Note: I figured ten chapters meant it was time to publish, so... Not so sure where it will end up, but there are elements of romance to this.

Clara is back and trying to figure out what to do with herself in the wasteland, and making new friends along the way.


Clara stared out over the water, looking at the Jefferson Memorial. Watching the glint of the Enclave soldiers' armor as they moved around on the ramp, on the ground. She needed to get out there and deal with them. For her dad. They'd killed him... and she hadn't finished the job. She sighed, and bit her lip.

She was used to being alone. Since her dad had moved out of their shared quarters, since she was forced to flee the Vault, since she'd had to find a way to track him down, she'd been alone. Until she'd met―

"Do you think there's a heaven?" she asked Butch, who was sitting on the edge of the ship with his legs dangling over the water and drinking a bottle of whiskey.

He made a noise that sounded like "I dunno" mixed with a grunt, but didn't turn to face her. Clara looked back over at the soldiers, and down at her Pip-Boy, starting up one of the holotapes her dad had left in the memorial sub-basement. She'd picked them up, back before her dad died, thinking they were useful.

The sound of her dad's voice on the Pip-Boy speakers made her heart hurt. She'd never been able talk to him, back then, unless it was to do something for the purifier. She hadn't even been able to say goodbye. Clara sniffled, wiping her face of the messy tears that fell. Because of―

Butch threw his empty bottle away and stood up, stretching. "C'mon," he said, grabbing her under the shoulder. "Let's go back inside."

"I want to sit out here for a little while," she said, pulling her arm away.

"It's boring up here. Let's go back to the room." Butch stared down at her, his hair tousled by the wind. He looked annoyed.

"You go ahead," she murmured, staring over the water again. Butch shrugged, and left her alone on the top of Rivet City.

The two of them, once that mess with―him―was dealt with and done, had escaped to Rivet City. Once there, they'd found the hotel and holed up for a while, because Butch was worried that the Talon Company mercs were going to be after them. Clara thought it sounded like a good idea.

The stay in the Weatherly had been punctuated with Butch's attentions to her, her attentions to him, and her trying to forget about what had happened, She was failing at that last part. Every time she had nice thoughts about Butch―she would remember him.

Mister Burke. And every time she thought about what she needed to do, to make up for her awful behavior toward her dad... she remembered her dad dying inside the purifier, and how she'd run away, and how Mister Burke hadn't actually been dead...

Which led to her remembering him as a ghoul, gone insane, and how she'd had to kill him. It always made her cry.

Clara sniffled again, wiping her face. She'd been crying a lot, too. Didn't like it. Butch didn't like it, he wasn't very good at making her feel better. They were together, and she should be happy, but... she couldn't let herself relax. It was supposed to a vacation from the wastes, and she couldn't be happy. Maybe Butch was right, and the Talon Company was still after her―

Or maybe, like she was starting to think, he was just trying to get out of leaving the tub. Had been trying to convince her to stay there for a while, but she'd mostly ignored it. There was a lot she still needed to do, out there. She couldn't stay, forever.

She thought he'd been joking about staying, at first. But it wasn't playing, and he was getting more and more stubborn about it. Clara didn't like it. She wanted to finish what her dad had started. Everything he'd wanted to do, all the work he'd put into the purifier―brought down by her, letting Mister Burke try to take it from her dad's hands. Letting him put her dad in a position like that.

It made Clara feel very guilty. She didn't like that, either. She owed him to finish it, to go back to Dr. Li up at the Citadel and find out what was next. Maybe then, she could sleep peacefully.

She'd never even been inside the Citadel―she'd run off as soon as Dr. Li got her out of the tunnels and into the sunlight. Ran home, and found the Vault in just as much trouble as she was. It was exciting and sad and frustrating, thinking about what she needed to do, what had happened, and how she'd been used.

Clara sighed, staring at the memorial. She shivered in the night air. Better get inside before Butch gets more annoyed at me. She stood up and yawned, and left the "roof" of Rivet City.


"I've been thinkin', nosebleed... why not stay here for good?"

Clara turned her head to look at Butch, frowning. They were sitting in one of Rivet City's empty rooms, while she did math and checked her caps. She didn't have much left, after taking rooms at the Weatherly for the past nine days. Clara bit her bottom lip and stared down at the scattered caps, thinking hard.

"We can't afford it," she said. "I don't even have money for one room, for tonight. ...And don't call me nosebleed!" She frowned deeper.

Clara's money was all but gone, with only sixty caps left to her name. These were spread out over the table in front of her as she leaned over it, looking through them, recounting to make sure she wasn't making a mistake.

It was settled in her mind that they would have to leave. No way was she able to pay for another night, even if they slept in the same room. Which... she glanced up at Butch and felt her face flush in memory. Well... she didn't know why she'd paid for two rooms when Butch always ended up in hers, but she wasn't complaining.

They had to leave, though. She had little money, barely any food, and no chems at all. It was a bad thing.

Butch had been looking down into her shirt as she bent over, or at least he had tried. She was still wearing the Vault 101 suit that Amata gave her, back before she and Butch left the Vault. Clara noticed him staring at her boobs through the lowered zipper, and ignored him.

"Maybe we can get a room down in the bar," Butch said, scratching his head.

"No," Clara said, sweeping the caps into her pack and setting it on the table. She pulled it shut and sighed. "Let's just go home."

"What, the Vault? I swear, nosebleed―"

"Stop calling me that!" Clara said, a little too loudly. Butch flinched a little, knowing that she wasn't afraid to throw a punch or two. They'd fought in the past, when they were kids; she hated the stupid nickname, and he used it back then to egg her into fights. In Rivet City, she'd gotten drunk for the first time in her entire life, and Butch had made that mistake again. It earned him a black eye, that night, and he was lucky he hadn't gotten his brains scrambled with as hard as she'd hit him.

She didn't like him using that name. Never had, never would. Clara frowned and stared at her pack. "I meant Tenpenny Tower."

"Yeah, but you said that was like, days away," he replied, leaning against the wall.

"It is," she muttered. "But I don't have to pay to live there. I only got sixty caps left, Butch."

He scoffed, looked away. Clara stared at him for a minute, then shouldered her pack. "I'm going home, Butch."

"I'll stay here, then," he grumbled. "I don't like being out there, anyway."

She stared at him again, surprised. "You don't want to go with me?" Her heart wrenched in pain, but she forced herself to ask anyway. Butch was playing, he was always pushing her buttons―right?

Butch turned his head and sighed. "Look, Clara, I like you, you know that..."

No―she felt the sting in her eyes before the tears came, silently rolling down her cheeks. She sniffled. "Butch?" she said, her voice wavering. "What're you saying?"

"Don't start crying," he said, looking down in embarrassment. "I just don't―it's too big out there. It's not like the Vault. This ship, it is. It feels comfortable. We should stay here, Clara."

She wiped tears from her face. "You're scared," she mumbled, trying to push the terrible feelings away. It had always been like that with him, pushing and pulling her away―and it wasn't fair. She should have known he would do it again. "Just a big scared baby," she added, meanly.

"I'm not scared!" he protested, but she'd already turned away. "I'm not, Clara!"

"It's okay, Butch," she answered, slowly. "I get it." She couldn't stop crying, though.

"Aw, c'mon, babe," Butch said, moving to her and wrapping his arms around her shoulders. "Don't be like that... stay here, with me. It'll work out."

Clara let him hold her for a moment, feeling his warm cheek against her ear, his arms around her. She loved Butch, but she couldn't―she couldn't just give up on her dad's work to be with him. No matter how much she liked to be with him, her guilty conscience was going to kill her, if she didn't get the purifier working.

She'd just... she'd really thought Butch would come with her, when she went. "Butch," Clara said, wiping her nose, "I got to finish what my dad was doing. My mom and him―"

Butch continued on without hearing her. "Someone told me this place needed a barber. Said the last one turned into one of those things―" She knew he meant ghouls, he always said it like that. Hadn't liked them to begin with, and after Mister Burke...

All her fault. She'd opened that can of worms, and closed it, and the fear was still there. Butch would forever be scared of ghouls, and she couldn't blame him. Clara rubbed his arm through his jacket and stared blankly at the floor. Wished it hadn't gone the way it had. Wished Mister Burke had stayed dead after that mess at the purifier.

"I think it might be better for me to stay here, you know? I'm no good out there," he added, motioning to the door, meaning the wasteland.

Clara snorted, splattering his arms with snot. Butch made a small disgusted noise. Yeah, he was right. He wasn't "good" in the wastes, and Clara could only save his butt so many times before she started thinking she was better off on her own. Would save her a small fortune in stimpaks, not having him around.

...She was gonna miss him something terrible, though. Wiping her eyes in a sweeping move, and shaking his arms from her shoulders, she turned to face him. "Alright, Butch," she told him. "You stay here. It's okay."

"I still like you, babe," Butch said. "I just can't go back out there. It's too intense for me."

"It's okay, Butch," she whispered. She turned around and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "I'll miss you."

"You're taking this better than I thought you would," he muttered.

Clara frowned at him. "I'm not that dumb!"

"That's not what I meant, nosebleed―"

Clara smacked him upside the head, knocking him sideways. "I warned you! Stop calling me that!"

"Owwww! Shit!" Butch rubbed his ear. "Dammit!"

Clara reddened. She hadn't meant to box his ear, just to smack him a little. "I-I'm sorry," she mumbled, looking down in shame.

"Dammit!" he repeated. "Jeez, Clara!"

She glanced up. "I didn't mean to―"

"Whatever, stupid, just go already. Don't need you knocking me around like my damn mom used to," he grumbled, pushing past her and out into the tub. Clara watched him going, before cleaning her face off.

Pushed away. Like he had before. She held the strap of her pack with one hand, staring at her other hand. She didn't know how to control it―Clara sucked snot up into her head and fought the urge to cry.

Wasn't anything she could do but keep going. She'd been fine on her own, before. Clara stared after Butch. She was going to miss him, but at least... she knew where he would be, if she needed him.

She turned herself toward the door, trying to stay happy about finishing the job for her dad.

But it was really, really hard.