It was Tuesday evening. The smell of cigars was memorable: pepper and creosote . He’d allowed himself one second of guilt-free, feeling-good, beer-in-hand, smile-on-face, honest-to-God happiness, so, naturally, HQ imploded.

Congesting, dirty soot swamped the air. Rolling onto his back, bothering some bruised ribs, Deacon wheezed, but inhaling was like sucking-up chalk dust. It coated his tongue and back of throat; he kept spitting despite the dry-mouth. It tasted like bile. When the explosion blast blew a hole through the Railroad’s back entrance, he’d landed on his side, cracked his elbow, and busted his shades. Sprawled on the rough cement scrambling to nab his bearings, he heard the end nearing loudly and a little expectedly. Hydraulics hissing, metal squealing; he saw the glow of headlights mounted on power-armor helmets. The only thing that could penetrate the dense, powdered fog were the beams of laser-rifles. They sliced as seamlessly through the haze as they did the HQ crowd.

He crawled on his belly. He played possum—covered his head with his hands—when heavy, stomping steps got too close. He heard distinctive screams which he could painfully put to a name and face. His lungs ached with the dust. The urge to cough wrenched his chest until he was crying, but Deacon kept cool—even when warm, wet bodies flopped on top of him. Pulling himself forwards with ruined elbows through shrieking wreckage, he went towards where he’d seen her before the blitz.

Perched on a couch-arm, Big Mama had been chatting with Glory. The woman wore their victory a little differently than everyone else, as well as a thin, violet, floral sundress. She looked tired. The forgotten beer in her hands was in continuous peril of falling. She only smiled when she knew someone was looking at her, and that was how Deacon had last seen her: smiling. Trading glances, he knew he was in trouble. The way she kept that last bit of genuine joy for when their eyes met had him regretting everything between them over the years: their friendship, their closeness, her need and his denial; how they’d grown apart and she’d grown-up into this other, capable, quirky, strikingly self-possessed synth. But still—still after all this time—she saved her smiles for him.

Deacon was finally falling for her. Fuck. Then he’d literally fallen, ass over tea kettle. Thank-you, Brotherhood of Steel.

She was still with Glory. Glory, though, was dead: bled-out and paled. Dawn—Big Mama—was holding the body to her own body somehow not yet struck with bullets, but Deacon imaged the BOS soldiers were having a hard time with the smog, cramped space, plus they’d obviously already mown through the area.

Stuffing Stealthboys under his shirt, which he then tucked in, the man threw his arm around her waist and dragged her along, an invisibility shield enveloping them with a very tenuous, sustained-by-sheer-will blanket of obscurity.

The BOS bastards were concentrated near the stairwell. It meant things got a little easier once Deacon had hauled Dawn to the back of the chapel. Of course, holding onto a struggling, legs-gone-to-jelly invisible something was pretty damned exhausting. He didn’t know what he was grabbing and pulling by the end of it: her arm; her ass. Up the church steeple they stumbled, the woman still crying, the man about to. Their Stealthboys were done but one. Deacon crept onto the roof and noted very few soldiers around the front door, but enough to scope them out. They’d have to jump and run.

Back at the windowless steeple, he held Dawn by the shoulders. He kept expecting a soldier to announce in voice amplified by the helmet-comms, ‘they’re on the roof!’

Dawn stood there, looking like she’d died.

“We’re gonna have to boot it to the far end, pop a Stealthboy, and split,” explained Deacon. “Have to hold hands when we jump so we don’t get separated. If we get splits-eez, we rendezvous at Augusta. Got it?” He blinked. “M? Bigs?” His voice pitched sarcastically. “Yummy mummy?”

Breathing in exasperated, pre-break-down hiccups, Dawn nodded like her head was on a doll’s neck: loose and unsteady. “Yah.”

Deacon grabbed her wrist and hauled her along, his other hand starting-up their last ticket to anonymity. The drop to the ground wasn’t great; his bruised, screwed-up elbow was now seriously close to broken, and when they hit the gravel he heard Dawn scream-out and something snap. By the time they were on their feet, hobbling away, the Stealthboy was nearly juiceless and he could hear the soldiers not far behind.

“C’mon,” Deacon growled, his good arm slung around her stomach, yanking her.

“I can’t,” Dawn whimpered somewhere to his right. “My ankle is busted. God, it hurts. Deacon…”

There came the skitter of stones and he felt his arm pull. She’d fallen.

“Fuck!”

They were both visible, as clear as day in the dead of night, by the time Deacon got her up. Luckily, they hadn’t been spotted. Cowering at the side of the building, the man explored options. He knew, in the next street over, there was a wrought-iron staircase to an apartment-roof where they could hunker down, but it’d cause a lot of noise. There were a few buildings that could provide cover, too, but they only had the entrance and no back-way out. Anyone in the area was likely getting shot, so trying for Bunker Hill wasn’t feasible. Dawn needed a doctor. He wanted one. His elbow hurt; pain was pulsing to his shoulder and wrist.

Then there was the distinct sound of power-armor legs lumbering their way. Dawn’s eyes turned into circles. Deacon forced them to their feet, and shimmied them between two buildings.

To call it an alley would be generous. Deacon and Dawn were pressed in, stomach to stomach, beer-breath mingling with beer-breath. The woman a head-shorter than him was beyond the pain of her ankle: she was trembling, gasping, and staring out to the street where the enemy was destined to plod passed. With every step that the soldier took, Dawn’s breathing got more ragged and strong. It was moist on Deacon’s throat. And definitely not cool: she was going to blow their cover.

“Hey,” he crooned softly. Her body lurched, but that meant she’d heard him. “Dawny, you gotta—”

They could make out a shadow in the street. Dawn gasped.

Deacon cupped her cheek with a bit of guff (his bad elbow brushed the wall). Pulling her to face him, he memorized the wrinkles of her eyelids; the flank of her nostrils; the pout of her lips which was almost appalling. She was weird to look at. Not only because one of his shade-lenses had popped out. In looking at her, he still didn’t know if he’d have done things differently.

She tasted better than the beer on her breath. Deacon noted it while hastily pressing his lips to hers. He’d say, afterwards, it was to get her quiet. Now, though, it was all about feeling. Feeling, for the first time in years, the ecstasy of thoughtlessness as his tongue lapped at another. His mind was always nattering away—always—but all he knew now was the way Dawn fisted the front of his shirt, stilled and startled, while Deacon led their embrace down some grabby, desperate turns. His arms wrapped around her, bruises and blood ignored. He found a lot of curves which set his blood boiling. He meant to meet the end with a bang. As he sucked on her bottom lip, a voice whispered you’re going to die. As he tilted his head so as to tongue deeper between her lips, his conscience sang say your prayers, boy, you’re done. He honestly thought that the soldier was going to find them, blow them away, and when Deacon and Dawn parted for breath he knew that. He knew he’d wanted to remember what affection was as he died.

But he also knew, now that the soldier had passed and it had been some minutes, that they were going to escape. They were going to live to fight another day.

Shit, Deacon thought. Shit, shit, shit.

• Islamic Relief:  teams are on the ground right now providing emergency food assistance, shelter, medical supplies to hospitals and clinics, as well as blankets and tents for those made homeless by the quake in Turkey and Syria
• Molham: The team at Molham are currently on the ground helping displaced families in Turkey and Syria who have been affected by the earthquake   
• Turkish Red Crescent: The team are distributing essential aid to those affected by the earthquake across Turkey.
• The White Helmets: The team are on the ground in Northwest Syria searching for survivors and removing the dead from the rubble.
• Turkey Mozaik Foundation: Attempting to provide immediate relief and medium to long term recovery to survivors of the earthquake. 
• MSF: remaining in close contact with the local authorities in northwestern Syria and with the authorities in Turkey to extend their support where it’s needed. They’re providing essential life kits to displaced people in the region