Disclaimer: I don't own Fallout or its characters.

Author Note: This is a rewritten version of this story. I originally wrote it in 2011-2012 and had it posted under another pen-name (distant_echoes), so its probably new to most of you reading it now. Enjoy and let me know what you think...thanks.

Chapter One

Lyra opened her eyes to semi-darkness, tears sliding free and unchecked down her face. The memory, so terrible and vivid, had come again. Sitting up, she clutched her hand to her chest, the gnarled scar from the old injury rough and familiar. Her chest heaved as she took a deep breaths and let them out; her body and her hand aching like it always did in the aftermath. After several minutes of breathing, the pain began to ease. When it had all but gone away, she used her other hand to throw off her thin blanket. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep; she would just lie there for hours.

A loud snore in the far corner of the rundown shack rang out. Lyra threw a glance over at Jericho, fast asleep in his own cot, a half-empty bottle of whiskey dangling from one hand. Seeing it, she wondered just how he'd managed to make his way back to the shack when clearly he'd been passing most of the night in Moriarty's Saloon, getting shit-faced drunk.

She shook her head, writing off the whole thing to an unsolvable mystery. Lyra turned her attention back to her maimed hand, flexing it gingerly and hissing a bit as the ache grew worse. Her memory of her time with the raiders had retreated, but the bullet that ripped through her hand that day still caused problems now. Cursing, she set her feet down on the floor and tried to stand up. There was some Buff-Out on the table, if Jericho hadn't taken it all when he'd come back.

The moment she straightened, the room spun on its axis. Unsurprised, annoyed, Lyra braced her good hand against the nearby metal wall and blinked against the vertigo.

Went too long between doses. She thought, willing the dizziness to leave her so she could take some chems.

Time passed slowly and her hand ached worse as it ticked by, but finally Lyra was able to open her eyes and get to the table. She reached it just as the room started tilting again. Relieved and nauseated, she picked up the grimy off-white Buff-Out bottle and twisted off the cap. The last three pills were soon in her mouth and she crushed them with her teeth, not having any water to wash them down. Buff-out was rough, powdery, and incredibly bitter to swallow, but the relief it gave her was palpable. Functioning without it was near impossible.

Fast-acting and long-lasting, it was far superior to other chems she'd tried and less addictive. The pills kept the vertigo and pain away almost half a day at a time. As long as she kept a container with her when she traveled, or at the very least, kept a reliable means of supply within a day's journey, she made out just fine.

Some ten minutes later, Lyra was pain- and vertigo-free. She dressed slowly, savoring the slight buzz the Buff-Out gave her. Once her grimy, sweat-stained clothes were wrapped around her, she grabbed her chinese assault rifle and slung it on her back. Lyra opened the door to the shack, but paused before stepping through it. She cast another gaze towards Jericho and saw he hadn't moved. Still passed out, his mouth hung open as he snored. Saliva had formed a small, damp spot near his head and the bottle he'd been holding was on the floor, its contents – what little was left – in a puddle. Blowing an exasperated breath through her lips, she turned away and started down the metal ramp towards Jenny Stahl's place.

The Buff-Out had left a bitter taste in her mouth and she needed something on her stomach.

Pre-dawn had turned the sky above the high walls of Megaton a deep, dark blue and she guessed that it was probably around four in the morning. The denizens of Megaton, some of them anyway, were already moving about in the chilly morning. Lucy West and Billy Creel were walking up the ramps towards home. Down below her, she could see the first of the Children of Atom making their way down to worship the bomb in the middle of town. Lastly, as she reached the bottom of the ramp and turned towards Jenny's stall, she saw the gruesome face of her long-time friend, Gob.

He seemed to catch sight of her too and waved her over. They met underneath the awning of Jenny's stall, the yellow floursecent light ing flickering over them. Lyra probably looked like shit, but Gob looked like hell. One side of his disfigured face was swollen and discolored with bruising.

"Jesus, Gob. What happened?"

Red-rimmed eyes stared back out of the puffy face, but the lips turned up in a sardonic smile. "What do you think, Lyra? Moriarty happened."

"That prick," she snapped. "What was his fuckin' excuse this time? Did you think too loud? Breathe one too many times in an hour?"

"Calm down." The ghoul told her. "Moriarty does this all the time. I don't know why you get so worked up."

"Because he's a goddamn asshole." She told him. "And you're not."

"I see you guys are having you're usual morning chat." Lyra and Gob looked over and saw Jenny walking up to the counter. She motioned both of them over. "Sit down already and I'll fix you guys something to eat. How's radroach meat sound?"

"Like shit." Gob and Lyra spoke up in unison, earning a laugh from the woman behind the counter.

"Well, shit it may be, but it's better than starving."

Once settled in, with Jenny in the tiny galley kitchen, Lyra returned to interrogating Gob about his injuries. For his part, Gob sat quietly beside her and spun the bottle cap he'd pulled from a pocket. There was worry etched into the lines of his face.

"So, what happened?" she asked.

"I dropped some boxes in the storage room right before I got off work...a case of beer I was supposed to take to the refrigerators. All the bottles were ruined, beer went everywhere. Half the people passed out at the bar pulled their guns when they heard the noise. It was a big mess, Lyra."

Lyra listened, pursing her lips. He was right. It was the same sort of thing. Gob made a mistake, a small one, a damnable human mistake, and Moriarty felt it necessary to take it out on his face.

"I should kill that bastard." She muttered, turning away from Gob and staring into her water glass Jenny had placed in front of her when they'd sat down. She took a sip and tasted the strange, metallic flavor of it and knew immediately that Jenny had run out of the good stuff – the clean stuff.

"Water's irradiated. You should ask for another glass. Or better yet, take mine." Lyra didn't ask, she simply took her glass and poured her water into Gob's empty glass. "I'll order a couple of beers or something."

Gob laughed, but it wasn't a cheerful sound. "I don't think it's got enough juice in it to help, but you know, you could be a real doll and buy me a beer too...and some food while you're at it."

She watched him spin his bottle cap. "He docked your pay, didn't he? For the case of beer."

"Yeah."

"….bastard." Lyra cursed, maimed hand twitching. She clenched it into a fist as well as she could trying to ease the stiffness. "But yeah, Gob...I've got the food this time. Don't worry about it."

If she had her way, she would march up to the Saloon right now and put a bullet into Moriarty's skull, but that wouldn't solve much for the rest of them. It was selfish, but the reason that no one stood up for Gob in public was because everyone needed what Moriarty had – something more important than booze and Nova's ass – and that was information. Lots and lots of information.

Jenny came back a few minutes later, steaming plates of radroach-something or other in hand. As soon as she'd put it in front of them, Lyra paid for the plates as well as two beers apiece for herself and Gob. As soon as the beer was handed to him, Gob downed the first glass nearly in one go.

Lyra took her first glass more slowly. After hearing what happened to Gob, she hated asking for a favor, but couldn't think of another time that would be better. Gob worked long shifts at Moriarty's – hell, he practically lived there – and she was going to be heading out into the Wasteland as soon as it was light enough.

"Hey Gob," she said, deciding to just get it over with, "I got a proposition for you."

"Whatever it is, Lyra, the answer's probably gonna be no." He answered.

"Come on. Don't be like that...it could mean a lot of caps. You help me out and I promise I split 'em with you. There may be enough for you to get the hell outta Dodge...you know, away from that asshole."

"And go where, smoothskin?" Gob muttered, using the slur that most ghouls used for people like her – people who hadn't had their asses handed to them by high radiation and the F.E.V.

"Go visit my mom in Underworld? Or better yet, Ten Penny Tower?" He snorted, which sounded really weird coming from a man who didn't have much of a nose left. "Uh, don't make me laugh...there ain't nowhere for a ghoul like me to go."

"But the caps," Lyra persisted, but Gob cut her off.

"The caps would go exactly where they always go...into Moriarty's pocket." he snapped, turning his bottle of beer on the bar. He turned to stare at her with his swollen face and his red-rimmed eyes, "And that's after he kicked my ass for 'stealing' from him. Sorry, Lyra, as good as a bunch of caps sound...they'll cause me nothing but trouble, but...thanks, for thinking of me."

He sighed, then threw back a portion of his second beer.

Lyra nodded and turned back to her own food, but suddenly, she didn't feel very hungry. With Jericho out for several more hours yet, and Gob uninterested, it looked like she was on her own this time.

"Drink up, Gob." she told her friend. "There's another round on its way...then I'm afraid I'm gonna have to head out. The Wasteland's calling."

Gob nodded. "Just be careful, Lyra. You're the only thing I got out here I care about."

Lyra smiled. "What about Nova?"

"She's too busy for the likes of me." He answered, giving the same morose, cheerless laugh as before. "Mostly, she's too proud, but she does let me look sometimes and she's nice to me when Moriarty's gone out on business, so...that's something."

"Yeah," she agreed. "That's something, I guess."

#####

Someone was shaking him and yelling his name. Caleb opened his eyes, disoriented at the sight of Amata's face hovering over his bed. He groaned and flailed his arms up and out, trying to push her away from him. Hands pushed his arms aside and the shaking grew worse.

"Dammit Caleb!" Amata screamed. "Wake the fuck up!"

Then she slapped him. Pain blossomed on his cheek and suddenly, Caleb was very awake.

"Amata, what the hell?" he snapped and sat up. Without thinking, he reached over to the table beside his bed and picked up his wire-rimmed glasses. Once they were on his face, he rubbed his cheek and glowered at her. "What was that for?"

"Just shut up and get the hell outta here!" She snapped, jerking on his arm again. "You've got to go before they come and get you!"

"What? Who's coming to get me? Amata, what the hell are you talking about?"

A noise between the groan and a sob exited her mouth and Amata glanced over her shoulder towards the door of his room. From where he lay, he had a line of sight out the door and out one of the glass windows out into the corridor. The red alarm lights were flashing and he wondered why he couldn't hear the alarm.

"For god's sake, Caleb...you don't know what's happened…" Amata whispered, voice broken and filled with tears. "Y-your dad's gone...he left the Vault! I don't know how and I don't why, but he left and Dad's having some kind of meltdown...and...and they've already killed Jonas-"

"Wait...Dad did what? Left the Vault?" Caleb interrupted. "And what do you mean 'killed' Jonas? Amata, I swear to God...if this is some kind of joke, I'll-"

"No, dammit! It's not a joke! Your dad left the Vault and my dad is going ballistic. He's already tried to figure out where your Dad went by questioning Jonas. But Jonas didn't know anything and they ended up killing him. And if you don't hurry up and get your ass outta here they're going to do the same thing to you! Now, get up!"

He hesitated and when she saw it, Amata's face grew red.

"Fine. You don't believe me? Stay here and get caught!" She stood up, fisting her hands at her side. It was a typical thing she did when she was pissed off. Caleb had seen it countless times before, but he'd never seen her this angry.

She stomped off towards the door, but right before passing through it, she paused and looked back at him.

"Just you wait. If they get ahold of you, they'll beat you to death just like they did to Jonas! I saw them do it and you're gonna end up the same way! Unless you smarten the fuck up and get out of here now!"

Passing through the door, she left. A few minutes later, the door of his home opened and then he heard the blaring of the alarms out in the corridor. From the window, he saw her look back at him one more time through the glass, eyes full of tears, and then she ran away.

"What is going on?" Caleb asked, but got out of bed and began to get dressed. Once he'd pulled on his Vault 101 jumpsuit, he decided to throw some things into his old school bag – just in case.