A/N: First off, this is going to be a bit like those other LW/Charon fics out there. I'm aware of that and I'm sorry. We think kind of in the same fashion. It can't really be helped. Secondly, I'm lacking in the scenery descriptions department. This is because scenery descriptions bore the piss out of me. I know I'm by far not the best author around the block, and I accept it. That's why writing is a hobby and not a holy quest for me. But if it bothers you that much, don't read. Also, I do like constructive criticism, so feel free to dish it out. Just, please, don't overwhelm me or make me cry. :D And even if you don't have any criticism, I love comments because they make me feel like others are enjoying this as well.

And I'm not the first person to do chapters from both LW's side and Charon's. As far as I know credit for that idea goes to InRodWeTrust, so go read their story too. xD I also plan on doing chapters from Butch's perspective and maybe some others. It's fun to experiment. Chapters are really, really short and sometimes jump around to skip boring parts of the game we've seen dozens of times, and there are a few spoilers ahead for people who haven't done the main quest, but updates should be fairly frequent unless I get horribly discouraged for some reason. Also, my LW has a name. It will be revealed later. Now, enjoy(?) the story.

UPDATE: I have added a shit-ton of beginning to this chapter and the next. It's not necessary to read the extra text to understand the story - it just gives you more background on my LW. If you want, you can totally just skip to the last sectioned-off part of the chapter, which was the original.

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"Come on, wake up!! Lin-Lin, this is really important! No - don't shut your eyes again!" she whined.

I rubbed my eyes and yawned, feeling a little dizzy. "I know you're upset you didn't take up the chance to get drunk with me last night, but jeez, party's over..." I grumbled, trying to roll over. She grabbed my shoulders with a baffling sudden spasm of strength (or I was just particularily weak at that moment) and sat me up herself. "It's your dad - he's left the vault! Everyone's losing it! If the wrong person sees you, you might get killed!"

My mind was spinning. "What? Left? But he can't leave. No one can leave. We're damned to this hellhole for eternity, aren't we?"

"C'mon, Lin, we don't have time for this! We've got to get you out of here!" She moved around my room and started shoving my belongings into a bag she had brought with her. "You should use this bat if anyone attacks you on the way. I tried to find my father's gun but I couldn't; I'm sorry..." she rambled, shoving the sack in my face.

I stared at it wide-eyed. "On the way where?"

She dropped the bag and flailed her arms about impatiently. "Lin, have you been listening at all to me?!" Well, kinda. But what she was saying wasn't making a lot of sense and to be honest all I wanted to do was go back to sleep and dream about turning her gay. "You have to get out of the vault, too! Nobody will let you stay here after this. If my father gets ahold of you he'll have you killed for sure!" She grabbed my arm and started yanking me off the bed.

"But I didn't do anything!" I snapped, my mood souring as I came to the conclusion that my father had escaped this wretched place with the intent of leaving me here to rot. "I had no idea my dad was planning this shit! It's not my fault!"

Amata drooped a little. She seemed a bit more calm. "I'm sorry... I didn't know he would keep something like that from you..."

"Whatever," I said, slinging the bag over my back and gripping the bat firmly. "It's not like it matters or anything. Take me to the exit. And if we run into any trouble along the way, believe me: I've got plenty of rage to put to good use."

Amata nodded and I followed her out into the corridors.

We hurried through the halls and radroaches distracted most of the security guards we encountered. I wondered where they had all come from. They probably just scuttled in when my dad made his break for it. Absently I snatched a pair of nifty tinted glasses from a freshly dead body that some of the little buggers had been chewing on.

"Um, we're going right for your dad's office," I muttered, gripping Amata's hand tightly as I shoved the eyewear into my bag.

"It's the only way to get you out," she whispered, tugging me along with her when the coast was clear. "Dad has an emergency escape route to the exit in his office, and there's no way we could get you to the main door..."

I accepted this and we ran into her and the Overseer's apartment. She tried to pull me over to the office door, but I stopped when I caught a very disgusting smell. It was unlike anything I'd ever encountered before, and I was curious to investigate.

"Lindsay, no!" hissed Amata. As I walked towards the smell she gave up and rushed over to her father's office, where she began hastily picking the lock on the door.

My breath caught in my throat when I discovered the source of the odor. There, on the floor, in a small lake of his own blood, was my father's assistant, Jonas. He must have been there for a long time, and that was why he smelled so awful. His body was battered and broken, dark bruises showing vividly against his already brown skin. He was several years older than me, but in this miserable place he was one of the few people who didn't treat me like an outcast, and for that I considered him one of my closest friends.

And now he was dead.

Amata was attempting to pull me towards the door, but I stood firm. "Amata," I said slowly. My body temperature was flaring up, and I could feel several muscles in my face and body twitching involuntarily. Amata was hanging her head in shame. I could see her in the corner of my eye. "Tell me what the fuck happened here. Or I'm not going anywhere."

"All right, but this is going to be quick." She nervously peeked out the apartment window and continued in a rushed tone. "Jonas was going to go with your father. But since your dad went first, Jonas got caught. My dad lost it... and this happened. I hated it. I begged him to call his guards off, but he just went crazy." She put her hand on my shoulder, and looked into my eyes. I relaxed a little, but I knew if I looked back at her, I'd dissolve into a puddle of stupid tears. So I instead focused on Jonas, his meaningless death, and how pissed to the fucking core it made me.

"Someone's coming, Lin-Lin, please!" Amata wailed, clinging to me. I gripped the old bat tight enough that it almost cracked, and as a security guard came ambling into the room my head snapped to the door and I broke the instrument over his head in one quick, fluid movement. He blacked out immediately, and I was too busy wailing on him with my fists to notice that Amata had already entered the office.

"I've got the tunnel open," she called, peering out from the office. "Come on, Lin, he wasn't one of the ones who killed Jonas!"

"I don't care!" I cried, giving him one last good punch before joining Amata in the tunnel. She hit a switch on the wall as we descended the steps and the opening began to close behind us.

I was gnawing on my lip in an attempt to cool it as the adrenaline rush tried to get the better of me. It was quiet in the tunnel, save for the couple of radroaches clicking and scurrying about. "What are you going to do, Amata?"

"I'm going to stick around here," she said softly, and I once more reached for her hand instinctively. She didn't resist.

We came to the main exit. "I don't want to leave you," I said, squeezing her hand. I refused to tear up, but it was so damn hard. At the same time, I knew staying here with her was pointless, as I would just be killed. Killed like Jonas, who deserved it no more than I did. "Why don't you come with me?"

I melted like candy as she hugged my tightly, and I felt her soft, delicate body pressing against mine without inhibitions. But the moment did not last, and before I knew it, she pulled away. "I can't. I'm sorry. I need to stay here." I all but collapsed from misery as she entered the command on the panel to open the main door. The ear-splitting shrieking of metal jolted me back to my senses as the door to the outside pulled back and opened up. "I'm going to try to fix things up back here. I'll miss you, Lin-Lin, now go!" she cried, giving me a gentle push in the direction of the exit.

I took one last miserable look at her before I turned and ran out of the vault and into the unknown. Was I going to die soon? I could hear the door shutting behind me as I emerged into some kind of cave. Still, I kept running.

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I couldn't see a fucking thing as soon as I stepped outside. A flash of white hit me like a hammer, and I grunted and shielded my face with both my arms, coming to a clumsy stop. Fiddling blindly through my belongings, I whipped out the tinted glasses and applied them to my face. They only helped a tiny bit.

"Why is it so fucking bright out here?!" I screamed, fairly certain that there was nothing around that would think, "Hey, what's that sound? I'd better go and investigate and - OH LOOK! Food!"

Now that I was out and away from Amata, I could focus on being bitter and angry instead of being sad and sentimental. So, my dad just left me there, all alone, and he was going to take his bloody assistant but not me, his own daughter?

I bet he doesn't give a damn what happens to his precious little sweetheart any more. Fine. Whatever. Let him have his fun, prancing around by himself. I'd do something productive, instead. I didn't need him. And I sure as hell didn't need the Overseer and that stupid little vault. Hell, I didn't even need Amata, really.

My vision came into focus, finally, and I about freaked out. "God... it's so big..." I muttered, taking in my surroundings with a pounding heart. "Shit... Look at that... You can't even see the end of the sky... Crazy..." The horizon wasn't any better. It was a lot um, bigger, than I ever thought it would be. I was pretty intimidated. I saw a bunch of buildings ahead of me. It looked like the best place for me to go, since there was pretty much nothing else everywhere I looked. "It's so dusty out here," I choked miserably.