending cloth was removed, and he tossed it aside before taking away the last barrier to her unexposed body.

  With her bra out of the way, Nick gently broke contact with Isabel as he pushed her back. His eyes taking in her naked upper half in a way he never felt comfortable doing before.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, not bothering to cover those perfect breasts.

  “Nothing,” he said, “I just wanted to see how beautiful you are.”

  Her breasts were small, ribs still jutted out beneath them. Every part of her that would normally harbor fat was lacking. She didn’t look starved anymore, she had enough fat on her to survive the trip to The Capital Wasteland, but she didn’t look like someone who was used to rich foods. Still, it was her, and it was beautiful. He reached up and grabbed one of her breasts, rubbing the palm of his hand over the nipple. Her back arced, helping push her breast into his hand as a pleasant moan escaped her.

  “You only are seeing half of me,” she teased, her breath coming in fast like she was exercising.

  “I like making sure I’m doing my job right,” he teased again before leaning forward and taking the other breast into his mouth.

  She squealed with pleasure, wrapping her arms around his head as he licked her pink nub. “Nick,” she moaned.

  He could tell it had been a long time for her, and he was willing to make this night memorable. He let her remove his shirt and coat before he licked his way to her other breast, exploring her body.

  “Fuck,” she replied.

  He felt her reach down and grab the crotch of his trousers. She kept squeezing and searching. He moved away from the mounds in front of her to rescue her from her dilemma. The confused look on her face was so cute, he almost wished he could go back to playing with her.

  “There’s nothing there,” he finally explained.

  Her eyes closed in the way they did when she was embarrassed. “I should have known that” she said, settling back onto his lap. His hands at her waist steading her. “How can I give you pleasure?”

  There weren’t enough words in an unabridged dictionary to explain how much he loved this woman. “It’s okay. I wasn’t programed to feel pleasure. There’s nothing you can do for me there.”

  The look of disappointment that crossed her face made Nick want to barge into the Institute and demand programing and new components. She leaned against him, pressing their bare skin together. She didn’t seem to mind the fact that his torso was cracked from years of being beaten up. “Why would you want to do this then?” she asked. “If there’s nothing in this for you.”

  He gently brushed her hair before moving her back to sitting up so he could look at her. “There are multiple forms of pleasure,” he insisted as he fiddled with her belt. “Just because I can’t feel physical pleasure, doesn’t mean I can’t feel other forms of pleasure. Say I touch you like this,” he slipped his hand past her unbuckled belt and touched her clit, gently pressing on it.

  She gasped with pleasure, leaning forward and pressing her breasts against him. He moved his finger back and forth, making the sensation as intense as he could. “It gives you physical pleasure, doesn’t it?”

  Her arms were wrapped around his shoulders, clinging onto him as he teased her. He wanted to keep it up, see how much pleasure he could give her. He wondered if he could tease her like this all night. “Uh huh,” she mumbled before biting his shoulder and screaming into it.

  Nick couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “The fact that I’m giving you that much pleasure, is giving me a lot of emotional pleasure.”

  “Fuck, Nickiiiiii,” she sighed into his ear. Her hips bucked with need forcing her clit farther into his hand.

  He regrettably removed his hand from her, pulling it out of her pants. She whimpered before leaning back to look at him, a different look of confusion passing over her face. “Don’t worry, Doll,” he insisted before taking off her pants. He was tired of waiting and wanted to show her how much pleasure he could give her. He could explore her body again later.

  Soon, she was standing before him, her body exposed for all of its beauty. She was beautiful. The thought that she almost walked out of his life still frightened him, like dodging a bullet by a few inches. He stood up and kissed her mouth. “You’re beautiful,” he told her.

  She kissed him back, pressing her furry mound against his groin. She pressed her whole body against him, but that was the part that demanded the most attention.

  He reached down and grabbed her buttocks. Feeling each of the two mounds. They were also lacking in fat, but they were still firm and round, and muscular. That didn’t surprise him, she probably walked several miles a day for the past decade. He pulled her up, letting her wrap her strong legs around him.

  He carried her like that to the bed, still kissing her mouth. He gently placed her laying down on the bed, her legs dangling over the side. He pulled away again, looking at her lying there. Her hand was playing with her own hair. Her face was flushed, and she was panting with want.

  “You’re doing a good job of convincing me to stay with you,” she teased.

  He leaned over her on the bed, hovering his face inches from hers. He held his hand over her stomach, enjoying as the muscles rippled from anticipation before lowering his hand on it and slowly moving it down. “I always try to do a good job, for all of my clients,” he insisted as he moved his hand beyond her mound and slipped a finger into her slit, pressing it against her clit.

  She screamed for a moment, before he captured it with his mouth. She moaned into his mouth as he moved his finger up and down altering pressure on it. He moved his mouth from hers, licking her neck once, slowly. Then he pulled away again.

  She whimpered some more as he pulled away, leaving her sex hot and wet. “You are a tease,” she moaned.

  “Trust me, Doll,” he said, removing his trousers, “the best is yet to come.”

  He looked down at her naked body. Enjoying the sight of her, before kneeling down before her. He kissed the inside of her thigh, before licking it. Her approving moan was enough to encourage him to keep going. Soon, he was licking the wet entrance to her pleasure. He went from pushing his tongue as far in, trying to tease the bundle of nerves inside her, to dragging the slick and sticky wetness to her clit.

  She screamed out his name, pulling his head in. He had to hang on to her bucking hips as he teased her. Soon, he could feel the hole tightening around his tongue. He placed a finger from his left hand inside before focusing solely on the clit. He licked until he could tell she was at the edge, then a quick, gentle nip, and he could feel her vagina tighten and vibrate around his single finger. Her whole body went tense, and then, she collapsed on the bed.

  He crawled onto the bed, lying next to her as he moved his finger in and out of her, helping her ride out the last of her climax. She moaned with each wave, letting him pull her onto him.

  When it was over, he pulled his finger out and let her suck on it before she pulled away and laid on his chest.

  “Damn, Nick,” she sighed.

  “Didn’t know an old toaster could do that?” he asked.

  “I’ve been using the wrong kind of toaster my whole life if that’s what I’m supposed to expect from one.”

  He chuckled at that, rubbing his hands against her exposed back.

  “I probably shouldn’t have left your place so soon, Nick,” she said. “I still feel pretty tired.”

  “Go ahead and rest, Doll,” Nick told her.

  He held her until he felt her breathing slow down and become more regular. She was truly a doll. She was his doll, and he loved her more than he thought he was capable of.