"Is she going to be ok back there?" Percy was looking back, more than a little nervous.

"What, Fantasia? She likes it; Dukov might get a little rough when he comes around, but she can handle herself, trust me." Cherry was unconcerned, scratching her head and squinting into the sunlight. "How far is it to Rivet, anyways?"

"About, two days I'd say. If we only stop to sleep, that is. There are mutants everywhere so I don't want to stay in one place for too long." Percy was planning out the trip on her pip-boy. "Charon, do any of these subway tunnels connect? I'd face a feral over a mutie any day."

Charon walked up and looked over her shoulder. "A lot of these parts are caved in…These are good though…" He reached over and tapped on different areas, making markers appear. A wave of Déjà vu came over him at their close proximity. Quickly connecting a route, he backed away from her.

"That's the best path I recommend, smoothskin."


Things had been going pretty well. They ran into a few groups of ghouls during their trips through the metro, but nothing serious. Everything was fine, until they came across a reaver.

"What the hell is it throwing?!" Percy was shooting from a distance, protecting a cowering Cherry.

"Concentrated radiation! Worse than the glowing ones, so stay back!" Charon was keeping it away from them by staying close.

Suddenly, the reaver rushed him. Caught off guard, Charon tripped falling hard on the ground.

"Charon!" Percy rushed out from cover.

The reaver was ripping at Charon's torso, the radiation half healing the gashes, over and over, shredding into his chest.

Pulling out her Shishkabob, Percy waved it frantically at the reaver, hoping to draw it away.

No use, and it was too close to Charon, she couldn't risk hurting him.

In desperation, she dropped the sword and grabbed the crazed ghoul by the shoulders, hauling it off Charon, who was nearly passed out from the pain.

Howling in rage, the ghoul made a swipe at her, but she ducked just in time. She made a dive for the flaming sword, but the reaver was closing in after her.

Scrambling for the sword, her finger clasped around it. Whirling around she slashed the reaver's head clean off.

The body fell across her. Shrieking, she pulled herself from under it

"CHERRY! Cherry, I need your help! Help me carry Charon!"

Cherry was quaking in fear, but came up to assist. They half carried, half dragged his large frame into the nearest information desk enclave.

Percy dug through her bag, producing ten mines.

"Ok Cherry, I need you to set these up near all the openings into this area, and a parameter around us—but not too close. Can you do that?"

"Sure, sweetie." Cherry obediently rushed to do her job after sending a terrified glance at the fallen form of the one who she thought of as her primary protection.

Percy turned her attention to Charon. His eyes fluttered, and he was still breathing…slowly.

Working fast, the vault dweller pulled out psycho, buffout, stims, and her suture kit.

She injected two psycho, one into his hip and the other into his neck. This made him jump, eyes flying wide as his fingers clawed desperately at the ground. Ready with four buffout tablets, she stuffed them into his mouth before forcing his jaw closed again. Holding onto his face, Percy looked desperately into his eyes.

"Charon. I need you to stay awake for this. Whatever you do, do not go to sleep…That's an order." She said the last part with eyes clenched shut, wincing in self-resentment.

Charon stayed awake, but he was visibly shaking—from the drugs, or force the it took to obey her order, she wasn't sure.

Grabbing two bottles of pure water, she ran to the corpse of the downed reaver, praying there was enough residual radiation to transfer to the water. She forced them into the ghouls torso as her Geiger counter ticked promisingly. Cherry came up behind her.

"I set everything up…Is he going to be ok?"

"I don't know." Percy said hollowly, keeping a safe distance from the corpse while waiting for the water to become properly irradiated.

"Shit…I should have stayed with Dukov…"

Percy slowly stood up, before turning to Cherry.

"I'm so sorry that our free services were not good enough for you. Luckily, you know the way back. Now you can leave—and I hope to God I never see you again, if you do—or you can bring me those waters in five minutes."

Percy brushed past her and walked back to where Charon lay.

He was still awake, but very much in pain.

"I'm so sorry. I can't give you any painkillers. You might go to sleep and not wake up."

She injected a stim deep into the middle of his torso to prevent internal bleeding, while she worked on stitching the top layers back together.

Cherry soon joined them with the water.

Without a word, Percy took them from her and began dabbing it on his chest and face. This seemed to sooth him, and Charon became more relaxed.

Finishing up, Percy wiped her hands off and began rubbing her eyes in exhaustion.

"Hopefully he'll be ok…Charon, you can go to sleep now." Pulling out med-x, she asked, "Do you want this to help with the pain?"

But he was already asleep.

"Well then, Cherry, go get some sleep. We're leaving as soon as Charon is up to the task."


Percy slept for a couple hours before she awoke again. Checking on Charon, She reapplied the irradiated water. He signed in his sleep once she reached his forehead.

Grabbing his hand in both of hers, Percy allowed a sob to escape her lips.

'I almost lost you…' Her shaking stopped—her thoughts going back to the morning the day before.

Without thinking, she leaned down, wrapping her arms around his neck, and she laid her head down on his shoulder—avoiding the damage to his chest.

"Please be ok." She whispered before drifting off to sleep.


Charon awoke to soreness in his shoulder, and considerably worse pain in his chest.

'What happened? Last thing I remember, we were traveling through the metro…'

Suddenly, he remembered the rush of a fight far too close quartered for his gun; the horror of a ghoul ripping out his chest as its own radiation partially healed him. He grunted in pain as he tried to get up, and the pressure in his shoulder disappearing immediately.

"Charon." Percy came into focus, looking closely at him, eyes fraught with worry. "Are you all right? Do you need anything for the pain?"

"What happened to the reaver?...How am I still alive after that?" Charon rubbed his head, trying to bring back the lost memories.

Percy's face fell, casting her eyes down. "I managed to pull it off of you. You were in pretty bad shape. I had to…make you stay awake."

Charon didn't understand why she looked so upset. Chuckling—and immediately regretting the ensuing pain—he said "If I knew you were this good, I wouldn't have made such a fuss the first time you had to patch me up. I can't believe I got my ass handed to me by a reaver

'Why isn't he angry? I used his contract against him.'

Percy's staring was making Charon uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry if I scared you there. I'll be more careful about the ground next time. I think I'd like some of that med-x right about now; we should probably get moving soon. I don't wanna stay here any longer than we have to."

A small smile finally ghosted across her lips. "Right, here! I'll go wake up Cherry. Make sure drink some water." Scrambling to her feet, the vault dweller disappeared from view.

Charon eased himself into a sitting position, draining the water bottle like a man lost in the desert.

Un-wrapping his old bandages, he took a look at his partner's handy work.

It looked pretty good. He lost some of his skin, but she was also able to salvage a bit.

He started to feel the pain killers take effect so he tried to stand up. 'This is gonna suck.'


"How much farther?" Cherry was walking behind Charon and Percy.

They had been travelling for four hours now, walking way too slow in Cherry's opinion.

Percy had long since regretted taking Cherry with them. Flatly, She replied "It's up ahead there, see? Go ahead of us if you're in such a hurry."

Charon didn't know why Percy suddenly couldn't stand the woman with them, but since he had never cared for her in the first place, He merely smirked at the look of shock on Cherry's face.

"What if a mutant gets me?"

"I'd have one less worry in life." Percy said under her breath


"What's your business in Rivet City?" Harkness held his gun at the ready, eyeing the tall ghoul suspiciously.

"Calm down; does it look like I could cause trouble, even if I wanted to?" Charon gestured to his chest with a growl.

"Easy, ghoul. I just want to make it clear that I've worked hard keeping this place safe and I won't have you screwing that up."

Cherry's 'Playmate' act went on like a light. "You must be pretty tough, keeping this entire boat safe; I like that in a man." She purred, striding up Harkness, her hips swaying seductively.

"Let's go find a room." sighed Percy, eager to get away from the woman.

"The Weatherly offers cheap rooms." called Harkness, who was trying to ignore Cherry's advances.


"You sure don't want me to come with you?" Charon was facing the wall while Percy changed out of her armor, and into more comfortable slacks and a t-shirt. He could never get over how comfortable she was around him.

"I'd prefer to face him alone. Besides, that was a lot of travelling we did; you should probably get some rest."

Charon hated to agree, but she was right. She'd probably prefer to confront her dad in private, anyway.


Charon awoke with a start. "Damn…anymore of this stuff and I might get addicted." Injecting more med-x into his chest, He slowly made his way to the Weatherly Hotel's front desk. "Excuse me."

The woman before him was tapping her fingers against the worn wood anxiously. "Oh, yes? You're that poor girl's traveling partner, aren't you? Feeling any better?"

She was clearly trying to look past his roughed up exterior in an attempt to act professional, but Charon appreciated it all the same."

"Poor girl? Percy? What happened to her?"

"Well, when she first came in, she looked fine—if not a little nervous. Told me you were resting and not to disturb you. When she came back however, she was clearly upset; asked if there was a bar on the ship. I hold her I had plenty of alcohol up here, but she said she needed the right ambiance or something, so I told her where to find the Muddy Rudder."

'Damn, what did he do to her?' "Can you tell me where that is?"


Percy was four drinks in by the time he found her. She wasn't loud like the last time he'd seen her drunk. There was dark look in her eye that said "Don't mess with me".

Turning, she noticed him on the stair way.

"Hey, you. You'll never guess what happened."

Charon walked over, sitting across from her at the booth. She had thought ahead as to how much she thought she would need to drink, as there were three bottles of whiskey unopened in front of her.

"He wasn't even there, Charon. I missed him by a month. A month! And guess where he is now?"

Charon was beginning to hate this man. Three Dog went on and on about how Percy was looking for her dad, in hopes that he would maybe try to find her, but no luck.

"Where is the bastard?"

"Don't call him that!" Percy was suddenly very loud, before slouching back into her seat.

"Who am I kidding? He is a bastard. A child-abandoning, runaway bastard. He's in another vault. I don't know which, or where, but he left me, and now he's in another vault. Guess he thought 101 was too crowded with me there…" She drained her bottle, pushing one to Charon before opening herself a new one.

"Please drink with me. I can't stand drinking alone." She made a sour face after the last word before getting a head start on the new bottle.

Charon slowly uncorked it, looking into the golden liquid. Setting it back down, he said, "Smoothskin we're gonna need a lot more of these if you want to get a ghoul drunk."

A half-smile played across her face, and she called Belle Bonny over.


"All I'm saying is…Why are mirelurks even a thing? Like…half humanoid, half crab thing. You know what: Don't tell me; I want it to be a surprise." Percy was giggling and clinging to Charon as they made their way up to the room. He wasn't much support, clinging with all his might to the stair rail as he half dragged her up with him.

"Those things are more trouble than they're worth, and they don't even taste good." Charon added.

"Right?! Were crabs that gross before the war?"

"Are you kidding? They were incredible; add a little garlic and butter, and you were in heaven smoothskin, I tell ya." He hauled her up the last flight of stairs.

Percy grinned as she jumped him, wrapping her arms around his neck, her legs dangling.

"What's a-little-garlic-and-butter?" She giggled as she tried to see only one of him without much luck.

"Very amusing" he said before throwing her over his shoulder.

"Hey!"

"Don't worry, I got you." With one arm around her waist, Charon used the other to support himself on the wall as he walked down the hall.

Once they reached their destination, he threw her on the bed before collapsing next to her.

Percy began pulling off her clothes to reveal the modest undergarments beneath.

"Smoothskin, can you at least try to keep your cloths on? Every time I turn around you're tossing clothes left and right. I know I'm a looker, but try to contain yourself." Charon muttered sarcastically through the pillow.

"It's too hot in here! No insulation in the entire damn ship, I bet. Aren't you hot?" she paused then giggled at what she said.

"A bit, except I have a little thing called modestly, miss former chaplain."

"Come on, big guy, I won't bite. Make yourself comfortable."

With a sigh of exasperation, Charon got up, and dressing down to a pair of boxers. He didn't need the bandages anymore, so he took those off too. Growing a little frustrated, he fell back on the bed beside her, grumbling "Regret it now smoothy? Not so handsome up close, huh?"

He wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or the situation, but she just grinned at him. Suddenly, she leaned forward and gave him a small kiss on the cheek before rolling over, adding over her shoulder. "You're too hard on yourself, Charon."

Definitely the alcohol.