We were four. Charon, Jericho, Butch and I. Companions since I left the vault. Friends since we were baptised by gun fire.

Every year Jericho and I celebrate the two that passed. We remember them and think about how they were taken from us.

Butch wasn't filthy and smelly like Charon and Charon wasn't a cretin like Butch. They weren't unstoppable like Jericho. They weren't a misanthropic heartthrob like me. They were average. They weren't too tall, they weren't too small. Neither too fat nor too thin.

They weren't great at any one thing but pretty good at everything without ever excelling. They covered me while we explored and looted, made wasteland weapons, got in a fight with the odd bar-fly. Smoked a bit, drank a fair bit, and dabbled with jet from time to time.

Everything about them was average. And that's what was great about them. You knew what you were getting with Charon and Butch. You would never have best night in Moriarty's with them but it wouldn't be the worst. They would get their rounds in, tell a funny story every once and a while and never forget my birthday.

Losing them was hard. It's hard to lose a friend, especially someone your own age. It's hard to lose a friend, it can be catastrophic to lose two. Sometimes you look in the mirror, see how the Wasteland has aged you, the premature grey hairs, the wrinkles, hard living and hard drinking leaves you with a body carved out of wood. I can't help but think of how Charon and Butch would look today. All I can see is their faces. I think sometimes I can remember their voices. I would know them in an instance if I heard them but I can't hear them in my head anymore.

You just never know the direction life will take you in and yesterday, as every year, was the time we remind ourselves of that. Jericho and I stood shoulder to shoulder outside the Lincoln Memorial, gazing down at the two graves of our friends. The weather almost illustrative of their lives. The sun shone above while the wind blew sea-drops in from the Atlantic. Butch was sunshine, Charon was wind. And here we were, all those years later. The pain of what happened to them still raw. I felt Jericho's hand on my shoulder as I stared at the names on the tombstones, the numbers barely making sense. For most of us this would be all the world would remember of us. Strangers that passed by in the future would think 'Oh, there's so and so, he lived from this date to that date'. And that was our legacy. A thousand months, if we were lucky.

I looked across at Jericho, normally so vacant but today there was emotion. Cognisance. Jericho can keep himself in check better than anyone I know but I could see the extra glint in his eye, that extra moisture that had nothing to do with the wind or the sun.

I felt my jaws clench as I thought back to what happened after Charon's death. What happened with Colonel Autumn? How hard it had been. How incredibly hard. It was something the four of us would have always shared, no matter what. We had our differences, our fights, difficulties, but this was something that would have always bonded us in a way that most people, thankfully, would never experience. I had been searching for him for so long. Charon, Butch and Jericho have been with me every step of the way.

That night, when it happened, was etched permanently in my brain. When my time comes, when my life flashes before my eyes, that's going to be right there. His face. The trauma, how distraught I was. How, afterwards, there were tears, distressed outbursts for months, a desperate feeling of loss over my Father and, as always when someone close to you dies, the guilt.

"It's strange to think of the battle that was here so many years ago, pity I couldn't make it back in time."

"It still feels like yesterday to me."

"You never did tell me how you ended things with Autumn, Kid."

"No, I didn't."

"Any regrets?"

"I made my decision. I can live with it."