Revised Nov, 18, 2010 with the help of Seducing Reason. (without, this wouldn't have been edited)


The first thing that Charon noticed were the billowing clouds of stale air, illuminated by fog lights. They hung around him with a smell that was even worse than himself after a few hours in the sun.

'Rotten Meat . . .' He was bitter and he knew it.

Rubbish was littered all around the platform, skeletons hung off benches with their luggage beside them. He scanned the area vaguely, watching the girl out of his peripherals. She was scavenging the seats and trash cans for anything of value. Soon he saw her ripping suitcases from stiff finger bones, rifling through the junk that was left inside. Apparently not all of it was junk, since he saw her in a dirty yellow dress soon after.

'How befitting . . .' He grumbled to himself and followed behind her as she made her way down stairs.

There were a few feral ghouls on this level, which he took great pleasure in killing, each one bringing a sense of gratification. He was letting them finally die, like they should have . . . like he should have.

The last one's head exploded under the force of his shotgun shell. It fell with a slick thud and rolled into the train tracks. Only the sound of his employer's heels got him to turn from the corpse, moving yet again down another tunnel. With his body in alert mode, scanning all around him, he thankfully had no time to be distracted by her and her little yellow dress. (Which, unbeknownst to him, she was trying to enthrall him with.) His eyes shot to the left instantly, hearing and smelling the ferals just around the corner.

They both moved, she backwards and him forwards. Charon charged ahead with his shotgun at the ready, while 101 sank back out of sight from the ferals. By this time he had come to expect it from her, falling back and clutching that worthless pistol to her chest. 'Pathetic . . .'

Machine-like, he cocked his gun, aimed and shot until the last one hit the floor. Despite the deafening buzz in his body he heard her clamor near him. Stopping a few feet away, more than likely surveying the carnage. A glowing feral lay to the right of him, the extreme radiation making it look even more hideous then the common ones. Charon didn't stare at them too long. That after-kill feeling was at its peak and his eyes fogged with a trained euphoria.

'This is the only pleasure I need.' He savored the blood lust for a moment before turning around, staring at her face, awaiting her next move. Her eyes were still on the glowing ghoul, in the dark he figured she couldn't see how disfigured they really were.

'Well now she does . . .' This was a rude awakening for her, he realized. Her face took on an expression of horror. Her eyes fluttered and then she shut her mouth tightly. Charon couldn't help but notice how unattractive she was when she did that. He remained silent after he remarked on how similar she looked to a scared shitless child.

Her head spun up to his and he in-turn made eye contact. For a moment she looked angry with herself and then the next moment, guilty. He had forgotten until recently how moody women were. She acted like Pre-War women in internal strife. It was something else to hate about her.

"Don't just stand there, see if they have any caps on them." She made a motion with her hand, as if to show him where they were.

"No." It came out solid, just as Charon had intended. No was no. He saw her face falter slightly before she quickly bent down to delicately remove the few caps off the bodies. No comeback, no remark, or even a scathing look.

Without a second glance at him she continued down the curved tunnel. He watched and followed, always alert and ready. She began looking around, frantic, for platform signs. She put her Pipboy light on and shot the light over the walls. Even if she did find markers she wouldn't be able to read them in their condition. Too much decay, like everywhere else. He hadn't seen much of the outside before the war but what little he did, he remembered. Just the comparison of then and now made him feel slightly off.

Quickly he wiped some blood from his face and followed the girl through a metal door and into a maintenance room. She'd gotten herself this far, almost all of it without his help. 'How?' He felt offended that she, as he saw her now, could even make it 10 yards out of the vault. Sure, she had luck and charisma but that would only get her so far. Without strength and endurance she would have surely been slaughtered, but here she stood. Lingering by a computer, typing in passwords. She must have put it into lock down with the way she flung herself from the monitor with a shrill sound.

He couldn't help but grin.


When they emerged they were at Georgetown east. It wasn't familiar and Charon immediately became tense. The sky was bright with the afternoon sun. It glared in his eyes forcing his attention to the face of the girl.

One hand was sheltering her eyes as she faced him, her head nodded up the stairs and he followed after her. No ambush. Everything was quiet, which was almost more unsettling. At this angle the sun wasn't so bad. He thought for a moment of asking her where it was they were headed, but it wouldn't matter in the end whether he knew or not. The curiosity diminished as he stood still behind her, while she once again began to fiddle with the contraption on her wrist.

The normally soft 'peeps' and 'boops' of her Pipboy now began to grate at his ear drums. In the silence it was maddening.

'Deafening.'

"We're going to the Lincoln Memorial . . ." She looked up at him with a blank facade. ". . . In case you were wondering."

He barely registered she had said anything. Now that she wasn't wiggling her hips in front of him, she became nothing more then a cocky smoothskin. He didn't even look at her. Out the corner of his eye he saw her make a seething face, ducking her head against her shoulders a bit. 'So much for the tough hero of the wastes,' he sneered.


It only took moments to stumble upon the towering structure, the iconic beacon with it's missing head. He'd never seen this in person before the bombs dropped but knew of what it looked like before. It was surrounded by metal walkways and stairs, and on those walkways was a merchant's caravan. They stood already having spotted them, staring, especially at her.

The Vault girl was already jogging to the caravan, in turn Charon picked up his pace, keeping near her like she had ordered him to earlier outside the Museum of History. She quickly began engaging in pointless conversation, flashing a smile to the middle-aged merchant. Using her charms to her advantage, as he over heard the word "discount" twice. She knew what to do to wrap them around her finger. The body guard he had was to the left of her, running his eyes up and down her frame.

Charon passed it off as accessing her as a threat or not, since the guards eyes then went to Charon and did the same. They both locked eyes, a 'fuck you' contest was about to begin.

" ...and shotgun ammo." He heard her say as he focused back to the scene in front of him.

"No problem." They exchanged goods, him taking his time, looking at her and smiling while she tried to rush things. He smirked at her. "You need somp'thin 'else'?"

Charon stared at her, it was the first time he saw her confused. Even he at first thought the merchant meant something more on the sexual side, but what he was about to say was worse.

She opened her mouth to speak . . . but the dealer cut her off.

"By the look of those bags unda' your eyes you look like you could use some psycho . . . Or maybe jet's your bag . . ."
Charon watched her, that sixth sense of his knew shit was about to go down.

". . .Come to think of it.."

'This is going to turn ugly.'

". . .You look like a jet junk-" The merchant's eyes popped as the butt of her pistol slammed into the side of his jaw, dislocating it in a split-second.

The scene happened in slow motion. Her face, he saw, flashed with the promise of murder, complete with red cheeks. In a fluid motion she lifted that pistol from her side and brought it straight against the face of her offender. The contact was loud, the crack that sounded was even louder than the guttural cry from the accosted man.

Despite the quick shift in moods, before she had time to land another sick smack against the man's face, Charon was already lifting the shotgun from his back, quicker then the bodyguard was able to defend against. In the few seconds before the guard's gun was pointed at his employer, he had already fired a round of buck shot into his chest.
In a splatter of blood the guard was down on the ground croaking and gurgling.

'smack!'

Charon still was in position as he drank in a few large breaths.

'smack' . . .'smack!' . . . 'crunch!'. . .

Slowly he lowered the shotgun.

'crack!' . . . 'SMACK!'

The merchant's eyes lolled to the side, the noise of the attack becoming squishy. If he had skin it would have gone pale as he witnessed the girl on her knees, straddling the 'poor' man. His face caved in as she repeatedly slammed her gun into the growing hole of his face. Blood was all over her arms and her 'new' dress. Her lips were pulled back exposing clenched teeth. A cold shiver settled down his spine as he watched her go to town on the merchant. In a last strike she brought her arms up, but she paused and soon dropped the wet weapon, letting it fall to the metal floor, the gun's frame almost seemed to shiver with the force of the fall.

To say that it was disgusting was an understatement, her face speckled with blood and something else . . .white.

'So much for pathetic . . .' She looked him in the eyes then, causing another shiver to go through him, one he wanted to forget about immediately.

"I'm not a junkie."