Graverobber discharged and replaced the magazine in his gun as quickly as he could, ducking behind a shell of an automobile to avoid a spray of bullets. Peeking over, he counted two remaining heads of the three illegal assassins. One had been decapitated by a precision bullet courtesy of little Shilo Wallace. These attackers wore combat armor emblazoned with a curious insignia unknown to him, not that it mattered what they looked like if they got the jump on him and the rest of the group. Butch took up the right flank, posed behind a defunct street light with a pistol; his Toothpick was of no use in a firefight against experts.

A laugh reached his ears, coming up from behind, and he saw in his peripheral the honey-haired Lone Wanderer barrel forward, zig-zagging the paces to avoid getting shot, a spiked baseball bat in her hands and blood spraying on her clothes with the first wallop. Her wild laugh turned into a roar and he grinned. She was something. He just wasn't sure what. Certifiable, willfully anonymous, drowning her identity in a radio-given moniker. Some Lone Wanderer she had proven to be, enough to scoff at. She may have been a wanderer, but the fact was she had steadfastly kept the company of three people lo these many moons.


She zipped up her jeans and turned to face the wall, wiping her tears and smears of black makeup off her eyes with her rough fingertips. Graverobber stuck a finger in his mouth and sucked the savor off the end. The air was thick between them, smoggy and awkward and stinking of their sweat. He had to break the tension somehow. Normally his words came so smooth.

"You didn't tell me you were a virgin," he said; it came out an accidental accusation and he chastised his tongue.

It made sense, really. Her young age, the fact that she came from a fluorescent hole in the ground, the facade of bravado. It was his fault that he had been taken off guard. Someday, some lucky bastard would feel her touch on his prick and thank his diamond stars.

"I... never found the time," she said. "Don't tell them about this, okay?"

They both had something to be ashamed of about this encounter, what little there had been. He'd gotten as far as one digit halfway in when she'd started to cry again and though he was far from a good man he did not have it in him to stick it to a sobbing girl. That left them standing there in the aftermath of a handjob gone wrong, unkissed and loved and most of all unfucked. He screwed up his mouth in a pursed frown, watching her struggle to pull herself back together. All the world saw her as impenetrably tough, same as the nails and spikes she hammered into her pummeling tools. Including Butch DeLoria. To keep it that way, he would keep her secret.

"I don't think I like sex," she muttered.

Maybe she just didn't like it with him.


"You're that goodie two shoes from the Vault!" had been the proclamation leading to the assault. Now she refuted those charges, swinging her bat, lodging it in one man's head with a squelch. She yanked at the lodged-in bat, grunting, all while another mercenary took aim at her. "You're dead, girlie," he sneered. The frothing white in her eyes was somewhere between fear and inconvenience.

Graverobber shot the laser rifle out of his hand; he shook his empty palm, wincing.

"You were saying?" the Lone Wanderer huffed.

When his only answer was a hollow laugh, she laughed back and took a forceful swing at his shoulder, knocking him several feet back. She shook the droplets of blood and clumps of meat off the spikes of her weapon; there was nothing to save the wood from the tarnish of blood from its polish, indeed her own clothes were a testament to her victory.

"These assholes have been after me ever since I disarmed the bomb in Megaton," she drawled while her compatriots came out of hiding. "They're from Talon Company."

"I ain't seen them before," Butch protested. "How do you know they haven't heard of you since 101 was opened for business? Could be Amata sold you out. She always was a bootlicker." He hocked and spat.


"Amata Almodovar," Butch crooned, running a silver comb through his slicked pompadour. His other hand was planted to the vault wall as he leaned in, eyeing her up and down. "Looking like those sweet rolls are going right to your waist. We're willing to overlook that, aren't we, boys? Just put in a good word for us with your old man."

"My father would never hire you! Are you kidding me?" Amata said, aghast. She didn't fight back physically, her status enough to keep him from outright touching her. Over his shoulder, she spotted something interesting and exclaimed, "Anne-Marie, help me out!"

Crap. He turned to see the doc's daughter, a beanpole at sixteen with no tits to speak of, giving him a death look.

"Leave her alone, Butch, you bully," she said.

"This is a job interview," he insisted. Women didn't understand his methods. They didn't have to, so long as he got results.

"Interview this," she said, and slammed her fist into his pretty mouth. Amata ran for Mr. Brotch. By the time he got there, the other Tunnel Snakes had retreated to the classroom and Anne-Marie had Butch in a headlock, grinding her knuckles into his hair. "What is this, lube?" she grimaced.

"You're messin' with my 'do!" Butch yowled. When he turned his head to check her expression, he found her smiling at Mr. Brotch. "Teach, make her let me go!"

"Anne-Marie," he said, shaking his head.

"Apologize to Amata," she demanded.

"Fine! I'm sorry, alright?"

The rest of his day- taking the Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test, explaining his busted lip to his hungover mom, plotting revenge in his mind- paled when he received a summons from the Overseer himself. On his way out his living quarters, he moved his mom onto her side and a pillow under her head. He'd have to thank the doctor's pesky daughter for getting him the needed attention to get this far. His gang, with him at the head, was going right to the top.

Butch DeLoria always got results.


The Lone Wanderer impatiently explained, "Butch, no offense; you're a new addition and don't know what the hell you're talking about.. These goons know of me way from way before you and your people got involved."

It was important that there be that barrier. The vault dwellers were his people. The wasteland's denizens were hers. Their hot springs misadventure had proved how different they were, not alike.

Shilo lovingly holstered her sniper rifle and smoothed down the oversized sweater that passed for a dress as she left the safety of an impromptu barricade: two cars, crashed nose-to-shoulder in the middle of the pavement, the occupants only dust and DNA within. The shiny doll boots she had yet to wear holes through got one heel stuck in a crevice and she paused, bending to tug at her ankle.

"It sure is easier to take them out with you three as a distraction," she admitted. "Thanks, guys."

"My ears must be ringing," Graverobber said, "I could have sworn you just thanked us, albeit with condescension."

She smirked at him.

"What's that in his hand?" Shilo asked, kicking at the dead man's hand. It unfurled, revealing a grenade with the pin in his thumb.

It took all of the ten ticking seconds for the Lone Wanderer to calculate the inevitable, that the explosion would trigger the cars littering the too-near area into going boom, boom, boom; that Graverobber and Butch were both wearing armor and standing far enough off to be thrown clear, into the dirt, and if they were smart they'd cover their heads and let their arms catch the brunt of the debris; that Shilo would be in the middle of the maelstrom.

There was no time to voice her thoughts, only to act.


The Lone Wanderer slunk down the stairs, Graverobber behind her, to meet the remainder of her so-called friends in the pits of the hellish hot springs turned spa. Both were fully dressed and shuffling in remorse, replenishing their body's hydration with bottles of purified water. Another gift from her stupid generosity.

She had been standing there, staring out from her lonely ache, when a hand clapped her on the shoulder. Graverobber, she thought, though when she turned she saw the ghoul, wrapped in a terrycloth robe, of all things.

"Deep thinker, huh," he said, in a way that told her it wasn't a question.

"What's it to you, old man?" she asked.

He nodded his head off to the side, indicating for them to step away and have a moment to chat. Rolling her eyes and sighing heavily, she consented, following him to a bar. The ghoul proceeded to do the decent thing and fix her a mixed drink. He slid it across the surface and she caught it, brought it up to her face. It smelled appropriately strong, enough to singe the hairs in her nostrils.

"Cheers," she said, and gulped half of it in three swallows. Nuka Cola and whiskey, and it burned of patriotism and sympathy all the way down. With any luck it would make the day's bitter truths similarly more palatable. "You wanted to tell me something. Dispense some advice."

"You did see my girlfriend, right?" he snorted.

Heather was a looker, if you liked girls. A bit goofy and overly friendly, but pretty. The Lone Wanderer was partial to boys her age with baby blue eyes and a casual air of deliciously sleazy confidence. Sven must have done something right to land Heather and start up a business with her, made all the more impressive because she had never in all her travels heard of a smoothskin and a ghoul shacking up before. It was unheard of in polite society. Most women preferred their men with skin and noses.

"Fine, I'll bite. What's your secret?" She smacked her lips and took another sip.

"That's easy, girl: Honesty. She knows I love and want her. Smoothskin boys shouldn't be too different; I do mostly remember being one." He leaned forward on his scabby elbows and made her with his rheumy eyes.

Her lips pulled wide into pain and the lower lip found a place between her teeth. "Words have never been my strong suit."

"Find some other way to get your intent across, then," he suggested, without an ounce of meanness. He meant every word, damn him.


The ricochet of blasts, small pops and then cacophonous bangs like fireworks, was deafening, throwing car parts and fire and smoke in a veritable toxic hurricane. The Lone Wanderer had never been more at peace, since she'd thrown her body over Shilo's to shield her from the blast. Luckily her outfit had some protection, metal plates on a full body harness, her pack covering her back from the worst of the debris. Shilo laid still and small beneath her, maybe unconscious. Safe, no sound. Her mind was a blissfully blank piece of meat.

Her ears were another story, ringing bells and stinging nettles. Those drums would mend and beat again, as she knew from previous experiences in the time before she learned to step lightly on mines, reach down and pluck them up for her own use. Moira had funded that first fun expedition. Lessons in how to dodge explosives, side-step planted bombs, dare to touch one with touches that normally were blunt and assertive.

Smoke settled down around their bodies, tangible and thick and making them both cough. It was safe to move. Careful not to place weight on her, she backed off bit by bit and rose up from her hands and knees. Butch was there, unexpectedly, helping her up with one hand and a hard pull. She stumbled when she settled back on her feet.

Shilo blinked up at them, at the sunset and the smoke and the former vault dwellers. "You saved me," she said stupidly. "You've never..."

"Get used to it," she said with her crooked grin, the canines as usual protruding over the rest of her front teeth. "At least until you stop blowing things up. I'll teach you how to avoid that, no charge." She clapped Butch on the shoulder. He looked similarly shell-shocked, and more than a tad sooty. His hair was adorably battered.

"Why?" she asked. "You hate me."

"Sure," she said, "It's normal to hate your little sister. C'mere." She hauled her to her feet before she could respond with something disgustingly sentimental. The girl just stared and proffered no words.

"Little sister?" she finally said.


Goodnight, precious: his mantra.

Her father, the liar, kissed her tenderly on the forehead before leaving for work to save people; the last bastion of goodness in a world gone mad.

If her mother, who she looked so much like, had lived, maybe she would have had a little sibling, a baby brother or sister, someone to commiserate with, someone to sneak in contraband from the outside world. Someone to love.

Graverobber and an errant bug changed the dimensions of her world, expanded it to exceed all the expectations she'd had for her life. It was still a lonely one. Lonelier without her father. She really was alone in the world.

The emptiness inside her was an ache she tried to fill with fantasies of being a rock star, normalcy or fame, escape. Family seemed a fantasy too extreme even for her vast imagination, cultivated over seventeen years of isolation and illness. Arms around her that didn't smother? Stupid, foolish. Eyes that looked at her with a love for life? Dream on, try again. Her role models all sucked and were rotting in the ground.

She held tight to Graverobber in the new world of the Wasteland because she had no one else. That was her narrative. The lost girl, the painted scarecrow keeping her safe from the storm. She held tight to Butch to tell herself she could, because she finally had someone else.

She could be normal.

She could be a teenage girl who dated and kissed and had sex with the bad boy.

It was all a big "fuck you" to her father. Not like he would have anything to say at this point, six feet under in a cheap box.


Butch jabbed his finger at Graverobber. "If you're as sweet on her as you say, why didn't you tell her not to fucking detonate the whole place? This is your fault, old man!"

"I'm not in the business of controlling young girls," he said coolly, smacking his hand aside. "Are you?"

They looked ridiculous. They were being ridiculous, arguing over her welfare like she was a child. She was made of the same stuff as them: flesh, bone, and mettle. What she came away with from all of this was that these men, these silly boys, thought her helpless even though she was a machine with machines, a deft hand with a trigger in hand, and the one who cooked their food and darned their socks. She'd been the one who'd escaped her captor in the bridal camp. She'd fended off raiders from the barn hideout when they'd all first met. She'd made the first move with Butch to seal the deal and give him her virginity.

Men!

"No!" Butch sputtered. "If I'd been closer, I'd have been the one to protect her! Too bad for you I was all the way over there!"

"Boys, boys," the Lone Wanderer said, holding up her hands. "There's no need to thank me all at once."

"Yeah, Butch, why were you hiding behind a tree where they'd never, ever think to shoot? Is it because you're still lousy with a gun?" Graverobber mocked.

"I'm not lousy with a gun! You're lousy with a gun!" Butch retorted, his face blooming purple as a graveyard orchid and just as delicate.

"Oh, nice comeback."

"Are you assholes seriously ignoring me again?" the Lone Wanderer said. "After everything you haven't done for me already? I'm touched, really." She paused to wipe a pretend tear from her eye. "I'd like to thank my friends for this honor. Oh, that's right, I don't have any."

"Shut up!" Shilo yelled.

They all fell silent and stared at her.

"Stop fighting, please," she begged. "I can't stand it."

"What's the problem?" Butch asked, compulsively smoothing back his hair.

She hesitated and looked between the three of them, then at the ground. "Isn't it obvious? We're a family."

On the way back, the Lone Wanderer declared of a campsite, "This place looks empty enough. Let's stay for the night." It was almost empty, save for two mad dogs. She put them down, and she and Graverobber carved up racks up wild dog while Shilo set up a makeshift grill with a manhole cover and a cooking fire.

"You, uh, need help?" Butch offered.

She smiled at him and peeled off her Tunnel Snakes jacket so as not to get meat juice on it, then tied an apron around her waist. "No, thanks. I've got it." She rubbed the carvings of canine with ketchup packets that she'd foraged weeks ago from a wrecked diner. It would cook up to a sweet, smoky glaze. The Lone Wanderer twisted the knob on her Pip-Boy until she found Galaxy News Radio among the static and defunct stations. Gentle music of a long forgotten society hummed forth from the speakers. "Let's dance, Butch-man," Shilo offered, wiping her hands on her apron and opening her arms.

He crowed with glee and swept her into an embrace, dipping and spinning her until her wig was in disarray and she was laughing, her cheeks flushed shining pink. Graverobber and the Lone Wanderer stood off to the side, watching, eyeing each other without letting the other know. He offered her a cigarette, a peace offering. He lit it for her when she placed it between two fingers and raised it to her pursed lips. The smoke puffing out her nostrils, Butch noted when he set Shilo back on her feet, made her look like a dragon.

"This is Three Dog, awoo!" howled the announcer, breaking through the music. "That was the Ink Spots, with 'I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire.' Listen up, children. It's time for the news. Here's the latest on the lone wanderer. Seems the daughter of 101 herself has collected a couple of new friends. Reports tell us of a tall drink of water with a baritone, and a little black-haired ghost delivering death from the mouth of a sniper rifle. Well, can't blame her. Life gets lonely in the Capital Wasteland. When you're done saving the world, Vault kid, we've all got your back. The people owe you one."

She turned off the radio, smiling down at the screen, and flicked the ashes off the end of her smoke.

"We're famous!" Shilo grinned, and skipped forward to give Graverobber an enthusiastic high five.

"We deserve it," he agreed smugly.

The meat was juicy and more tender than most. Shilo took the first watch that night, watching the fire cast its phoenix light on the others' faces. For once, the Lone Wanderer didn't toss and turn in her sleep. It must have been the cigarette to calm her nerves, the sips of wine to ease the transition into sleep.

Butch always fell asleep immediately, dreamed deeply, and slept late.

While walking, Shilo's hands were loosely linked with Butch's, held tighter on the empty intervals on the road, looser when it was time to reach for her weapon and back away. Graverobber brought up the caboose; the Lone Wanderer was the first line of defense, swinging her bat from hand to hand, testing the sharp bits on the pad of her thumb. The sun rose and fell, clouds gathered and dispersed. Raiders screamed in drugged haze. Raiders died or surrendered and were sent running, shots fired in warning at their heels: don't come back. Walking feet kicked up dust, wet rags washed dust and blood from sullied faces.

Their next meandering agreed upon stop was Megaton, back at home base. The sight of the snipers up on the parapets was a welcome sight after all they'd seen. They all needed a change of clothes and a vacation from the constant violence. On the way in, the Lone Wanderer took a knee to offer a beggar a swallow from her canteen of cool, clear water.

The air inside her house was stagnant until they got the fans going and the skylight opened. They kept their boots on since a little more dirt wouldn't hurt the floor but shed their coats and packs, dispensing them on the couch. Wadsworth swept through behind, picking up their things, setting things right.

"Good evening, ma'am!" he said in his droll accent, using his arms to pick at her hair. "It seems you're due for a trim!"

"Yeah, alright," she said. "Chin-length, please, with some bangs."

He guided her to a bar stool, snipped away the offending locks, swept up and vacuumed up the excess that had fallen on the floor. Shilo and Butch were next, opting for manicures.

Butch and Shilo crashed on the couch, Graverobber took the armchair, and the Lone Wanderer had the bed to herself. She couldn't sleep. She went and sat on the stairs, looking through the banister at them, snoring away. Not a care in the world. They were hopeful and hateful in reasonable degrees, not letting either axis swallow their emotions whole.

Butch was beautiful, and stupid, and a relic of her past.

Graverobber was beautiful, too clever by spades, and a possible future.

She fell asleep curled up on the stairs, her arm dangling through the uprights. Shilo woke her gently and offered her a bowl of Sugar Bombs. The milk had been delivered that morning and was fresh and good right out of the bottle.

The Lone Wanderer brushed out her fresh-cut hair and drew a border around her eyes. For some reason that night on the stairs had been a restful one. She'd dreamed about her birth. After putting away the pillows and blankets from the previous night's sleepover, the boys suggested a game of cards. Graverobber won, of course.

"You're too good," the Lone Wanderer grumbled, standing up off the floor. "Come on, Shilo, let's go to Moriarty's. Drinks are on me."

"What are we, chopped liver?" Graverobber asked.

"Do you really want to follow me around everywhere?" she asked. "There's plenty to do around town without me. It's not as boring and quiet as it seems, especially for former vault dwellers like Butch."

Butch shrugged as if to say she was right.

The sun shone bright on the catwalks, not a cloud in sight. She glowered and ushered Shilo towards the saloon posthaste. Gob waved, a hesitant smile on his rotten face. "Moriarty had something for you," he told her.

"Is he treating you alright?" she asked him. His answer, an uncomfortable silence and a quick mutter, was a dead giveaway, and she scowled. "Alright, well, get us both a whiskey sour." She deposited a pouch of bottle caps on the counter; he opened the register and deposited the caps before starting on the drinks.

Shilo slid onto the barstool to try her drink. "Mm," she said, eyes lighting up. "This is way better than red wine."

"Stick with me, Shi, I'll teach you how to live," she said.

Moriarty came out from his back room. "Oi, girlie, I thought Gob told you to come talk to me," he complained, crotchety old man that he was. Emphasis on crotch. "Would you hurry it up already?"

She groaned and stood. "Keep working on that drink. I'll be back in a jiffy."

Moriarty's back room was cramped with the door shut, warm from his computer station, lit with a light bulb in the ceiling outfitted with a pull-chain. She didn't like him, didn't like his extorting and his bullying, the way he collected people's secrets like a spider gathers flies. He was scum. The sooner this was over with the sooner she could get back to drinking and pretending she wasn't patronizing his establishment.

"Mail came while you were out on your little adventures," he said, pulling a holotape from his files.

"Great, who's it from?"

"You think I listen to your mail?" he asked. "You think the doings of the Wasteland savior is of interest to me?" He laughed. "It's not addressed to you, anyways. Think about that: the world not revolving around the lone wanderer. Fuckin' incredible is what that is."

"No? Then who..." She looked down. The label had Shilo's name on it. Blanching, she stuck the tape into her messenger bag. "Thanks, I guess." What she really meant was Fuck you. She shut the door behind her on the way out, taking extra care not to slam it.

"What did he want?" Shilo asked over the sugared rim of her drink. The cherry stem was on the counter, tied in a knot. Of course she was one of the people who could tie a stem in a knot with her tongue. Of fucking course.

"Finish your drink," she answered, chugging hers for courage. It tasted like Gob had used the good stuff. Mystified, Shilo complied, then followed her outside when she asked her. She leaned back on the guardrail and fished the holotape out of her bag, held it out.

"That's my name," Shilo said, just as lost.

"Plug it in and let's listen to the sucker," she offered, holding out her Pip-Boy arm. Shilo inserted the tape.

A man's voice, throaty and sad, flickered through the sound of chewy tape. "Shilo. My God, Shilo. I hope you're okay and this gets to you. Listen to me. I know you're with good people, I know I told you to change the world, but listen! Stay away from the Enclave and from its GeneCo division. I love you."

The Lone Wanderer stopped the tape. Tears fell from Shilo's eyes. "Dad," she said.