(AN: HI. Please see my notes at the end of this chapter; I have some explaining to do but I didn't want to have a whole paragraph of it up here.)

Thirty years I stood ten feet to the left of this asshole, awaiting my orders. Thirty years I withstood abuse, derogatory hatred, and life-threatening quests that were not worth the trip. Thirty years I put up with it all, though I had no choice in the matter regardless, but I did it quietly, stoically.

Until she walked in, throwing me a single-second glare, a mane of fluffy golden brown hair bouncing behind her as she stormed up to Ahzrukhal's bar and slammed a sack of caps down in front of him. I strained my ears, or what was left of them anyway, and tried to hear their conversation. She was angry. Most people who walked into the Ninth Circle who were not bar regulars were angry for one reason or another - often, at Ahzrukhal, angry that he would cheat them out of a deal. And then he would order me to dispose of them. But she was somehow different, and I had never seen her before. She had not been in this bar. The only words I could make out were "inhuman," "bastard," "contract".

Ahzrukhal's sly smile turned sour when her turn to speak was over. My stomach turned in anticipation. Excitement? It was hard to tell. She had caps and spoke about contracts. Was my contract about to change hands? How would she ever have convinced Ahzrukhal to… give up his prized indentured slave?

Most importantly, would she be worse than him? She seemed angry with me somehow. Not that it was impossible she could be; after all, I was responsible for the deaths and suffering of many. I probably killed her parents, or her siblings, or her child. Who knows? The skeletons in my closet are a blur after so many years.

Ahzrukhal slid the sack of caps off the bar and reached into his jacket pocket. Asshole. Kept the contract close to ensure that no one could take it from him without his notice, but close enough that it would be easy if anyone were to try and I wasn't around to stop them. He slid it to her across the dirty bar and she snatched it before he could scam her out of her caps and the contract. I held my breath. I had to keep my heart rate down. She folded it, tucked the contract into her left breast pocket, and stalked over to me. I only then noticed how short she was, how wiry her body seemed.

"Charon," she said once she approached me, craning her head back to look me in the eyes. "I'm your new employer. My name is Amelie. Do anything you need to do, and then we're leaving this awful place and we're not coming back."

"I just need to take care of something," I muttered, pulling out my shotgun and approaching the bar.

"Charon," Ahzrukhal purred. "Have you come to say goodbye?"

"Yes." I shot him, once, point-blank in his chest. His ribcage exploded, spraying blood on the front of my armor.

"Jesus!" My new employer, new mistress shouted from my old corner. "I expected you would probably kill him, but not point-blank with a shotgun." She went behind the bar and took her cap sack back from his jacket pocket, as well as his own stash of caps. The two patrons that had been in the bar had gone as soon as I shot Ahzrukhal - whether to run for Dr. Barrows, or to get out of dodge, I would never know. It was late in the evening, and we were alone. My new employer broke into Ahzrukhal's safe and storage, taking anything that wasn't nailed down. She paused, turning to me. "This isn't against some rule with your contract, is it? You aren't going to kill me for stealing from your previous employer?"

I resisted the urge to chuckle. "I do not believe it is considered stealing if he is dead."

She contemplated, then shrugged. "Good enough for me. Ha!" After stuffing her pack full of Ahzrukhal's booze, chems, caps and other whatnots, she turned to me and pressed her sack of caps into my hand. "1000 caps."

"I do not normally accept pay for my labor."

"You do now. That 1000 caps is what I spent getting your contract in the first place, and since Ahzrukhal isn't gonna need it, it's yours, because it was spent anyway." She seemed exasperated. 1000 caps. That was all I was worth to him. Thirty years of service, gone, for 1000 measly caps. "Please, just take it. Take the money and buy yourself something nice. Some new armor, maybe, because yours is looking pretty rank." She hoisted her pack up onto her back, a bulging mess of items. "We gotta go. You were more than justified in killing him, but I don't think either of us want to deal with the potential fallout."

I shrugged, taking my pack from its spot behind the bar. It didn't have much in it - nonperishable food, one bottle of dirty water, one Stimpak, and two loaded pistols. I preferred to travel light, and Ahzrukhal never bothered to give me any more than that. Not that I owned anything worth losing, except my shotgun. "I can carry some of your weight, mistress."

She shook her head, pushing through The Ninth Circle's double doors. "No, I got it. Thanks."

I furrowed my brows, or what was left of them. I couldn't figure her out. She had seemed… nice? She purchased my contract seemingly knowing Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard, knowing that The Ninth Circle was my own personal Hell. She tried to pay me… no one had tried that for over a century. But, now, she seemed short with me. I tried to push it out of my mind. Just had to get to the next step, and then I could figure it out.

On the stairs inside Underworld, my new employer strapped a bandana around her face and pulled her hood up. Her eyes were the only visible part of her face, and she flashed them to me, nudging her head in the direction of the exit. There was a lot of hubbub, folks walking into The Ninth Circle to see what happened for themselves. Doc Barrows, I could hear, muttered about how it would be pointless for him to go up now; there was no way Ahzrukhal would have survived.

We pushed through the heavy iron doors, and left Underworld, possibly for good.

(AN: HI. So, I kept having this thought in my head of a mini-prequel to Love at First Sight and like, I COULDN'T get it to go away, it literally pops into my head every day, so, here. I really wanted to explore how Amelie and Charon met, how their friendship developed, etc. This won't be super long, and it won't involve the entire 9 months between her receiving his contract and the start of LAFS, but… hopefully it's fun, and hopefully I don't accidentally inconsistency myself, because honestly as time has gone on I've developed these characters more and more and one day I WILL rewrite LAFS to reflect the changes I've made in my head. But, if you do notice an inconsistency, PLEASE let me know. I have to know so I can figure out what needs to be changed. Also, this is NOT the part 2 that I promised at the end of part 1! That will be coming soon, probably after I finish this, because it won't take too long. Anyway. Thanks for reading!)