This is the sequel to Yellow Rose of the Wastes. If you haven't read that, I recommend doing so before reading this one.

I should probably note that I'm going to be messing with locations and their sizes, distances between them, etc. I tend to assume places in games would be bigger 'in real life'. E.g. there are probably more than like ten buildings in a town. Also, I don't particularly care about the exact appearance of every metro tunnel in the Wasteland. Thus I've made up a good deal of the scenery here.

Chapter 1

The shot hit her like a steel fist punching her in the chest. She stumbled back in the impact. There was an instant when she felt nothing. Then the pain hit her, and it felt as though all the breath had been sucked from her body. She looked down. There was a red spot a few inches below her collarbone. As she watched, the spot rapidly grew, becoming a gushing, deep crimson stream down her shirt.

An extraordinary heaviness filled her. Every movement was excruciating; every breath like a knife in her lungs. Her legs shook and gave out beneath her. Her gun fell from her hand and clattered to the ground next to her. She clasped a hand over the wound, but she knew it would only prolong the inevitable. There were no stimpaks left. She was going to die.

-Two Weeks Earlier-

Lydia was sitting on a worn wooden bench in the shadow of a stone pillar. She slouched back and tried to make herself as unnoticeable as possible. She would probably have been harder to see if she sat on the floor, but that was perhaps just a bit too odd of a thing to do when there was a bench right there. She didn't want to make herself out to be any more suspicious than she already was. The way that Mister Gutsy had yelled at her on the way in made her nervous, and everyone was already giving her weird looks.

A ghoul woman walked by her, and did a double take when she saw her out of the corner of her eye. Lydia smiled politely, not rising from her slouch. The woman raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything as she went on her way. Lydia's smile faded as she returned her attention to the pair across the room from her. It was a man and a woman, both looking quite solemn. She could just hear them over the collective murmur that filled the large, echoey room.

"We're dead, don't you see?" the woman said quietly. Her eyes were downcast and glazed over, focused on something far away and nonexistent. "We're all dead. Rotting from the outside in. My blood is all gone. Soon I'll be nothing but bone, but I'll still be here, walking around. It's all wrong."

"That's not true," the man said. He spoke even quieter than she did, and Lydia followed the movements of his lips to catch what he said. "You got a cut the other day. You bled. The Doc said, remember? He said you're sick. You need to listen to me." He touched her arm, but she snatched it away.

"You're dead, too," she whispered emphatically. The man sighed. He looked up, and suddenly saw Lydia. He gave her a hard look.

She sank even farther back into her shadow and looked away as another conversation drew her attention. A cluster of women stood to her right, speaking in hushed tones at high speed.

"...I mean, it's Underworld, after all. We all know at least a little about the old religions." The others nodded in agreement, and she continued. "But every time I go in there, without fail, she's reading that silly book. She must have it memorized by now. 'A man who goes to hell', indeed. It's very immature, I think, to dwell on things like that. It's very dark."

"Of course," another woman said. "You're completely right. It's just odd, is what it is. I mean, she's a perfectly nice girl and all-" (the others nodded and whole-heartedly voiced their agreement again) "-but I think she might be a bit wrong in the head. You know, I hear..." she glanced around conspiratorially and lowered her voice. The others leaned in to hear her. "I heard she's a satanist."

The other women gasped and drew back at this divulgence, chattering excitedly among themselves. "Poor Tulip," one said. "We should bring the radio down one day, and cheer her up."

As the others were nodding in unison, there was a disturbance to the left. They all looked over at the commotion. "Patchwork again," one of them said.

Lydia leaned around the pillar to see the small crowd around the crumbling statue in the middle of the room. Some of the people who had been talking or eating or smoking were watching the statue with varying levels of interest. Someone was climbing up the side of it. He wobbled back and forth as he wrapped his fingers around the stone arm of one of the sculpted figures. "Watch this," he said loudly. "Hey. Watch."

There were a few moments when Lydia was sure he was going to fall, but he never did. In a minute he was atop the statue. Standing slowly, arms out to keep his balance, he announced, "Hey. Uh. Look. Watch this." He teetered slightly, and his arms pinwheeled as he tried to regain his balance. After a tense moment, he righted himself. "Wait...wait. That wasn't it. That wasn't what I was talking about. I meant this. Watch this."

Gathering himself up, he bent his knees, then leapt off the statue with a grunt. He flew through the air and landed on his feet. Amazingly, though he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion or simple drunkenness, he seemed unhurt. The spectators went back to their cigarettes and Nuka Colas and conversations. Someone clapped.

Lydia sat back, and jumped when she saw that Harris had appeared next to her. He was wearing that tiny, mocking smile he loved to give her.

"You think you're so clever, don't you?"

"Yes."

"I wish you'd stop sneaking up on me like that."

"I wish I had a million caps." He sat down next to her on the bench. "I wasn't sneaking, anyway. You just weren't paying attention."

Lydia rolled her eyes. She'd missed him when she was back in the vault. After they'd gotten the Enclave off their trail, she'd gone back to 101 to train a replacement doctor. It was unnerving being back there. It had only been a month, but she didn't think she could have stayed there any longer. It wasn't so bad now that Amata was Overseer, there were just too many terrible memories associated with those metal halls. It made her anxious being there again. It felt like a prison.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked.

"What?" She straightened and looked up at him. "We just got here."

"Yeah, and now we can go. I sold everything."

She'd thought they'd at least stay a few days. "But it took so long to get here. Can we just stay the night?"

He rolled one shoulder in a shrug. "I suppose." He looked around the room in a bored manner. "Why? Don't you hate it yet?"

"No. Why would I?"

He grunted noncommittally.

Lydia wasn't sure what she thought of Underworld yet, but it was already apparent how different it was from the rest of the Wasteland. She needed more time here. She'd only been to a city once before. Megaton was so huge and busy and overwhelming that she'd hardly had a chance to take it all in. But Underworld was quiet. The museum was small, and if you sat back in the shadows like this, you could see and hear a lot. It was a little like the vault, actually.

She would have liked to stop observing and talk to someone. But whenever she got up the nerve to speak to one of the ghouls, she'd open her mouth, take a breath, and the person in question would give her an annoyed or confused or even frightened look, and she'd open her mouth wider and turn away and pretend she'd merely been yawning.

"Alright," Harris said. "We can leave in the morning."

"In the morning?"

"Yes. To work. Not all of us are charity cases."

Lydia frowned. "I'm not..." but she cut herself off. She was a charity case, after all. She just hated being reminded of it.

"That was a joke," Harris said quietly when she trailed off. "Don't worry. You don't eat all that much." As he stood up he straightened his jacket and rearranged the strap from which his assault rifle hung. "Go find Carol. Or Tulip." He rolled his eyes slightly. "She'll talk your ear off regardless of how much skin you've got."

He walked off, leaving Lydia sitting there alone on the bench again. She shrugged to herself and pushed off the bench. The circle of women nearby watched as Harris brushed by, and one turned to Lydia as she approached them.

"Hello," the woman said, smiling uncertainly. As she spoke, the others turned to her.

"Hi," Lydia said. "Do you know where...um..." She'd forgotten their names already. "...Tulip. Have you seen Tulip?"

"She's in there," the woman replied. "Underworld Outfitters. She's always in there." The others nodded.

"Right. Thank you." She moved by them, and they began quietly chattering again.

Underworld Outfitters was a small chamber offshooting directly from the main room. Someone had put one of those soft, velvety rope barriers next to the doorway. Lydia petted it as she walked inside.

Against the wall across from the door were rows of shelves piled with an assortment of junk ranging from candlesticks to gun parts. In front of the shelves was a counter, on which the woman behind it leaned. Another woman in a long dress and a wide-brimmed hat was standing in front of the counter.

"...and you shouldn't slouch like that, it's not at all ladylike. Really dear, you need to start taking care of yourself," the woman in the hat was saying.

"Uh-huh..." The woman behind the counter was scraping at a spot on the counter with a fingernail.

"Just a bit of makeup does wonders. I could recommend some brands, if you'd like. You must get the right shade of foundation, though. Try to find something that isn't too yellow. I can help you choose some lipstick that will work nicely. And then if we could just find something for you to wear." She lowered her voice. "Dear, these outfits you wear show so much skin. Do you really think it's appropriate? Especially for..."

"For a ghoul?" the other woman filled in. "You know, I never really saw that as a problem. Seeing as I don't have any skin to show."

The woman in the hat made a small, annoyed sound, but she continued on as if she hadn't been interrupted. "You have lovely dresses in stock sometimes, I don't know why you don't just put on one of those. Something green would be wonderful on you. But make sure it doesn't have any lace, that's so tacky."

"Mm-hmm..." The ghoul behind the counter lifted her fingernail to inspect it, then flicked it to get rid of the counter scum.

The woman in the hat moved away indignantly. "Do you mind? That is disgusting."

The other woman looked up at her from under her eyelashes, and as she did, she suddenly noticed Lydia and straightened. "Oh, hello!" She waved vigorously. "Come in! Looks like I have another customer. Sorry Rochelle, but I think we'll have to cut this short."

"Oh, I wasn't..." Lydia started, but the woman talked over her.

"Yep, I'll see you later, thanks for stopping by, Ms. Rochelle. Have a good day."

Ms. Rochelle turned around then, and Lydia raised her eyebrows involuntarily. In addition to the long dress and hat, the woman wore long gloves and a scarf and, and her face was caked in makeup, if you could call it that. It looked more like paint, so thick that her head was like a white orb with a red mouth and eyes surrounded in brown and black and green. Under the hat, she wore a shoulder-length auburn wig (and there would have been no question that it was a wig even if she wasn't a ghoul), and she carried a battered but carefully cleaned, extra large purse. She looked Lydia up and down, moving only her eyes. "Well. Alright, then. I'll leave you to your work. Goodbye, Katherine." She stepped out of the room, looking like someone had stuck a rod to her spine.

The other woman gestured for her to come closer, and Lydia went the counter. "My name isn't Katherine," she said. "Never was. She likes to call me that because she thinks the name I chose makes me sound like a communist."

"You're Tulip," Lydia guessed.

The woman blinked at her. "Yeah. Oh, you don't have to buy anything," she said, seeing her looking at the shelves behind her. "I won't take it personally. Nobody ever buys anything. I'm just glad you came in when you did. Rochelle was only about halfway through her 'you need to start taking care of yourself' talk. Watch out, she'll be coming for you next. By now she's figured out that most people here couldn't care less what they look like, but you're someone new, and a pretty smoothskin at that. She'll be dressing you up like a doll." She sighed. "What was your name, again?"

"Lydia. I'm not a smoothskin."

"Oh. You just started changing, huh? You didn't have to come here yet, you know. You could still make it out there just fine, looking like that. No one will give you trouble. Well, not for being a ghoul, anyway. I suppose you'd still have the raiders and everything to deal with. But if you just wanted to go to a city you could have picked Megaton or Rivet City or some place like that. Not that I don't want you to be here, I mean. Sorry, that sounded rude."

"Uh...that's okay."

"Anyway, nice to meet you. Did you need something?"

"Ah, no. I don't actually have any money."

Her face lit up. "Really? Would you like to make some?"

"Uh...I don't really-"

"Tell you what. If you do me a favor, I'll give you a few caps. It's just a little thing but it'd be a big help to me. See, this kid Max works for me, doing repairs for customers. Quinn brought his rifle in just now, he can't figure out what's wrong with it, but he needs it fixed real quick, because he's got a schedule to keep and all, delivering things. You know. Max is out in the Lincoln wing, doing who knows what. He wanders a lot. If you could go get him for me, that'd be great. I can't leave the store alone, or I'd do it myself. I swear, all the junkies up at the Ninth Circle have some kind of telepathic ability to tell when I'm not here." She made an exasperated face. "So, will you go get him?"

Well, it wasn't like she had any other pressing matters to attend to. "Uh...okay."

"Great! Here, it's not hard to find, just go out the front doors and take a right, through another set of doors. It says "Lincoln" right above it. He's probably in there somewhere. Don't worry about the ferals, they can tell you're a ghoul even if no one else can."

"Okay." She backed out of the room falteringly. Max. Okay.