"Hey, get your ass over there and grab that fucking body. Give me that fucking contract! I said give it to me! Take that fucking zombie brain, fucking maggot infested hole back to base!" The woman was screaming at her men as they hurried around under the fire of the bullets. She had his contract in her hands now. Oh god this was going to be horrible and Fallen could feel it. He looked back at Ava's body laying on the ground with the blood ring around her turning her soft white hair to a pinkish red color. He started to weep for her, he was a father, a mentor, he was her protector and he had failed. The men were pushing him along as they lifted her lifeless body from the ground.

The woman ran up beside him waving the paper in front of him, "You see this, you fucking shit hole! Your mine now just like the rest of these bastards you answer to me," she pointed to herself with her thumb. "You will from now on eat when I tell you to eat, sleep when I tell you to sleep and you best not fucking eat until I eat! When I say jump you ask 'How fucking High?' You following me zombie scum bag?" she screamed over the sound of bullet and grenades. Fallen was listening to her distantly as he tried his hardest not to cry anymore.

She got ahead of the seven men that were leading him away from the battle zone. Her black armor was familiar in a way to him. She had a large crest painted across her back; it was a crown with the letter ERIS painted in bold. They all said something different and he made the connection that it was their names. He was trying to the place where he had seen similar armor years ago, keeping his mind from Ava. It came to him a hit him hard, Reilly's Rangers! These people weren't rangers that was for sure, Reilly's Rangers wouldn't have killed an innocent young girl trying to help out ghouls.

They walked for what seemed like miles before coming upon a small village surrounded by barbed wire and metal fencing. She turned around to face them as she walked backward shouting orders as they entered the village. "You," she pointed to one man, "Secure the gate! You," she pointed to the man holding Ava's body. "Give the girl a nice burial, but get the Pip-Boy off her. I want to know who she was and what she was doing in the middle of the battle field. Zombie fuck and the rest of you follow me into the common house I need a fucking meeting with you all!" she walked to the far end of the small village.

There were where four small houses with a larger two story house and the end in the middle of both rows. She walked up the large house and went in slamming the door behind her making the windows shake. "Shit… what the fuck did we do this time?" the black man standing on the right of Fallen said to himself and the rest of the group.

"Lets bring this poor fuck to his girl and at least say some words, man." A man behind Fallen put in with a sad under ton, "Boss will understand completely… I mean look at her sister, man…"

"Dawson! Enough…" the black man said, "No need to bring the moment down any further. Bring him there and I will meet with Boss, bring Ricco with you. I will take Morcus and Bings with me to meet Boss."

"Yes Sir!" Dawson said taking Fallen and leading him to a small burial area with wooden crosses sticking out of the ground. A fresh hole was already dug in the ground for the young woman that Fallen had cared for so much. He ran to her stiff body taking her up into his arms and her hair pulled into his face as he sobbed into her. He sobbed for a couple minutes petting her as he felt a hand on him.

"It's all right, man." Ricco said to him. Fallen looked up to notice they all had their helmets off and over their hearts with their heads hanging low. Fallen pulled the Pip-Boy off her thin wrist over her stiff hand. He laid Ava in the hole that was meant for her, just as he had once watched her do to her fallen friend when they first met. He stood tall and watched them burry her, and one started singing a song about her finding her light and peace in the afterlife. It only lasted a few minutes but it seemed like it lasted a life time.

Ricco and Dawson led Fallen away from the grave site and into the large house. They hung their heads as they entered into the house. They went straight into the dining room, where the boss was sitting with her helmet off on the table and her elbows sitting on the surface of the table propping her head up at the forehead. "Now that we are all fucking here!" she screamed down at the table, "Would someone mind fucking telling me what the Brotherhood is doing in my territory!" She stood quickly jarring the table slightly forward making the men jump slightly back, long dark hair hung loose from her bun and some sweep across her face. Her eyes were a deep blue and they were heavily dilated in anger.

"Eris, you have to understand…"

She cut him short, "Don't give me your fucking shit Murphy!" she said slamming her hands down on the table. Her arms were strong but slender as she shook the floor with the force, the veins in her neck showing and her face turning red. She turned to the wall ripping a large map of the DC and the surrounding wastelands from the wall. She slammed it down on the table for them to see, she put her finger down in the center if a red circle. "You guys know what this is? You do! This is mine, my fucking home, my fucking frontier! What the fuck are the Brotherhood of God Damn Fucking Steel doing on my property!" she yelled flipping the table over causing the map and her helmet to fly through the air. "You want to go back to being raiders without a way to survive out there. Cause you can all get the fuck out or give me some straight answers." She said angrily pointing at the door.

"The Brotherhood isn't based in the territory. They were going after a woman helping ghouls find a cure for the ghoulism, Ma'am." Murphy told her stepping forward to her.

She pulled her armor over her head revealing a men's white tank top. Her physique was incredible, she was lean but you could tell she was strong. Her breasts were about a B cup and her nipples bled through the white of the tank top. "I see…" she said dropping the chest armor to the floor. She pulled the table back up on its legs. "Give me the suit case…" she pointed the Morcus. He put Ava's case on the table and opened it toward Eris. She picked up the viles of serum that were inside, she laughed and threw one at Fallen.

He was startled from his trance like state, "You… that girl… I see what is going on. Your fuck doll was your keeper and she was trying to make you better." She stared him in the face from the other side of the table.

"She wasn't my fuck doll!" he said in a low raspy voice.

"What was that maggot, you wanna talk louder!" she yelled to him putting a hand to her ear.

"She wasn't my god damned sex toy!!! You fucking whore!" He screamed back at her.

"Come here, stand right next to me…" she signaling for him to stand next to her with one finger.

"Boss, give the guy a break… his kids dead…" Murphy said to her softly over the table.

"So you think you lost her and it hurts, well you are going to have to toughen up! You are mine now. You will forget about it and move on…" she said standing face to face with him now. Her eyes where burning into his, but they were somewhat soft to him even though her face was beat red with anger and disappointment.

"What the hell would you know about loss?" he said down at her in a deep raspy voice.

"So my men put a fucking bullet in the whore's fucking brain! Why the fuck would you care she was a fucking smoothskin!" she said poking his chest hard like Ava had done to him when they first met. "What the fuck do you think you know about pain? You fucks have no idea, you just hide in you fucking Underworld waiting for the fucking world to get better while everyone else out here gets fucking splattered against the ground. Don't try and tell me what pain is, you haven't even begun to know pain! I fight every day, so… she was a casualty to my men! My sister was a fucking casualty to your fucking people and you don't think that I don't have a sore bone against you rotting, walking god damn corpses." She shoved him back and stood looking at him; she looked back at her men and signaled for them all the leave the area. Once they were out of sight she started in on him again. "You might know what it is like to lose everyone, but I didn't have a choice to lose my sister! I couldn't have gone after her I was too damn scared and it was too dangerous and now I have to suffer every day watching these men die as the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel use my land as a fucking battle field." She hung her head low and waved a hand to him telling him he was excused. She sat in the dining room of the common house and cried for hours.

Murphy was leaning against the house waiting for him to come out, "Well that was quick!" he said startling Fallen as he came out from the doorway. "Did she give you the dead sister bit?" Murphy asked him with a grin. "She uses that on everyone, it's a true story but that is the only thing she can bare to bring up." Murphy looked at him. "It's alright zombie you can talk to old Murphy here, I don't have nothin' against you or your kind. Most of us here don't, we are trying to damn hard to make it." Murphy stood up from leaning against the wall and walked over to Fallen. "Might as well show you to your sleeping quarters."

Murphy pulled his helmet off exposing his buzzed grey hair. Fallen followed him to the first house on the left coming from the common house. "Yeah... I have been here longer than anyone. She started this camp with her sister when she was fifteen, got the idea from old lady Reilly." Murphy told Fallen, "Reilly taught her and her older sister how to make armor from materials like car siding and other random metals…" Murphy opened to door to the bunk house showing rows of beds, somewere empty and some housed sleeping soldiers. "We are all ex-raiders trying to make an honest living, the world is changing out there. It's getting harder to make it without having a stable group or leader." He lead Fallen to the back of the house and next to a bed with a footlocker at the end, "This one is yours… well unless the boss wants you closer than she will assign you a bed in the common house like myself, Ricco, Dawson, Morcus and Bings… If you earn your spot there you basically have say over everyone else here… Well aside from Eris."

Fallen looked down at the bed in silence, "Well…" he started but could find anything to follow it up with. Murphy gave him a big pat on the back.

"Hey don't worry… she won't bother you too much, she yells because she wants to keep us in line. She really does care a lot about all of us. We are all so valuable to her; she is basically the mother of all of us here. If it wasn't for Eris and her sister we would all be dead." Murphy started to walk away from Fallen, "Well I think I have bored you enough, you can go sit with your girl or do whatever you like. Listen to me longer; I really don't care… just get comfortable you aren't going anywhere anytime soon."

Fallen balled up his fist as Murphy walked out the door, why did this have to happen. He was getting better and now he was pushed so many steps behind. He threw his armor that Roy Philips had given him down on the bed; he had a light gray t-shirt on under it. He decided after standing and looking at the bed a little longer that he was going to go visit Ava.

We walked out to the people running back and forth, some having small races, running around, pushups and other miscellaneous actions. It was like a military boot camp here, he didn't see how it was supposed to be an environment for a group of recovering raiders.

He came over to the grave and stood there for some time before taking the combat knife from his belt and carving her name on the small wooden cross at the top of her grave. He sat in the dirt at the base of her grave mound watching for hours as the sun went down in the sky. He heard the flick of a flint lighter far to the left. He watched out of the corner of him eye, it was Eris. "Oh great!" he thought, "She's going to give me hell, the smooth skin bitch…" he thought that he hated Ava before when he first met her; this was a whole new level of hate for him.

The red ember of her lit cigarette glowed softly in the dimming light of the day. She was wearing her white tank top and her baggy brown pants with untied military boots. Her long dark hair was tied back loosely with a white ribbon. Her hands were on her hips and she stood with her weight on her lower back. She puffed on her cigarette standing above the first grave in the row. Her lips held the cigarette tight as she inhaled and exhaled not using her hands to hold it. Occasionally she would blow the smoke from her nose as she looked down at the grave. It took about fifteen minutes for her to finish her smoke before looking over at Fallen.

"Just be happy I brought her back here… most of the men here don't even make it back. I lost three men trying to get the hell out of there." She walked over to him and leaned down placing a hand on his shoulder, "It's about dinner time, so come to the mess hall and get a bite to eat… zombie." He could hear her voice was shaky and hoarse most likely from all the yelling that she did, there was a faintly soft undertone to it as well.

He pulled himself up from the ground standing in front of her. She gave him a quick half smile then turned it right back into a scowl. She coughed, and then started walking away, "This way…" she said over her shoulder waving a hand to tell him to follow her. Her hair reached her lower back and it swayed in the light breeze of the night, the stars began to come out in the sky. He noticed her looking up in the sky as she walked to the mess house right across from the bunk house. She was extremely quiet as she watched the sky while she walked, but she knew where everything was on the ground, every stick, every rock and every pot hole.

She reached out to the door of the mess house and slowly opened it, taking her gaze off the night sky. The men and women inside were hooting and hollering sharing jokes and stories from when they were out in the wastes. Men were drinking and being lively, one standing with one foot on the table, his t-shirt tied around his head like a pirate. He was telling a story to everyone around him, causing them to holler with laughter and excitement. The moment everyone noticed that Eris entered the room they all sat and became quiet. She took a seat at the head table with Murphy, Ricco, Dawson, Bings and Morcus. She pulled open a seat next to her for Fallen to sit, and she looked at the table.

"Murphy?" she started looking at him with her peripherals.

"Yes Ma'am?" he questioned instinctively.

"I need a room set up for the ghoul in the common house." She told him softly across the table.

"Yes Ma'am." He responded to her request quickly and with sensitivity.

"I need my best men in the lab immediately working on the kids Pip-Boy. I need all the information from it. I want to know who she was; I want that cure in my hands." She said folding her arms across her chest and rocking back slightly in her chair. A young woman came out with a hot pot of stew on a cart; she made her way around giving everyone a bowl filling it with the hot liquid. She filled Eris bowl last and leaned down to Eris who kissed her on both sides of her face giving her grace so that she could go fix herself a bowl and come back later to join the rest.

Eris looked up from the table, "You can all continue your antics and eat… I need my time." She said waving an open hand out in front of her giving everyone else the okay to eat before her. The whole room rose in spirits and the commotion of laughter filled the room once again.

"Looks like the boss has a new grunt to wash her back, eh Ricco? Looks like you lost your chance for the job." Morcus said nudging Ricco with is elbow. Morcus was a muscular man with dark hair back in a pony tail.

His comment made Eris smirk for a second. "Oh no Morcus! You made the Boss smile looks like you need to clean the latrine now!" Dawson hooted across the table with playful sarcasm.

"Looks like I do, doesn't it?" Eris smiled and a smug look came across her face. "I think his work should start tonight right after Dawson takes a shower." Eris said looking at Dawson.

"But Ma'am, I took a shower when we reported back after the meeting… I don't need a…" Eris stopped Dawson in mid-sentence with a spoon full of stew slung across the table. It splattered him and everyone in the room laughed, then it was called, a food fight. Stew flew in all directions taking many people down, while others huddled in the corners trying to finish their dinner. Fallen slid his chair back and away from the people slinging food across the room. Eris stood on the table slopping the food to the furthest ends of the room, laughing lightly as it was thrown back at her.

When all was said and done and the laughter finally hurt too much everyone dismissed themselves to go to the public shower. Murphy and Ricco had their arms across Eris shoulders as they walked to the common house singing together the familiar tune from the radio, "The Food is the spreadiest, the wine is the headiest, the pals are the readiest, the gals are the steadiest, The love is liveliest, the life is the loveliest! Way Back Home!" They raised their arms up as the approached the common house and sung in time, "No Place like home sweet home!" they laughed together and patted each other leaving stew hand prints on their gray shirts. Eris opened the door to the common house letting the other two go infront of her. She turned back to look at Fallen.

"Well aren't ya commin'? You have a back to wash you know!" this stirred laugher from the other guys that made it back before they did. Everyone was roaring with laughter at this point as the three tried to pile into the house at the same time.

"Oh, oh, oh, Ricco likes!" Ricco said in a heavy Spanish accent. "Boss is so soft…" he pouted brushing his arm against hers and giving her a small goose on the buttocks.

"Ricco!" she yelled still somewhat laughing, "What did I tell you? Keep it up and…"

"I know, I know I am out and back in the male quarters." Ricco said hanging his head low but still smiling. "You never know you might like a little bit of Ricco in you!" She laughed at this shaking her head.

Fallen entered the common house slowly and closed the door quietly behind himself. He was sarcastically happy everyone was having such a good time while he sat in the corner bending to her rule. He was once again a pack-mule, a servant, a Slave! Eris and her men just simply casting him into the shadows of the room while they rioted in friendly banter to one another. It made him sick to his stomach that he was this low again. "Well" he thought to himself, "if I can help it I won't be for long…" he thought over and over in his head until his mind was made up. He was going to kill her tonight and bring Ava somewhere special, where he could see her all the time.

"Ghoul!" Eris voice rang hard in his ears, "Are you listening over there?" she was standing with the light to her back, looking like a shadow demon her hands on her hips in a strong manner. She strode over to him, "I told you to head up and get my bath ready, first door on the right is my private bathroom. Get a move on it!" She was a bitch. Her tone, the way that she carried herself, he was utterly surprised that she had even smiled at the dinner table; let alone start a food fight laughing the whole time.

"Hey, don't you think you should be a little easier on the poor guy?" Murphy asked her over her shoulder. "He just lost that kid, Imagine if someone did that when Apollo or your sister died." Murphy walked over to her and put a light hand on her shoulder.

"But you did Murphy, you told me to be strong and you pushed me for everyone, I know I can get the same from him… I can see it…" She said brushing his hand off her and walking away to the upstairs.

"So… you ready for me?" She raised an eyebrow at the ghoul running the water of the bath, "Hey! Shit head answer me!" she yelled closing the door behind her.

"Yes… it's ready." Fallen said keeping his head low, he was smiling inside. This was it the moment he was behind her he was going to slit her throat. His momentary freedom was so close he could taste it.

She pulled her tank top off over her head, revealing her supple breasts. She bent down pulling her pants down as she went. Her legs were gorgeous; her vagina was nicely trimmed with dark hair. She dipped her toe into the tub and shrieked, "What are you trying to boil me to death?!" Eris jumped back away from the tub, Fallen was shocked he hadn't been paying attention to the temperature the whole time he was filing the tub and filled it completely with scolding hot water.

"I'm sorry Ma'am." He said pulling the chain for the water and lowering the water just far enough so that he could add cold water the even out the heat.

"Well you should be grunt!" she said standing over him. He looked up her battle scarred body as she stood towering over him. "You have a staring problem, hmm, zombie!?" she said bitterly to him. He lowered his head quickly and shut the water off.

"You bath is ready now, sorry for the delay…" he said standing, he held out a hand to help her into the tub. She put her foot in slowly and exhaled hard. It was still very hot for her but it wasn't horrible; when she finally got into the water he went and pulled a stool from the corner so he could sit at the head of the tub behind her.

"You know… washing me for a starting position here isn't a bad way, you will work your way through the ranks very quickly being at my right hand." She told him starting to work a lather with the soap in her arms. She was leaning back in the tub washing herself slowly, and all the while he was waiting for his moment to strike. She lifted a leg out of the water and washed her leg all the way down to between her legs. She finished up washing herself and handed the soap stick back to Fallen, "It's your turn zombie…"

Fallen looked down at the soap bar that was now sitting in his left hand. He slowly reached back to his knife and leaned forward putting the blade against her neck. His hands were shaking as she leaned back away from the knife.

"So you think you have the balls to kill me eh, you zombie fuck!?" she raised her hips up out the water and slid herself backward up out of the tub. The knife was tight against her throat as he stood with her in his arms.

"I am taking back my freedom! You smooth skin fucking bitch!" he pushed the knife harder against her skin, he heard her laugh from down in her chest.

"Is that all you can call me? Smoothskin?" she reached up and grabbed his wrist quickly twisting it causing a shallow gash on her neck. She pulled out and away twisting his arm up and behind him, she pushed him down on one knee with her foot on his back holding his arm up over his back. "You really think that I haven't been in this situation before? Maybe you zombies are fucking dumb!" he groaned in pain as she wrenched his arm a little further. She pushed him down to the floor and stood over him.

"You… I just want to leave just let me leave!" he cried out to her. He rolled so that he could see her smiling manically at him. She looked so evil with her long dark hair and white grin looking down with her large eyes at him.

"No… you just got your sentence lengthened, now you have to stay with me even longer!" she barked down at him, she knelt over his body and grabbed the front of his shirt. "Like I told you! Your mine now, you do what I want when I want and you don't give me any shit!" the blood went down her neck from the small area the knife got her while getting him away.

She was terrifying, and strong. He thought she looked strong but she was a beast, he could tell that if he wanted to stay alive then he was going to have to play the game and stay on her good side. She got up from off him and stepped back into the tub, "So... shall we try this again?"

"Yes Ma'am," Fallen responded to her shaking and leaving the knife down on the floor. This was the first time in his life that a woman made him even remotely scarred for his own life. She was definitely a force to be reckoned with. He began to wash her back; he delicately rubbed his soapy hands across her back. He took a close note at how soft and smooth her skin really was, despite all the scars.

"Your room will be the one right beside mine, I am sure that Murphy and Dawson are working on it right now… by the way… you were really out to kill me weren't you? You left a mark that is going to leave a beautiful scar." She chuckled slightly and washed off her neck. "It's one I don't think I will ever forget…" she sat in the tub in thought while Fallen washed her back gently. His hands had stopped shaking; he wondered what about her had scarred him so much. She wasn't really that strong in comparison but she had this amazingly powerful aura around her that struck him with more fear than a Deathclaw.

She waved him away abruptly, "Leave me…" she said in a haughty tone, "Need time to myself for a while…" She listened to Fallen leave the room behind her before sitting back against the cold of the tub.

"Christ! He got me fucking good!" she exclaimed to herself wiping the blood continuously from her neck. "Only Apollo or one of my closet men could have accomplished that, especially that easily." She looked at the water blood on her hand as she rinsed herself in the tub. She closed her eyes resting her arms on the edge of the tub and relaxing. He was definitely a great asset to the team but she knew getting him to go along with them without friction was going to be the hard part.

By the time Eris got out of the bath everyone had already gone to their bedrooms for the night. It was just her, her alone like every other night for the last three years. She went into the room wrapped up in a dingy-looking, frayed towel; she went in and sat at her personal desk. The young woman Pip-Boy was sitting in the desk, she sat in the chair just staring at it as it sat with the green interface screen looking at her, dark and blank.

She picked up a pair of glasses off the desk and picked up the Pip-Boy to examine it further. "There was no way that they really got this off from her without cutting off her hand." Eris thought to herself as she rotated the piece of Vault equipment in her hand slowly. She tapped the screen turning the backlight on so that she could see the contents. This brought a smile to her face as she began looking through all of Ava's information, not intently. This girl was very serious about the cure, it was Fallen this, Fallen that right up to the end. She really wanted the best for Fallen and from the looks of things she had started to do exactly that. It was very apparent that Fallen was healing slowly, there was not a ghoul that she ever recalled seeing in that good of shape.

She heard the door down the hall open and close and light footsteps come down the hall. The steps stopped in front of her bedroom door. She rolled her eyes, as the door handle turned slowly. "Ricco! I have told you more than once, no!" she said standing as Ricco walked into the room.

"I know, Ma'am … I know," Ricco said standing there, "Would you let me just have one night with you… how long does it take to heal?" Ricco took a couple steps closer to Eris.

It was more than evident that Eris was quite annoyed; she balled up her fist, "Ricco! It's not about healing, just go or you will be demoted for your insubordination." She demanded him as she walked over and opened the bedroom door wide to let him out.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the room closing the door tight. "You have to understand, you are the most beautiful person in this place. All the women in the quarters aren't exactly as pretty as you are, Ma'am." He had such a tight grip that he was starting to bruise her forearm and he lead her across the room and pushed her on the bed.

She grinned at him with hate; it was her lack of fear that started getting Ricco nervous at that moment. He knew that she was strong but he wasn't sure what her bounds where. He tore off the towel and left her open and exposed, and she continued to smile, it was eerie and evil the way the hate flowed through her eyes. He pushed her down so her back was on the mattress; it was so strange to him that she wasn't fighting him at this moment. He undid his belt and started to go for his goal, and in the moment when he was balanced on one arm aiming himself to enter her, she flipped him over so that he was the one on the bed and sat on him just above his belt line.

"So.." she said still bearing an evil grimace on her face, "You really think that you are man enough to handle me?" she asked him and she took his trigger finger into her own mouth and began working at it like she was giving felatio.

"Well… I would like to hope so," he said get red in the face with her teasing; "If you will let me…" he gasped as she rubbed his chest and the evil left her eyes. He closed his eyes and started imagining her down on him, and then in that instant there was an immense pain in his hand. His eyes snapped open as he shrieked out in pain retracing his finger from her. He held up the bloody appendage and pushed her off of himself.

She could hear Fallen just out of the bed and rush into the hall along with the others. Fallen was the first in the room to see her in all her glory with a bloody chunk in between her teeth and Ricco holding his bleeding finger, gasping in pain. Murphy pushed past Fallen and grabbed Ricco to look at his wound. She had bit the tip of his trigger finger off, and ripped the nail with it. She spat it at Ricco as Murphy led him out of the room and down stairs to get a bandage on it and stop the bleeding.

Fallen looked at her in disbelief, "Did she really just bite the tip of his finger off down to the bone? Am I really seeing this?" he stood there thinking for a moment before piping up, "Are you alright Master?"

She smiled up at him with blood covered teeth and lips, "Yes, yes I am… why do you ask?" she stood looking somewhat proud, but guilty at the same time. She bent down and grabbed her towel from where it had landed when Ricco pulled it off. She used it to wipe the blood from around her mouth, and spit what she could into it as well.

Fallen was so insure at this point that he was really going to live, if this is just one thing that she was willing to do to her own men then what other possible things would she do. He shook his head and began to turn away to leave when her voice came from behind him. "So… she really loved you like family, didn't she?" He turned back to her quickly to see her holding the Pip-Boy in her hand scrolling through Ava's personal notes. This made him furious, what right did she have to Ava's personal belongings; if anyone was to have them it should be himself.

"The feelings between us were mutual…" he said glaring at her, then down at the Pip-Boy, "They weren't at first though, that is most likely in that thing too."

"Oh yeah… she kept a diary of the last couple months from even before you guys met. It's very interesting, at first she thought that she loved you, but then she realized you were more like the family that she never had. I guess even though she had her parents in the vault; they didn't really pay attention to her much. Then there was you, you wanted her safe you took care of her when she was sick; far more than her parents had really ever done." She stood there in front of the desk reading as she was talking to him, the ticking of the machine in her hand as she flipped through the notes. "Oh yeah, by the way…" she said looking up at him, "These are yours." She pulled the suitcase from under the desk and tossed it in his direction.