A/N: I've been slowly but surely rewriting my old oneshots for reposting since I now have an AO3 where none of these stories are. It gives me opportunity to clean them up to my new writing style and tastes so reposting on both AO3 and makes them look a little meatier with my work! I'm really happy with how it turned out (and I find it funny that most of my F3 oneshots feature Butch DeLoria with a multitude of LWs I've created expressly for such oneshots and nothing else LMAO)

Another work I'm currently trying to rewrite is Back in the Black Bayou with a whole new LW from before. It'll be reposted for Halloween creeps and spooks with some better writing and dialogue (hopefully). I have no current plans to revise any of my other, but who knows, maybe that'll change eventually just so I have something better to post.

Happy reading, happy writing!

~TheKonfessionist signing out

"...You know 'ya can't save him, Ana—"

"Fuck you, DeLoria."

"'Ya can't save everyone all of the time, is all I'm sayin'! People out here got you to thinkin' you're the cure-all but you're not! If you keep goin' on like this with him it's gunna go bad—"

"Like it hasn't already? I'll find someone that can help him! The Brotherhood has connections and they wouldn't turn their back on us after everything we've done for them with the purifier. We'll leave DC if we have to and he's going to be fine!"

"You look at him and tell me with a straight face he can be fixed! 'Ya can't fix mutie, Ana!"

"I'll find a way! I have to! He has to be okay!"

"...I dunno if he will be, kid. I dunno if you can 'Lone Wanderer' your way outta this one. Your old man's close t'gone and if you don't accept it soon, he might actually kill yo—"

"Fuck you, DeLoria... just—... just fuck you..."

Ana awoke to the sound of shrieking—a deep, orotund howl that seemed to ricochet off of every wall in her small Megaton home, agonized and sobbing, and it launched her out of bed with the hurried ripping of her sheets off of her body. With instinctual alarm she grabbed for the 9mm under her pillow to rack it, but as her blind panic faded in those several seconds upon realizing what was happening, when she recognized that she was safe in town and not locked into a cramped maintenance closet in the ferals-infested metros, her hand loosened it's hold on the grip of her firearm. A steadying intake of breath followed after but she couldn't stabilize the rapid thrumming of her heart or the shaky twitching of her hands.

The loud sobbing continued from the guest bedroom next door.

She got up from her bed with the chanting of soothing mantras to herself, to keep herself calm for what she'd walk into in the next room, and finally pushed herself off of the bed. Her bare feet hit cool metal flooring with every step she took until she opened her bedroom door and let in the wailing. She could hear the frightened babbling through the walls, becoming intelligible as it dropped to murmured whispers to the self, and she stood at the foot of the shut door with a trembling hand on the doorknob, dreading going inside. She shut her eyes and swallowed the ball in her throat.

"...Dad—?" She hesitated. "I'm coming in, okay?"

When she pushed against the door, it wouldn't budge. Her hand jiggled on the doorknob and found it wasn't locked, but the door remained stuck, refusing to open. She thumped her shoulder into the splintering wood, throwing her weight against it until the door slowly inched itself open with every hit.

It was blocked from the other side by a body curled up on the floor, barely covered by a soiled blanket in the dark.

"Dad, I need you to move—I can't get in—" She huffed from the exertion of just trying to get the door open and tried to wedge herself in through the small opening; only able to squeeze in her arm and part of her torso, and then used the new stance to force the door open with her shin braced against it to push.

He's outgrowing his bed, Ana realized as she looked in and saw his bed flipped over in the corner, having spilled the mattress and blankets onto the floor with her father. We'll pull out the frame. He keeps falling out of bed—I'll have to see if Moira's got any spare mattresses. Butch'll have to help me cover the floor tomorrow.

Padding the guest room like it was a cell in a mental asylum wasn't an image she wanted in her head. She'd figure out an alternative—maybe he just needed a king sized mattress instead.

Once she finally squeezed herself into the room, her father rolled back over now that the door wasn't propping him up and it slammed shut under his weight, trapping her inside with him. The realization of having no escape in case he had another violent fit filled her with dread like piling rocks in her stomach and she tried not to think about what happened last time—when he almost knocked her unconscious with a single punch, if he hadn't lost his balance right when he threw it and just clipped the side of her head. He wasn't blocking the door then and Butch was there to help her bar the door shut until her dad had calmed down enough to be let out.

He cried for the rest of the day, apologizing endlessly. Then he slowly forgot that he even hurt her at all.

Ana tried not to look directly at him, still curled up and muttering to himself on the floor, as an overwhelming nausea clutched her stomach. She blamed herself for having been there that day when the Enclave showed up; blamed her presence in the rotunda, because it forced him to sabotage Purity so that she and the team could escape; blamed herself for his suicide; and for what was happening now, for how he was changing, and she felt guilt in being so reviled by his form despite the love she still had for him. His body had become a canvas for the radiation of Purity's rotunda to fingerpaint upon, creating plumes of mangled DNA to twist itself into his genetic coding, and his horrifying visage and bouts of irrational anger made it hard to still see the loving dad that she hoped was underneath the ugliness.

His neck was swollen with engorged and solid muscle that made his right jaw and shoulder indistinguishable from each other, and his discolored skin—which was slowly turning a noxious yellow-green that leeched into what was left of his fair complexion—was pulled thin over the inflammation, becoming almost transparent over the sinews of muscle. Bulbous red veins as thick in width as a wood pencil pushed and pulled under the surface of his skin, like worms trying to push through, on what was left of a vaguely humanoid arm. That same right side of his body was growing such large muscle mass so quickly that it was out of proportion to the rest of his body that hadn't begun mutating yet, and the imbalance of weight caused him to totter when he walked. The added mass made if difficult for him to even pass through the doorways of her home without trouble anymore, forcing him to squeeze himself through sideways, and just the other day he fell down the stairs and nearly cracked his head open at the bottom because he lost his balance.

When she finally forced herself to swallow the rising bile and looked down upon him, she watched his yellowed right eye staring ahead at the wall despite how hard he tried to shut them, his mismatched hands covering his ears. The eye was so large that it bulged from his eye socket and his eyelid couldn't even close over it anymore. It was unnerving to look in on him at night when he was finally asleep to have that one eye giving a dead stare back at her as he snored.

She eventually stopped looking in on him because of it.

"Burns—burns...skin—... not mine... peel off, don't want—! Burning, changing—!... make it stop!..." She could hear him continuing to babble to himself hoarsely as tears fell only from his unmutated left eye and he curled up more, rocking himself back and forth on the floor in a move of self-comfort, pulling the blanket tighter around him.

Ana still remembered the day she found him. It was weeks after the Enclave had taken hold of the Memorial and she and the science team were hiding out in the Citadel with the Brotherhood of Steel. She couldn't stay another moment—trapped inside and not being allowed out 'for her own protection'—it nearly drove her insane—and so she reclaimed her possessions and took off to go back home to Megaton. Ana stopped in at Rivet City first to resupply for her trip back to Megaton, and that's when she saw him, her father, stumbling about with a bloody gash to his head in the ruins just outside of Rivet City, scavenging for food. He looked extremely ill with grayed skin, and he was constantly sweating bullets that soaked through his clothes, and his hair was falling out in clumps and he couldn't keep anything he ate down for long. Every doctor that looked at him assured that it was just radiation poisoning and with aggressive treatments he'd get better soon... but he never did.

Two years went by and he only slowly got worse, mutating into what he was now and she didn't know how much more time she had if she couldn't find someone to fix him. She realized now that she never told the Brotherhood of Steel that he was alive. Not even Madison and the rest of the team, and now that her father was the way he was, she didn't know how to tell them.

"Catherine—" He sobbed as he reached a bulbous hand for Ana's and gripped it with bruising strength, and she ground her teeth to keep from crying out in pain as she squeezed his hand back as best she could in an effort to console him. The churning of his muscles under his skin made her own flesh crawl over her bones in upraised bumps.

She knew that the mutation was poisoning his mind, and she didn't know how it had lasted this long before the mood swings and break downs in his vocabulary began to occur, but now he was constantly confusing Ana for her mother. It was debilitating for her to see how much he was changing mentally as he took such pride in his intelligence and compassion—it was hard to be witness to his rendition of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde—and now he could barely relay to her a full and complete thought when she tried to converse with him. He was like a literal child now in how he'd become easy to distract or impress, he reacted with emotion rather than logic, and become enraged over minute inconveniences that'd send him bashing and smashing everything all over her house with the strength of three men in one arm alone.

And when he had a night terror? All of these behaviors seemed to strengthen 10 fold.

Ana knew that she really didn't have much time left. He was becoming too big and strong for her to contain in her flimsy little Megaton home—and the longer it'd take her to act, the more ornery the settlers would get. Maybe enough where they'd push to take matters into their own hands where he was concerned.

How long do I have until then? Her mind panicked at the thought of them kicking down the door and dragging him out; of shooting him on sight like a sick dog and never giving her the chance to say goodbye. I've gotta start planning my way out of here and get him to the Citadel. The Brotherhood has to help him.

But for tonight, she had to calm him down and get him back to sleep. If she could.

"Da- Dad," Ana cooed at him as gently as she could as his hand still kept it's vice grip hold around hers. "Dad, let's get you back to bed. C'mon, you've gotta help me out here—let's get you off the floor—"

When she draped her free hand on his bulky shoulder, her fingers making contact with his clammy skin, he shrieked out at the unwanted contact and yanked her down to the floor with his hand still latched around hers. She cried out in pain at the pull that almost took her arm out of her shoulder socket, and she hit the floor so hard that her teeth clattered together in her mouth and she felt blood pooling from them biting into her tongue. When she tried to scramble away by terrified instinct, his meaty fist clamped fully around her neck and pinned her to the floor with little effort, immediately cutting off her flow of breath with a painful pressure, causing her blood to spurt from her mouth with a shocked, breathless gasp.

"Don't—! You don't—know! Hurt!... Hurt me!... Wanna—hurt! Hurts so much!" He croaked tensely, following it with a rumbling growl of anger and his grip tightened as he picked her up and slammed her against the floor, and when her head cracked with the metal plating her ears rung and flashes of color exploded in the blackness that dappled her vision.

"D- D—" Her mouth tried to form his name as her small hands clung around his wrist and arm, clawing and scratching and hitting in an effort to get him to let go. Tears surged in her eyes from the lack of oxygen and she could feel a swelling heat build in her face as his enlarged eye stared back into her, unfeeling and monstrous.

As the blackness began to take her vision and she felt her need to fight slowly slipping away with the dizzying of her thoughts, she detached her hand from his wrist and swat at his face. It felt so far away from her, too far to touch, as she vaguely registered a thought of keeping her hand away from his mouth in case he tried biting into her again. With two fingers, Ana stabbed them into his swelled eye and he howled in pain, ripping himself away from her. She hit the floor again as he swept himself to the corner to bundle up and clasp his hands over his eye while she struggled to get the air back into her, crying and wheezing with one ragged breath after another, feeling like in those few passing moments she'd forgotten how to breathe normally. When she tried to get up from the floor she came up to wobbly feet and then careened into the wall hopelessly where she slumped back onto the floor, trying to get her head to stop swimming and the room to stop spinning as she held her burning throat and stared, teary-eyed, at her father in the corner, who was crying himself.

"Ca- Catherine," He wailed like a frightened child with his hands still cupped over the eye she jabbed. "Can't—...!... Can't tell, I'm not me!... Not me, not me!... I'm wrong!... Wrong on inside!... Not me, I'm not me!..."

"Da- Daaah—..." Ana tried to call for him, but she could feel the swelling pressing on her vocal cords and no sound could squeak it's way out of her. She couldn't bring himself to go near him, to comfort him as he sobbed in the corner on his own, nursing the eye she injured, and her heart was torn between leaving and barricading the door or getting the medical kit and checking his face.

"Ana," Butch called from the other side of the bedroom door with a quiet rapping of his knuckles in a knock, sounding apprehensive. "Everythin' okay in there—?"

"F- Fiii—" Ana clutched her throat helplessly, feeling the inflammation when she tried to swallow.

In her faraway hearing she could hear Butch call for her again, worriedly, when he didn't hear a response, but she was too focused on her father with a cautious instinct as he remained cowering in the far corner. Her eyes stayed locked on him, trying to decide if she could quietly leave the room without alarming him or sending him into another violent fit, but she remained stuck in her own spot against the wall beside the door as she braced her back against it and pushed herself up to her feet carefully to keep her balance.

Butch finally opened the door and peeked his head in, wearing nothing but barely buttoned jeans cradled low around his hips. His eyes rounded out in alarm when he saw her holding up the wall with a bruised throat and a guppy-eyed look.

"Ana! Jesus—" He crowed, unable to find anything else to say. His blue eyes panned toward her dad in the corner, settling on him a little fearfully.

"Not me—... not me, can't—... not any more..." He muttered to himself with guttural growls, his panic seeming to grow as he moved his hands from his eye—showing it to be swollen and red with ruptured veins inside it and a puffy eyelid. He clamped his hands over his ears and began rocking himself back and forth erratically. His movements started to become more aggressive the more he upset himself with his spilling thoughts.

"St- Sto—" She hissed weakly, reaching for him helplessly but was stopped by Butch scooping her up into his arms, holding her back against his chest.

"Ana, don't." Butch warned her quietly, his eyes still set cautiously on him.

"I'm not me—! Not—me!" Her father began to scream as he grew increasingly agitated, practically throwing himself against the wall now, as if he were trying to punish himself. His head went thrashing from side to side as he collided with the metal, his face twisted with self-loathing, and she could hear the beams and walls grind shrilly against each other with each dent he made with his bulky body.

And when he rose from the floor to his full height, towering over the two by a whole foot, it was the most terrified Ana had ever been in her life when he charged at her, shrieking like an animal.

Butch dodged around the open door with a hand still latched onto her arm, yanking her through the doorway with him just as it was rammed shut with the whole wall denting outward, reaching at them with the imprint of a weighty shoulder. Ana was clutched against the landing railing, overlooking the living room of her home with Butch stood in front of her, an arm thrown protectively over her own body to keep her back behind him, and they both watched in horror as her father bashed against the door again and again and again. They watched as it crumpled against his strength, caving in under the weight of his body a little more each time, until they were both convinced it would bust open at any moment but the two were too terrified to move and escape down the stairs just beside them. The front door was only some ten feet away.

But Ana stood and listened. She listened to the howling of James' sad rage from the other side, finally cupping her hands tightly over her ears as she broke apart and sobbed, begging silently that the door would hold up.

"I'm not me! I'm not me! I'm not me! Not me, Ana! Not me! Gone, gone, gone! Ana—! Ana!"

Ana sat on the gurney in Doc Church's out-patient room, her legs swinging limply over the side with her hands upholding her weight on the edge, staring down at the floor with her stringy blonde hair in her vision. She lightly touched at the brace around her neck, swallowed thickly to feel its supportive confines, and didn't lift her eyes again when she saw a figure step into the doorway at her side at the corner of her vision. They leaned a bicep against the door frame and observed her quietly before speaking.

"...You alright, kid?" It was Butch, looking in on her worriedly.

She blinked hard twice in the affirmative when she remembered Doc Church's instructions—one blink for 'no' and two for 'yes'. She was advised to keep from speaking, which she couldn't do anyway with how swollen her vocal cords were, and the good old doctor warned her to take it easy (just so he wouldn't see her back anytime soon because he had 'better things to do than babysit her').

"Doc Church—uh—" Butch paused, thinking, his hand clutched around a pack of cigarettes with a single finger hooked outward to scratch the back of his head. "Said you'll be okay. Just some swellin'. Nothin' broken, your head ain't cracked. Thank God, amirite? Dunno what the Wasteland'd do without the infamous Lone Wanderer cleanin' up their messes."

He always talked a lot when he was nervous and trying to seem like he wasn't. Ana finally brought her eyes up to gaze back at him, seeing how haggard he had become; his clothes were deeply wrinkled like they were several days old and it was the only thing he had to quickly throw on; his hair was tousled messily without any pomade with the limp elephant trunk dangling greasily in his eyes; and his chin was scruffy with day old stubble, prickling thinly across his jaw. Sleep deprived bruises rung his eyes as he stepped into the room, where he pulled up a chair in front of her to plop onto while still holding the pack of cigarettes. His opposing hand produced a flip lighter from the studded front pocket of his Tunnel Snakes jacket when he was settled.

They sat in silence as Butch lit up a cigarette and pressed it to his lips, and Ana remained perched on the edge of the gurney with her eyes dropped back onto the floor, admitting to herself all the things she didn't want to say even if she could speak. Tears quickly flooded her vision and when he noticed, he picked himself up out of his chair to sit beside her with an arm slung about her shoulders as she cried, blank faced and silent.

She painfully admitted to herself that she couldn't do this anymore. She was too scared to go on, almost completely certain that with the way her father reacted tonight—using his last semblance of humanity to recognize how far gone he was—there was no way of stopping the mutation. There was no way of saving him.

There was no way to save the one person in her life that she would've done anything to get back. If she could give her life for his, she readily would—he was more important than she was, anyway. She was the errand girl, the muscle that had done the Brotherhood's dirty work when they were too busy, the one that barely kept Purity together when her father died... but he was the one that everyone talked about. He was the one everyone spoke fondly of, lamented over the things he wouldn't be around to do anymore—he was the one that was dearly missed.

Yes, he would be dearly missed.

"...'Ya can't take him to the Brotherhood, Ana. We both know what they'd do t'him." He murmured, his words apologetic and his voice pitying. "'Ya can't save everyone."

When Ana leaned helplessly into him, she hoped it was enough to relay her thoughts; to relay her heartbroken defeat.

I know, Butch... I know...