Disclaimer: I own nothing, except for Kyra.
Author's Note: By the way, I KNOW that Fallout lets you do only one companion at a time, but as this is fan fiction I am pulling them all together. My favorites anyway, out of the ones I actually got. There were some I didn't want, like Jericho, and then some I accidentally murdered, like Clover. Oops. Well, she did try to kill me first. I'm adorable like that. Anyway, I like Fawkes, that man is my all time favorite. He's like a tank with legs.
.
.
.
The Man Who Cried Mutant
By: Lady NeverAfterNon
.
.
"Okay guys, listen up."
The Lone Wanderer, heretofore Hero of the Wasteland, Killer of Enclave Assholes, Exterminator of Deadly Robots, Profound Looter Extraordinaire, etc. was promptly ignored.
Dogmeat had twitched one ear when the BRINGER OF FOOD spoke, but when the human flesh bag had no food forthcoming he went back to energetically scratching his itchy back on the rough hewn floor of the Lone Wanderer's house.
Kyra winced. She'd bought the Love Machine House Improvement from Moira, just because she liked sparkly things and wanted her house brighter. She had thought what with her skill at accidentally destroying things that getting rid of a few dirty harem beds wouldn't have been an issue. She hadn't envisioned that the giant damn heart bed would be bolted and welded to her living room floor and that her smelly ass dog would take to rolling in it every day. Ew.
Karma was indeed a bitch. For a moment she wondered what she could have done to deserve this, but when the mental list actually came rolling in she had to shut off that train of thought. Actually, she probably did deserve it, all things considered.
The mess with the Enclave aside, the little things just kept stacking up. Bittercup blowing up had been a complete accident. Seriously, who stands outside and mopes when grenades and bullets are flying around like bloatflies around a dead Brahmin? And who wouldn't steal from Doctor Lesko? The dude was a complete loon, creating an army of giant ants that shot fire from their faces. Seriously. There were some things the Lone Wanderer felt the Universe should give her credit for, but apparently they didn't seem to agree on what contested as good deeds and what should be allowed to slide.
In any case her peeps were still ignoring her.
"Hey!" She bellowed.
The chatter stopped. Fawkes looked up from the deeply involved conversation with Star Paladin Cross over the concept of The Art of War verses the Brotherhood of Steel: Code of Conduct and looked over at the young woman he currently followed and called his leader. The Lone Wanderer had her hands cupped around her mouth, clearly ready to shatter ear drums if they ignored her again.
Bellowing was so unattractive for a young lady and the Lone Wanderer was no exception.
Sure, she had freed him of his prison, but was it entirely proper of a young lady of her stature to be making such a positively bovine noise? Besides, it seemed impossible that so loud and unattractive a sound could come from such a short creature.
He shook his head, resolving to find more etiquette books to leave on her bed upstairs. He knew she no longer even tried to use the one inadequately shaped like a four chambered human blood circulating organ in the main room as the dog had appropriated it for his own private use, and however crass the Lone Wanderer might be she still didn't want fleas.
At least some things were still held sacred, even in the recesses of her semi questionable mind. The Lone Wanderer may be a lot of things, but at least she didn't cross some lines. Like fleas.
"I'm heading out to Tenpenny Tower. That's were Burke mighta scuttled off to, and I can't break into his damn house. I'm going to shoot him and then I'm going to loot his body and see if he has a key. Anyone up for bringing along tea and cookies?"
Fawkes groaned. Classic Lone Wanderer. She didn't go shopping like a normal girl at the local canteen or the traveling merchants, she shot bad people and then rummaged through their pockets looking for goodies. Not an admirable habit in a young girl. He supposed it might be her dreads; they were clearly addling her brain.
He slowly raised one meaty paw, signifying his willingness to go along. No offense meant to the others, but Fawkes felt that only he was adequately equipped to protect the Lone Wanderer from the Wasteland and from herself. Kyra was excellent at starting trouble, and she solved problems by shooting them. From Raiders to Deathclaws, and the Enclave to Behemoths, the Lone Wanderer spoke with gunfire and blood.
"You could always read Tumblers Today and actually learn how to do it," Charon rasped.
She airily waved a gloved hand at him, "Meh, too lazy. Besides this is more interesting. I'm bored. All I've done for the past two weeks is avoid the Water Purifier and the Brotherhood (here Paladin Cross shot her a glare that could fry a Brahmin Steak) and run errands for Moira. Hopefully this'll stir things up a bit."
She began tying her boots on as she talked and to no one's surprise she ignored the power armor Paladin Cross had carefully laid out on the shelf. Fawkes shook his head as he followed the Lone Wanderer out the door. Sure, she'd worn armor in the beginning but now she just didn't bother and instead preferred to traipse around the Wasteland in nothing but her flaming red nightdress and the chunkiest pair of combat boots she could find.
Fawkes didn't get it. She certainly didn't wear the thing because it was practical. It was bright red, skimpy, and painted her a bright bulls eye that the Wasteland baddies just couldn't miss.
They certainly tried, too. Why, just yesterday they'd dropped round' Arefu and Evan King had taken a pot shot at her the moment her blazing red ass had come into view.
Fawkes felt that while King wasn't necessarily what the Lone Wanderer termed 'stupid senile geezer asshat', his sight did seem to be going. Therefore wearing the reddest most visible garment when visiting a city guarded by a trigger happy gentlemen in the early stages of losing his eyesight and his logic wasn't the brightest thing in the books. He watched her smooth a nonexistent wrinkle from her silk hem. It must be a girl thing. Either that or he just didn't understand the concept of style, he was still trying to figure out which.
The Lone Wanderer strapped her sniper rifle to her back, loaded up on stimpaks, checked her Shiskebab to ensure that it was safely attached to her side, then was tromping out the door without looking to check if Fawkes had followed her. He shrugged his massive shoulders. She needed him. And without him her future wasn't certain.
.
.
If he'd been asked, back in the midst of the timeless nightmare of Vault 87, in what form redemption would come to him, he most certainly would not have imagined a young woman with filthy dreadlocks and dirty mouth. But she'd come in through his front door and instead of falling to the horror of the vault she'd added to it. Instead of her blood adding to the gory decoration, it had been that of his brothers.
Fawkes had not been surprised in the least to find that he was not sorry at all for the corpses of his fellow mutants littering the hall. Instead he'd taken the super sledge she'd handed him and followed her without question. Now he protected her until either or both of them were dead. They had an odd companionship, she and him, they fought more often than they agreed.
Her pigheadedness towards what had generally kept him alive in that infernal room, science and terminals, had them often got them butting heads. But the Lone Wanderer had a ferocious tenacity that Fawkes had to admire, and in her drive he found a kindred spirit. Drive and stubbornness was what had allowed him to reclaim his soul and it was the tie that kept him bound to her side.
As they walked through Megaton the deer eyed citizens scrambled out of their way. They hadn't been happy about allowing a Super Mutant in their midst, but his genteel manner and the Lone Wanderer's habit of shooting anyone who made her mad had turned the tide. Now they generally stayed away, out of fear of him, and out of fear the Lone Wander's sniper rifle that had the teeth from all of the Behemoths she'd killed dangling from the butt of the gun. Bizarre and barbaric, yes, but the method was effective. It kept him from being accosted and kept her from having an excuse to start a fight.
.
.
Once they were a few miles from the city something interrupted him from his reverie.
"My friend!" Inwardly he winced at his grating shout, and he bemoaned the fact that while he'd been able to tame his mind, his vocal cords remained obstinately monstrous, "Is not Tenpenny Tower the opposite direction?"
The Lone Wanderer flashed him a toothy grin and he was struck with the absurdity that while her hair took the form of filthy dreads her teeth were perfectly straight and very, very white.
She waved a hand in a gesture that he'd both become familiar with and had learned to quickly become vexed at. "We'll get there. Eventually."
He shook his green veined head but made no further comment on the matter. The Lone Wanderer was the uncontested scavenger queen of the Wasteland, and those magpie habits drove her to take the most haphazard path to her destinations, looting and burning whatever Raider and Mutant camps happened to be in her way, as well as the occasional unlucky Wastelander that chose to take a shot at her.
Almost as if the Universe read the direction of his thoughts, they were attacked.
Bullets hit the ground in front of them and Fawkes reacted without thinking. His Gatling Laser powered up with a rumbling purr, and not for the first time he was surprised at the reaction time of his huge ungainly body. He couldn't quite remember what he'd been before the change, but he knew it wasn't huge and angry and green. So it always shocked him a bit whenever skulls caved in with his merest touch and bullets hardly did more than pinch.
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Mutants predictably followed their gunshots; an Overlord towing two Berserkers.
"No more games…Time to die!"
"I'll wear your spine around my neck, human!"
Inwardly Fawkes winced. It was yet another testament to how far his brethren had fallen, by the battle cries they chose to present to their enemies. Quite frankly it was irritating. Fawkes felt it was his duty see that if they were not educated, than they must be destroyed. They were a danger to themselves, as well as the people of the Wasteland.
The first few mini gun shots hit the dirt in front of him and the next struck his torso and he felt them like a angry sting of bees. He heard the Lone Wanderer shriek angrily and saw her chasing after a Super Mutant Overlord. The giant green monstrosity was trying to hit her, but she was too fast and Fawkes caught a glimpse of the look of maniacal glee on her face as she darted through his legs and around him, cutting and slashing and burning. It, he thought as he'd brought his Gatling Laser around and halfheartedly watched it mow down the remaining attackers, was a chilling thought indeed. He wondered what it said of his own humanity.
The little group of Super Mutants were no match for either of them and it didn't take long for the Lone Wanderer to sniff out their camp, and soon she was up to her elbows in gore bags.
Fawkes watched her as she waved a fist full of bloody bottle caps triumphantly in her viscera covered fist and wondered whether their roles should have been reversed. She was surprisingly blood thirsty, for a human. Then he mentally smacked himself. That was an uncouth and positively rude assumption, especially for the Redemption that he had sworn to protect.
Whatever her methods, she'd saved his life. He wouldn't slander her. Though, he amended, it still wouldn't stop him from leaving Etiquette and Zen books on her bed and in her pack. That wasn't insulting, that was just being helpful.
Her mutterings drew his attention and he found her mumbling furiously to herself as she looted the dead Super Mutants' pockets and angrily threw the worthless things as hard as she could, watching them shatter against the rocks with a certain morbid pleasure. He sighed. It as the age old Lone Wanderer temper tantrum: Why Oh Why Can My Enemies Not Have Proper Weaponry? And How The Hell Do They Get Hits On Me With This Shit?
He practically knew the speech by heart and couldn't give her an answer, or at least one that she would like. Of course her frail body would take more damage than his own or that of his green brethren. It was obvious, she just didn't have to be happy with it.
"Stupid green lummoxes, present company excluded of course," she looked up at him slightly apologetically.
Fawkes was used to it, quite frankly. He often wondered whether she saw him in the same light as she quite obviously saw his brothers. He wondered how she viewed herself, even. The Workings of the Universe were a constant mystery.
"Hey," she said, in that odd little tone that signified that she was going to be poking her nose into something, and that people might get angry when she did it, "Smoke."
Fawkes looked where she was pointing and her expression reminded him distinctly of a dog scenting a kill.
He looked, squinting, and did indeed detect smoke on the horizon, as well as a sickeningly sweet smell that his gut remembered all too well, and with revulsion. He suddenly did not want her anywhere near the source of that smoke. He was afraid of what they would discover and what he might discover about her.
Her sense of smell was either not as good as his or she did not recognize the source of the smoke. She was pulling back the slide on her sniper rifle, checking the rounds, then raised it to her shoulder using the scope to get a sense of what they were up against.
He'd been afraid of that. Her curiosity was going to be the death of him. He had to stop her, deter her somehow.
"Something…troubling you, my friend?"
It was the best he could do, as he could not actually tell her "no", suggest a course correction. She was his Redemption and he followed her unquestionably, and if that meant into the darkness and facing an evil equal to that of Vault 87, so be it.
She'd glanced back at him when he'd spoken, but had resumed her steady walk, peering through the scope and moving steadily towards what Fawkes knew could ultimately lead to their destruction. And if not destruction, it was still not going to be good.
He was surprised when they came to a quaint little three building town instead of the raider camp or mutant hell hole he'd been expecting. The houses were clumsily cared for despite the war torn touch that the apocalypse had left. There were children playing in the street and laundry hanging on the line. For a moment he could almost believe that maybe he'd made a mistake, but there was no mistake. That smell hung in the air, that sick heavy sweet smell that brought back the horror of the Vault. He glanced at the Lone Wanderer, dread further sinking his spirits. He couldn't warn her, couldn't advise her. He could only stand by her side and see what decision she would ultimately make.
Upon seeing the children in the street the Lone Wanderer had shouldered her sniper rifle with an almost affronted snort. That certainly made Fawkes feel better; that semblance of normalcy in a situation that could either go bad or turn out for the best.
While he felt silly at being amused at watching her annoyance that she wasn't going to get to brawl, it also meant that he had a feeling to cling to; that maybe it would turn out okay. He could only sit and watch and see what she would do.
The choice was hers to make, but he didn't have to like it. Her choice would affect his own.
.
.
Kyra attached her sniper rifle, a bit miffed that she wasn't going to get to kill anything. Bugger. No killing meant no looting, and no looting meant having playing nice. Oh well. She could play nice, and then again, she thought watching the too hot to trot gentlemen coming up to confront her, she was also good at not getting caught. She wouldn't steal from a little kid, though some of the assholes in Little Lamplight didn't count, but a Wasteland jackass who had something to prove and didn't mind steamrolling whomever was in his way was fair game as far as she was concerned.
And the dude walking towards her had all the markings of said jackass in his prewar checkered shirt and pressed slacks.
"Well, hi there! Welcome to Andale! I'm Willy Wilson, though folks just call me Bill. Is there anything I can do for you?"
Not really knowing what she could possibly say to that overly cheery sugar bomb greeting, she just presented him with her best all teeth smile. Normally when she smiled people looked uncomfortable and backed away, but this dude just smiled wider and moved into her personal bubble. For some reason he made her skin crawl. There were people in the wasteland that gave her the heebie jeebies, but they were usually in raider camps and mutant pits. Not in a sparkly unicorns and roses suburbs environment.
Something was wrong here. She found herself backing up and didn't realize it until she actually bumped into Fawkes's substantial bulk. His giant meaty paw came to rest on her shoulder, and it was only then she realized that she'd actually been backing up. Oh no. Kyra Mcrea did not retreat or run away. Just because this dude creeped the hell out of her…she would not run away.
"So, uh, what do you, uh, do here?" She floundered, not really knowing what to say to his thousand watt smile.
"I feed my family and I love my wife and daughter, what else more is there to life stranger?"
Oh god, even worse. Every now and then she'd run across someone who had no idea the world was in the shitter, and they filled her ears with their crackass crazy and their everything is fine speeches. She usually kicked rocks as soon as possible and it looked like this was going to be no different. Blast, yet another little pit stop where she couldn't really do anything, merely wander around and ask lots of dumb questions while attempting to figure out whatever drama was plaguing whichever schmuck.
She looked up, because ol' Willy had kept talking."Family first, I always say! And any man who says anything different is saying something wrong. And you should hit that man. With a stick."
Oh. Dear. God.
What do you say to that? What can you possibly say to that? The Lone Wanderer was flabbergasted. This dude was obviously bonkers but she couldn't actually gank him as he hadn't actually done anything besides over do it on the super creepy.
"Okay then," she said, "I'm just going to…go over here. C'mon Fawkes."
Willy Wilson watched them move off and she could feel his eyes drilling into her back as she walked away.
.
.
When they'd gone around the side of what was labeled on the mailbox as the Smith house and were out of sight as near as she could tell, she did her gross flail...Fawkes watched the Lone Wanderer jump around and slap at her dress as though invisible bugs were crawling all over it whilst muttering ew ew ew, oh god ew, over and over again. He was quite familiar with her odd little dance; not a lot creeped the Lone Wanderer out, but when she did she went into a sort of epileptic shock that involved not only her nerves but her entire body as well. She tended to punch, on top of flailing, as Fawkes had learned the hard way. It had been his misfortune to be the one to accompany her when she ran into one 'Mr. Dukov', and that had certainly not ended well.
To her credit she hadn't shot anyone, merely shanghaied one of his hookers, but she'd still done what she termed The Gross Flail the moment she'd exited the Dukov premises.
All in all, whenever he detected someone that might give her the so called 'heebie jeebies', he thought it best to play it safe and stand a safe distance away.
A child's voice pulled the Lone Wanderer out of her flail in record time, Fawkes was impressed.
.
.
"You're new here aren't you?"
Kyra had to stop herself from randomly stabbing her Shiskebab in the general direction of the voice.
"Because stabbing people without giving them a chance to introduce themselves is bad," she mumbled to herself, carefully going over the litany Fawkes had made her remember after she'd accidentally shot Wolfgang Puck.
She looked for the sound, finally having to look somewhere down around her knees. Suddenly she was glad she hadn't reacted first and thought about things later, because killing a little kid was not on her accidental to do list.
He stared up at her with impossibly blue eyes, and a grubby countenance that is appropriate for all small children who play outside.
"Wow!" he continued talking rapid fire, and had obviously not noticed that she'd initially wanted to stab him, "I never get a chance to talk to the new people! Dad always takes care of them before I get a chance."
Take care of them, eh? The Lone Wanderer frowned. That could be a perfectly benign thing to say, maybe they didn't like outsiders. She'd met plenty of people who just wanted to be left alone, and she could respect that. Most of the time. But Willy Wilson had struck her as overly friendly in a severely creepy sort of way. Her trouble radar and asshole detection sensors where shrieking at her, and while she smiled back at the baseball caped tot looking up at her, inside her head gears were whirring. Something was going on here, and it was time to do what she did best: snoop, and possibly kill things.
"Do you like living in Andale?"
The Lone Wanderer wisely decided not to say Creepy As Fuck-Dale, thought she wanted to very badly. Fawkes wouldn't have smacked her upside the head like Charon might've, but there would have been an extreme influx of etiquette books stuck in her shit. Paladin Cross would have simply punched her. She still had the bruises from last week when she made several dirty limericks involving Princess in Little Lamplight. Honestly it wasn't like the little brat was sheltered or anything.
"It's okay, I guess. There aren't a lot of kids around here and no one who comes to visit stays around long."
Huh, fancy that.
"Dad says it could be worse," Junior mumbled, "that there are starving kids in other places. But still, I wish I had more kids to play with."
This was getting them no where. "What do your parents do?"
"The same thing that all parents do!" he told her, looking at her like she'd grown a third eye, " My mom cooks and cleans the house and my dad goes to work with Mr. Wilson. They work in the basement, or sometimes in Mr. Wilson's shed. Dad says that when I'm older, I'll come work with him and learn the family business!"
Yeah, the family business of batshit insane. She snorted. At least she had something to work with now. There were two certain locations that were now just begging her to pay a visit. She cracked her knuckles, eager to get to work the moment eyes were looking away form her bobby pin ninja fingers.
Junior could obviously sense that she was beginning to lose interest, because he kept talking, talking about his creepy little town in order to hold her conversation. The kid obviously didn't get out much.
"Andale's swell! Except…I wish there were more kids. And my dad says that I'm gonna have to marry smelly ol' Jenny Wilson some day." He scuffed a dirty sneaker in the dirt.
He now had the Lone Wanderer and Fawkes' undivided attention. They were both watching him now, and then they glanced at each other. The Lone Wanderer couldn't really read her companion's expression but his golden green eyes glittered at her like emeralds in sunlight. Normally he didn't really approve of her methods or her meddling but she got the distinct sense that this time he was giving her the go ahead. She'd known that initially he'd wanted to avoid this place, for whatever reason. But now the jolly green giant was okay with whatever she was going to get herself into, like he was psyching himself up. Which meant she'd have a big decision to make, involving good and evil and the fate of the Universe.
Oo rah.
Kyra gave Junior a sloppy salute. "See you around kiddo."
.
.
The Lone Wanderer squatted in the dirt and carefully inserted a bobby pin and her flathead screwdriver into the lock of the Wilson's Shed. The old lock was half rusted, and expertly finagled to where only a master thief would able to gain access. Interesting. What could a shitty old rusty shed have to hide? New toys? Visions of guns and bottle caps and stimpaks dancing in her brain, The Lone Wanderer jimmied the handle and the door swung open with a creak.
Instantly the smell of decomposing meat hit her like someone had just hauled back and punched her in the face.
Eyes watering, she and Fawkes moved into the shadowy gut of the shed and it took a moment for her vision to adjust. She heard Fawkes's strangled growl and she hurriedly blinked the sunspots from her eyes, and her own narrowed when she could see in the dark interior.
Human skeletons stripped to the bone hung suspended from the ceiling, the meat methodically cut away with cold precision like one would a cow. Other bodies sat on the counter, halfway through being processed. The dead Wastelander's expressions were ones of terror, mouths open and sightless glassy eyes were staring and not seeing...Fawkes felt sick.
The interior of the shed had been exactly what he'd expected, and he glanced at the Lone Wanderer's face. She would have to make a choice now; the citizens of the town would know they'd been in the shed and seen the dark secret. She would have to choose whether to accept them or reject them.
If she accepted them he'd have to leave her. Being her companion was hard enough, as most of the decisions she made involved people dying. If he had to leave her he thought his heart might break. He didn't quite know why, it was unexplainable.
The Lone Wanderer's face was completely still as she poked the bodies and rifled through the refrigerator, going through the contents and carefully setting them out on the shelves. When all the meat packets were laying next to the bodies she turned right around and walked out of the shed, saying nothing. Fawkes was worried. For once he couldn't read her. The Lone Wanderer usually operated in varying stages of anger, explosions of psychotic laughter, and weird logic. He'd been trying to get her to find her inner calm for ages; it was very disturbing to see it actually happening.
He wasn't surprised to find the adults of Andale clustered around the entrance to the shed, wearing identical expressions of anger and fear and hunger. The Lone Wanderer said nothing, merely watched them.
Mr. Smith stepped forward, face hardening. "Hey there stranger, I got something that I want to talk to you about."
The Lone Wanderer's face was calm, serene even. "Oh?"
He gestured at her with the AK-47 he clutched in his hands. "I couldn't help but notice that you were poking around in Bill's shed. So, did you find what you were looking for in there?"
"Yes, I think so." The Lone Wanderer was smiling now, friendly, open, and a far cry from her usual psychotic grin.
Mr. Smith apparently did not like what he read in her face. "I'm disappointed in you stranger, so quick to judge us. Did you ever stop to think that I have a family to support here? Judge not, lest ye be judged, as the good book says. Honestly, how many people have you killed? The only difference between us is that I'm bringing home the bacon for my family."
"I've killed nobody that couldn't defend themselves, or that didn't deserve it," The Lone Wanderer said simply, "There is a bit of a difference between killing and murder, not to mention killing people like animals."
His lip curled, and behind him Bill and their wife sisters tensed. "I don't think I like your tone," Smith said, "There's nothing wrong with me, we've lived this way for decades."
The Lone Wanderer stared at him for a long, long time. Fawkes watched her intently. Now was the time, now she'd have to choose. He honestly could not say what choice she'd make, and it frightened him.
"I think," The Lone Wanderer said finally, "That I have to kill you. Goodbye Mr. Smith."
Before he could bring the muzzle of his machine gun up to bear the Lone Wanderer had lunged forward with her flaming Shiskebab like a demon and his head had flown off to bounce at his wife's feet. Both women had screamed and Bill had jumped forward the moment Mr. Smith's body crumpled. He was no match though. He'd fallen before The Lone Wanderer's sword and the wife sisters had disintegrated the moment Fawkes had flicked on his Gatling Laser.
It was over in seconds. They stood, surveying the carnage, neither saying a word. For once The Lone Wanderer did not raid any pockets or steal anything from the bodies. She marched over them and to the main street.
They were just in time to see Old Man Harris usher the two now orphaned kids into his home. For a moment his eyes met The Lone Wanderer's, and it was understood that he would now care for them properly, and it was also understood that when she passed through here again that if the dark habits were continued, they would all die.
Then he slammed his front door.
Kyra turned slowly to look at her companion standing beside her. "Do me a favor?" she whispered.
Fawkes merely looked at her. It went without saying. She would ask, and he would do anything for her.
She flicked a hand at the shed. "Light it up."
He loaded a nuke into his launcher and in seconds the whole thing was in flames. They watched it burn for a bit, flames dancing in colors of gold and red, like souls escaping from their trapped cages. When the thick black smoke was spiraling to the sky and the flames were almost out, the Lone Wanderer turned to the Wilson's house and lit that up too. Ash rained down like snow and the sky was black from the smoke.
It was only when the air smelled like ash and a thin film of grey coated their skin and made them look like ghosts that they left.
.
.
He watched the stiff curve of the Lone Wanderer's spine as she strode out of Andale. He was struck by the stiffness in her shoulders and the bands of muscle standing out in her skinny arms. He would have thought that out off all people that would not have bothered her. Odd. She was frozen and tense and he suddenly had an epiphany. Contrary to what he'd thought, that she was merely a heartless bitch willing to slaughter and kill at the first amusing whim…well, he amended, that first part was true. The Lone Wanderer did have an unhealthy tendency to pick fighting as a first choice in resolving conflicts. But perhaps all was not lost. He had seen a side of the girl in that split second. She'd dropped her guard and shown him her face, and while it might not have been her true face necessarily it was a face buried deeper than most.
He'd sorely misjudged her.
The horror of Andale had shocked them both. And while it was horrendous, yes, it also showed him that all was not lost with her. She dealt with trauma and fear with blood and gunfire, the only way she apparently knew how.
She was human just like he was. He was the monster without and she was the monster within, and yet they were both one and the same.
He smiled, as much as his fierce visage was able. For the first time he didn't see the dreads or the red hooker dress. He saw a young woman forced to adapt and to deal with a terrible situation and face a horrific reality, and deal with it the best she could.
He'd face this with her, help her as much as he was able. They were going to save the world. He just hoped the Wasteland was ready for them.