The pattern only continued: Aurora would wake and fight against a hallucination, and MacCready would calm her back down. It was a good thing he kept her weapons far away from her. Sometimes her episodes would happen days apart; one night she had three.

MacCready had found that the only thing able to bring her back was his touch. One time he had sat beside her through the whole night, holding her hand to keep her nightmares from happening. But getting an hour or so of sleep before jolting awake and watching over her for the rest of the night drained him. So, he came up with the idea of sleeping beside her so he could keep a hand on her.

It worked great; they were both able to get more sleep and when he felt Aurora twitch with the start of a nightmare, he'd touch her, and she'd calm down. His growing attachment to her wasn't so great, though: MacCready knew he had always been attracted to her, but her being this close and in his bed was torture. His ability to get more sleep quickly depleted as he forced himself to keep a distance between them—she'd sleep fine, but he would be up the entire night with immoral thoughts. One morning, he woke completely refreshed but found himself wrapped around her. Another, he found her curled into his chest with him holding her—it had felt so good.

Then two and a half weeks passed; Aurora's voice returned, but her hallucinations took a different turn: she became sexually aggressive toward him. MacCready woke one night to find her rubbing against him, egging him to join her. He had never been through a tougher fight than when he pushed her off him; he had to tie her hands to the bed frame to stop her from turning to him. Not knowing what he would do with him being aroused and her right beside him, he slept on the floor but within arm's reach to touch her if she had a nightmare. Every night he waited until she fell asleep to tie her hands and untied them before she woke so she wouldn't be embarrassed.

He told Dr. Amari about her new episodes.

"I've never heard of these side effects before," she said. "Whatever chem the Gunners used on her must be new; I hope it doesn't get popular."

"There must be something we can do."

Dr. Amari looked at him with a sly grin. "Why? She's gonna run you dry?"

Yes, I can't hold back much longer.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't jest. Aurora's in terrible shape and neither of you should be put through more." She thought about something long and hard. "I have heard about something said to cure addictions... but it's dangerous to get to and there's no guarantee that it'll do what we think it will do."

"We have to take the chance that it will. What is it and where?"

"It's supposed to be a machine used to take toxins out of a blood system, curing addictions. It's in Vault 95; far to the south." She looked at him. "Are you sure about this, MacCready?"

There wasn't a second thought. "Yes, for her sake and mine."

***

MacCready and Aurora headed south for the five-day travel to Vault 95; he told her why they headed there but still kept her sexual attempts to himself—she didn't need to feel ashamed and demand that he stay away from her at night, scared that she might try something. He also worried about how she would make it through the night—and what he would do; most of the nights he sat on watch but when he did sleep, he kept her held tight to his chest, practically encaging her arms, and she slept without incident.

On their journey to the vault, their opposition greatly grew in size and intensity—they had to fight Radscorpions, who can burrow into the dirt and appear behind you, many Feral Ghouls, and two Deathclaws at the same time. After finally reaching the entrance into Vault 95 built into a hill, it nearly killed them: grenade mines, Gunners, Assaultrons, and machine gun turrets guarded it.

Based on the outside, they journeyed inside with caution; they disarmed traps, dodged laser turrets, and killed several more Gunners and robots like a Mr. Gutsy—a militarized Mr. Handy—Assaultrons, Protectrons, and a sentry bot—even worse and stronger than an Assaultron, just not as fast. Neither had ever ventured into a vault before but what they saw made them not want to ever again: everything silver with machines gave off a creepy feeling, not one like a safe home is supposed to feel like since this was built for people to escape the bombs 200 years ago, and skeletons lay in almost every room. Nothing hinted at what had killed these people, but Aurora moved closer to MacCready for comfort.

They came into a room mostly clear except for some overturned gurneys, rusted oxygen tanks, wheelchairs, and a single open room with a large and cracked window. Aurora stopped and looked around in recognition.

"This is set up like one of the wards at the hospital I used to work at—an observational room where you could monitor a patient."

"Why would they need one?" MacCready asked.

He heard her sifting through a drawer; he looked back to see her pull out chem after chem. She never pulled out a stimpak or bandages—nothing lifesaving like what she carried with her in a pack. Aurora considered the items she found, then headed over to the room; after looking through the window, her face paled as realization dawned on her.

"This wasn't meant as a safe haven for those people pre-war." She looked at him with tears in her eyes. "They used the threat of nuclear fallout to experiment on people; hook them on drugs, then use this machine in here to try and get it out. How could they do such a thing?"

He headed over to her. "You know how twisted people can become; look what Med-Tek did."

"Yes, but this is on another level; they used fear to gain guinea pigs."

Aurora was absolutely revolted by the idea—he had always thought doctors were like her: concerned about the well-being of others and driven to help. How could doctors switch off their moral codes to experiment with people? They were sick.

MacCready stepped into the room she had looked in. It was dark other than the light coming in through the window, cabinets, a diagnostic cart, and oxygen tank, but the strange-looking gurney caught his eye: it had wide restraining bars for the head, arms, torso, and legs, and rigged up with some machine with two arms branching off of it, each holding a long and thick needle. There was dried blood throughout the room and blood-rusted needles. MacCready shuddered at the sight.

"You think it worked?"

Aurora walked around the machine, bending to get a better look at the contraptions. "It looks like it could've."

"How?"

She pointed at one needle and he followed her finger as it trailed down the pipe to the machine then back up into the other needle as she talked. "The blood is taken out through here and it flows down, passing through filters and other strainers in here to cleanse the blood. Then it's reinserted into the body as pure blood."

"That sounds painful."

"Probably is." Aurora kept her eyes on the gurney.

Now seeing what she would have to go through to get clean, MacCready didn't think he could do it—he couldn't see her get hurt again. "I'm not letting you get in that thing."

She looked up at him. "MacCready, we came all this way for this. I'm tired of not having a clear head anymore; I can't remember anything. I'm not myself. Yes, it will hurt, but I have to do this."

He could see the determination in her eyes, but he wanted to drag her out of there. Why couldn't she see the fear in his?

"Please," she begged.

MacCready gave in. "What do I have to do?"

Aurora told him he would have to turn on the machine by hitting the button outside; she set to cleaning the dirty needles with antiseptic. He watched her get on the gurney and place her arms and legs where the restraints would fold over her. She gave him a shaky smile.

On shaking legs himself, he stepped out to go to the panel. He could see all of Aurora from the panel being in full view of the window. His hand hovered over the button.

"Ready?"

She chuckled. "It doesn't matter if I say no, huh?"

He laughed with her and said exactly what she had told him. "It's pretty much like a rhetorical question." It helped ease the nerves, though; he pressed the button.

The machine came to life: the metal restraints folded over Aurora's limbs, chest, and head to keep her still; the arms jerked to attention and brought the needles closer and closer to her neck. MacCready longed to stop the machine, but Aurora said there wasn't a way to stop it once it started. Bullshit, he could stop it by destroying the machine and tearing her out of the restraints. But she wanted to do this—she needed to do this—so he kept his feet planted as his teeth ground.

She gasped as the needles punctured her skin; they went in deeper than he expected, then apparatuses began to turn, pumping out her blood. Aurora kept her eyes shut tight and her face grimaced in pain as her hands clenched and unclenched, her arms strained against the restraints. It was unbelievably painful watching her struggle; if she'd made one cry, MacCready would've broken her out.

The machine worked to clean her blood for a few minutes. When the cogs stopped pumping and the needles withdrew out of Aurora's skin, the machine powered down and the restraints opened. MacCready rushed in to check on Aurora: her eyes were still closed, her body sagged with exhaustion, but she breathed. Along with the puckered line and other smaller cuts were two pinpricks on opposite ends of her neck, lightly bleeding.

He felt her face: both warm and sweaty. "Aurora?"

"I'm here," she breathed.

"How do you feel?"

"Dizzy. Weak." She opened her eyes. "But the fog's gone." She reached for his hand and looked at him. "Thank you."

It worked. MacCready was so relieved, he knew she felt the same. He returned her squeeze. "You're welcome."

They waited for enough of her strength to return so she could walk; they quickly got out of the uncomfortable room but stayed the night in the vault in a room free of skeletons. MacCready wanted to stay up to watch her and see if she was truly clean, but when Aurora started to search for him in her sleep, he had no choice but to get behind her.