Tuesday
She's bought his contract. The woman with the overloaded pack, which she promptly offloads onto him, with the broken assault rifle slung along, with the knife in her boot, with the gnarled and dirty hair. She smells like the bitters of the wastes, carries a chip on her shoulder so large she can hardly walk upright, and treats him more like a pack mule than a person of value.
But Charon is just as silent as she is brusque, and in a way, as he silently accepts the tattered and broken things she finds along their travels, he thinks they make a good team.
Wednesday
His first day on the job. He's good at what he does, and that's making things die, making things blow up, and surviving. But she's commanded him to stay out of sight. He can do that as well, but he doesn't like to. It's not what he prefers. But unyielding loyalty is in his contract, and so he does it anyway. They creep around some broken metro tunnels, and she sharply remands him when he missteps and loosens some rubble, which in turn falls down the still escalator.
He thinks about telling her that she should toss some of the junk she collects, but she won't drop any of it, and so he lugs it and follows her, making sure to keep a respectable distance. The glow of her PIPboy sometimes flickers in the darkness, but he keeps her in sight just the same. She isn't hard to miss, clunking around and kicking tin cans and cursing when she trips. He wonders how she's survived this long like this, anyway.
Tuesday
They have settled into a comfortable routine. Sometimes they don't speak for days. The silence is without animosity; she only speaks when she needs to, giving him a command here or there. Rarely saying more than what can be said with a weapon or with a hand gesture.
In the mornings he makes a fire and cooks whatever bit they've foraged for or brought along. There are bottles of dirty water for each of them. He doesn't know how he has become relegated to cooking, but secretly he thinks she can go without eating for quite a long time. The hollowness in her cheeks and her sinewy arms are testament enough. No wonder she can't carry all the shit she scavenges.
Once they're awake and ready to go, they walk.
While Charon has worked for Ahzrukhal by standing in a corner for the last few years, he's never considered himself a softie. He's a survivor; he gets through everything. Without complaint. Yet the running around like he's now doing with the Vaultie... it's a different kind of work.
He almost prefers the silence; when she actually does speak, it catches him off-guard consistently.
"Where did you come from?" she asks one night, while they're sitting around eating beans out of a can. She eyes him across their fire, dark eyes illuminated by the flames.
Charon is surprised, and tells her he's from the north, but that he doesn't care or remember anything about it.
"Hmm," she says, and that is the end of the conversation, although she continues to eye him until they finish their food. He kicks dirt over their fire and scans the horizon for anything moving. He hears her lie down somewhere close by.
Another time, she slowed her murderous pace to a walk. It was uncharacteristically warm out, the weak sun actually casting shadows on the ground. She put away her weapon and walked slowly over the ground, even dropping back to walk beside him for a minute.
"You don't have to do that," she said, when Charon began to fall back to a distance he knew she preferred.
"Where do you want me to walk?" he asked.
"Here's fine."
They continued their stroll, picking over rocks and broken trees. Occasionally a glint of metal would catch her eye and she would investigate; ultimately it was always nothing.
Catching him off-guard again, she said, "Do you ever get tired of this?"
"What, walking?" he asks.
"I guess. Or living out here. Or obeying everything I say."
He looks at her, unsure of what to say.
"You are my employer," he said after a time. "I must obey."
"I know," she countered, "that you're brainwashed and all. But if you could, would you do something else?"
Charon in this moment had imagined he would, that he could be living in Underworld or somewhere nice with a good then again, if he did that, he wouldn't be out adventuring. Or he'd be standing in that corner again, taking orders from Azhrukhal. "No," he said, and both of them fell silent again.
Saturday
"We're going back to where I live," she says to him, quite suddenly.
They had changed course abruptly earlier the day before, but Charon thought nothing of it. He is now used to her abrupt changes of heart. He supposes it's what women do.
"What works for you works for me," Charon says to her, although now he thought it was interesting she even had a place to live. He had assumed that all of the Wastes were her home.
She stops in front of him, turning to face him.
"I hope you're all right with that," she says again, as though he wouldn't be. She knows by now he does whatever she tells him to. He is puzzled nonetheless.
"Of course."
Sunday
It's a small, quaint place, Charon thinks. Much less shabby than he might have expected from her. But now he sees a glimpse into her life. Underneath the hard, silent exterior, she is a collector. It helps to explain the sack full of crap he's been hauling across the Wasteland, for in her home is everything from weapons, books, posters, scrap metal, to supplies, especially food, trinkets, and a sizeable collection of teddy bears. So she's sentimental, he thinks. Interesting.
He tries to joke with her by saying he doesn't like the look of it, a joke, implying it looks dangerous, but is met with a stern look and silence. He doesn't say it again.
What is most interesting is the picture he finds of her and a man who is much older than her--her father, he thinks--in a frame with no glass. It's by her workbench, although it has been flipped over. He's not sure what has possessed him to look. While she disappeared upstairs to use the sink, leaving him to wander, it suddenly catches his eye. And so he had looked.
"Why would you look at that?" she asks sharply. He startles and puts it down.
"Apologies," he says automatically, and puts the picture back.
She doesn't quite make eye contact with him again for the rest of the day. Instead, she takes the picture frame from him and goes back upstairs. While he waits for her to come back down, he grows bored. Wonders if she's not coming down.
After a long while, he walks quietly up her stairs. There's a hole in one of them, and the other creaks as though it's going to break with his weight.
Sure enough, she is curled up on her bed, fast asleep.
For a fleeting moment, she reminds him of a child. He wonders how old she is, and in turn where SHE came from. Charon fights the urge to find a blanket and pull it over her; it goes against the rules of his contract, and in some way it would feel wrong, almost like taking advantage of her in this state.
So he awkwardly hesitates at the door, unsure of what to do. The only sound is her rhythmic breathing, punctuated only by the house around them creaking in time to the wind.
Charon, true for now to the rules of his contract, goes back downstairs to sit for a while and think, to sit until his employer wakes up.
Monday
They're running again, only now he understands why she explores like she does.
It isn't so much about finding things to do, he realizes, as it is surviving in a lonely world. Putting the pieces of a history that was never hers back together. Finding some way to fit into the world, and failing that, finding the bits of what it used to be. Perhaps then, he thinks, she may find some comfort in it, and know why she is alive.
So he helps her recover books that aren't too badly scorched, pieces of paper that seem to have important words on them. Figurines, scorched teddy bears, interesting cans, weapons, and scrap. Things that are unidentifiable she often takes back to the house--the way to which, by now, he knows by heart--and together they use brown water from her tap to clean them off and sort them neatly into bins. Sorting them, so many fragments of a life.
Friday
They are in the remains of local shop. Charon stands guard while she scrounges the shelves. He keeps one eye out the door, peaking through the small opening, the other eye on her.
When she finishes, she has an arm full of Abraxo Cleaner, which Charon knows is common enough around the Wasteland, a standard household cleaner.
"What's this for?" Charon asks. He doesn't mind carrying things for her. It's in his contract, after all. But carrying common items seems strange, even for her.
"Since when do you ask questions?" she said.
Charon was silent to this. She had a point.
He stowed what she handed him anyway. When they left, the weak sun bright after the familiar darkness of the building, she spoke to him again. "Making grenades," was all she said.
He still said nothing, but she answered the question in his head anyway.
"To blow things up. Well, people, mostly. If they get in the way. Or Super Mutants. Whatever."
Sunday
They use the grenades on people. Raiders, though, mostly, while she scavenges for more artifacts, books, garbage. The grenades are loud and always seem to explode impossibly close to them, yet so far they haven't gotten hurt.
Charon still thinks there was no way she had survived out in the Wastes like she had without someone like him helping; more than once in the same day he shoves her out of the way as she barges around a corner or through a door without looking. The raiders are tricky; they leave things that explode when someone gets too close, traps, shotguns. Any manner of things that one can break a leg on. Or be crushed by.
All in all they kill twenty-seven raiders, five Super Mutants, and a few scattered critters. He notices that she does not ask him to conceal himself, as though he embarrasses her. Instead they mostly walk close by one another. Sometimes, he even leads. Charon calls this a good day.
Monday
They do not kill anyone today, but instead make their way back to her shack. She refuses to call it a home; Charon asks when she tells him where they're going.
"Home is an idea. I, on the other hand, only possess a shack," she answered. "Since when are you sentimental?"
And Charon thinks, I'm not, but suspects she is.
Wednesday
He has already disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled his shotgun twice while she is upstairs. He has not heard her stir yet for the day; the light has already gone down, stars beginning to be visible through the haze. He thinks about asking what is wrong, but instead stands around downstairs, makes himself some food from his leftover stores, and browses idly through her book collection.
Finally, when it is late and the lights of the town surrounding them begin to dim, he walks quietly up the stairs. He hears quiet crying, and then his shoe catches on the trick step and creaks loudly. Figuring his cover is already blown, he walks upstairs normally now. The room where she sleeps doesn't have a door, and he can see her sitting there, back to him. Facing the wall.
"I'm fine," she says in a normal tone of voice.
Charon thinks he should probably go back downstairs and make himself comfortable for the night, but something else tells him to sit down in the chair by the door.
She isn't wearing her armor, just her pants and a shirt. No weapons, either, no bulky pack, no helmet or glasses. She looks much smaller without all of it, especially sitting on the bed in the corner.
She doesn't say anything to him about his sitting down instead of going away, but he doesn't need to. They sit comfortably, and before long she lies down on the bed and falls asleep. Somehow, Charon feels better for staying. He tries to stay awake to wait for the next day to come, in case she needs anything else, but at some point, falls asleep too.