Olive felt it best to leave Megaton for a while. After repairing Wadsworth – Ely had taken the fission battery from the robot and was using it to zap Charon in places that the ghoul refused to let his employer go near – the pair ducked out the gates and into the familiar wastes of D.C.

The two were silent as they walked, Charon forcing Olive to lead the charge. The girl didn't know where she was going and had the distinct impression that she was an old dog the farmer was taking out to shoot. South seemed like a good direction. There were some settlements down there – mostly raiders and small bundles of settlers hoping to irk out a living.

Maybe she'd hit up the library. There might be a few books still readable in there. Could Charon...

Olive stopped, looking back over her shoulder at the ghoul. "Can you read?"

"I'm a slave, not an idiot," Charon growled angrily – but the girl sensed a touch of amusement in his tone.

"Oh, uh, sorry," the Smoothskin stammered. "I didn't know if you were a pre-war ghoul or not. A lot of people out in the wastes can't read."

Charon kept walking, circling the girl and continuing down the destroyed roadway they were following. "Being unable to read constituted a danger to my trainers. What if I couldn't read a danger sign and just let my employer walk into a Deathclaw den? What if my employer needed to leave me a note or give me silent orders?"

"It makes sense," Olive mumbled, hurrying to catch up. "Um, I really have no destination in mind. Is there any place you wanted to go?"

There was no response from the ghoul as he waited for his employer to take the lead again. Olive sighed with uncertainty. She never liked going out into the wastes without a set destination. South seemed to do okay at the start, but now she was actually getting worried. Having not explored this southern D.C. Area very much, the Smoothskin honestly wasn't sure what she would find.

Well, there would be raiders, of course. There's always raiders. You couldn't spit without it landing on one of those damned fuckers.

Olive glanced over at Charon – who was now walking beside her. Would some killing help his mood? If the pair took out some raiders, it might let him get off some steam. Whatever Ely had done, it was pretty bad.

The ghoul's eyes were darting around, seeming to memorize the landscape and scan for any form of threat. Traveling without incident was incredibly rare in today's world, and both Charon and his employer knew it was only a matter of time before something tried to eat or shoot them. With his shotgun at the ready – cocked and aimed with lightning fast reflexes – nothing would get close.

Far away was a different situation. Shotguns were only really effective over short distances. Though Ely was the one who preferred shotguns, Olive often used one against Super Mutants. Though bright Super Mutants did exist, most were as dumb as a box of rocks. Her favorite tactic against them was to get their attention then run around a corner, crouch down, and wait. About 90% of the time, they chased after and as soon as they got around the corner, they met a face full of buck-shot.

That was another thing she was going to have to fix. Charon used bird-shot in his gun. Buck-shot was much more effective and deadly. If she could find some slugs...

"There's something moving ahead," Charon announced quietly. "Something humanoid, tall, and dressed in full black. Not shinny."

"Shinny is a criteria?"

"Yeah. Sure. Why not?"

Olive found a vantage point next to the burned-out hull of a car and pulled out her sniper rifle, crouching and popping the scope cap off. "Where exactly?"

There was a long pause before Charon joined her beside the car. "Ahead of us and a little to the left."

Peering through the scope, the girl scanned the distant landscape. "I don't see anything. Are you sure it wasn't a mirage?"

Charon stared at the girl beside him. She looked like a child holding that sniper rifle – a child with an evil, filthy, and demonic side. His finger twitched on the trigger of his shotgun. One simple shot...that was all he needed. From this close, Charon could blow half her head off. She would never see it coming.

Olive continued to scan the countryside. If Charon said he saw something, she believed him – despite the nagging doubt. There was a town ahead – one with big buildings and wide streets.

Not a town, the girl corrected, more like an industrial area or a large company hub. The buildings were too big to be normal apartments and there were a lot of remnants of big trucks rusting about. Nothing was moving though. There were no signs of life.

"Strange," Olive mumbled, "this would be the perfect place for a raider colony, but I don't see anyone."

A sudden pressure against the girl's side nearly made her jump out of her skin. Charon ignored his employer's reaction and tugged her closer to him, leaning over her shoulder and pointing out before her. The shiver of disgust vibrated through Olive and passed its way across the ghoul. She swallowed heavily but composed herself, leaning her cheek against his bare arm to see exactly where he was pointing.

Something moved between the hull of a truck and a destroyed building.

"Damn!" Olive mumbled, momentarily forgetting about the ghoul flesh she was touching. "You have freaking amazing eyes. I wouldn't have caught that...from..." The girl's words trailed off. She recognized that armor. "Enclave..."

"What?"

Putting the sniper rifle back over her shoulder, Olive quickly scanned the surrounding area before grabbing Charon and giving him a tug towards a ridge of rocks. To her relief, the ghoul followed without complaint. Whatever was in that stand of buildings, his employer wanted nothing to do with it. The pair would have to go around the ruins so as not to cause a fight. That one individual wore power armor – a beefed up, electrified, metal suit that enhanced the killing machine inside it. If one person was equipped with that stuff, chances are there were others. Charon may have been stuck in Underworld for ten years, but he still remembered his last attempt to blast through a suit of power armor. Even with his specially modified shotgun and a case of slugs, it took over twenty point blank shots to get through it.

This time he didn't have slugs. Bird-shot worked well against humans and ghouls – and it was cheap. Ahzrukhal paid for his shells and saw no reason to spend extra caps on over the top ammo. Against power armor, though, bird-shot would just bounce off – even at point blank. Sure, it may dent the metal, but Charon knew he'd be long dead before his attacks did any real damage.

Olive's thoughts mirrored the ghoul's. She had met The Enclave before – even been smitten by their idealisms and desires to rebuild the world. It wasn't till after working with them for a year that she discovered that their attempt to resurrect the old world involved destroying everyone who wasn't 'pure' like themselves. They were a bunch of crazies – crazies with power armor. She did not want to tango with that.

"You've met them before?" Charon whispered as they ducked behind the rock ridge.

Olive nodded. "Yeah, about ten-fifteen years ago. Out west a ways. I thought the Brotherhood of Steel had wiped them out of the DC area, but I suppose some of them had to have survived."

The ghoul stared hard at the girl as he followed her. Ten or fifteen years ago would have placed her somewhere in the age range of five to ten years old. Children grew up fast in the Wasteland, but that was still young in his mind. To deal with The Enclave at such a tender age...no one should go through that.

"What about you?"

"Was employed to one about 50 years back," Charon admitted. "Didn't last long, but I guess I'm thankful for it."

The girl looked back at him, confusion brimming her eyes. "Why didn't they kill you? They're all about being pure."

"Guess they thought I was too useful to kill."

She giggled – an alien noise in the barren landscape. "You are one killing machine. I've seen you angry and I gotta admit I don't think I have the balls to get on your bad side. You are fucking scary."

Charon fixed his gaze on the small form slowly maneuvering its way ahead of him. All of his anger had been directed at this persona. Olive had been nothing but helpful and kind to him – even with the psycho incident. That stuff was made for military men to help them fight longer by negating muscle weakness. It had done its trick. He had attacked her after Ely's 'fun' and was still mulling over the idea of blowing her head off. Despite his actions, she didn't appear to be afraid of him. A bit cautious, yes, but he sensed that Olive held no fear of his presence.

She was too forgiving – too quick to forget. If Charon did decide to kill Olive, she probably wouldn't know why. If she knew...If she knew what Ely had done, and based on the girl's fear of ghouls, Olive would probably want to die.

Did she know?

"Smoothskin, do you and Ely communicate?"

The question caught the girl off guard. No one had ever asked that before – even those who knew about the two personalities. "You're going to think I'm crazy..."

"You have dissociative identity disorder," Charon mumbled just loud enough for the girl to hear, "of course I think you're crazy."

"Well..."

Shots rang out in the distance and the pair hunkered down, expecting their rock cover to start exploding in the barrage of bullets. Nothing impacted the rock and the unmistakable twchoo-twchoo of an energy weapon responded back. The Enclave appeared to be having a 'heated discussion' with someone.

"Come on," Olive whispered. "Let's move while they're distracted."

Charon nodded and hurried after the girl. She was like a lizard when it came to scaling rocks and the ghoul found it genuinely difficult to keep up. "You never answered my question," he called ahead.

The girl slowed down so he could catch up. With the bullets going off in the distance, they didn't have to worry about The Enclave hearing them. "Well, yeah Ely and I communicate. We're not one of those cases where we don't know about the other. We..." Olive hesitated , feeling embarrassed talking about this, "we talk in our dreams."

"Your dreams?" Charon had never heard of such a thing.

Olive nodded. "Yeah. I still dream normally, but sometimes it's sessions with Ely. We mostly just chat and fill the other in on what's going on. I can also use it as a change-out session. If I need Ely to deal with the current situation, I can let her have control."

"You also leave each other notes?"

"Well, um, no actually. Well..." Olive found herself exasperated. She'd never talked about this before and her current attempt was leaving her tongue tied. "We will leave notes if it's absolutely necessary for the other to immediately know what is going on. Such as: 'Don't open the door. There's a flock of Super Mutants on the other side. The door is rigged to explode. Try to find us a way out before we die.' Having a fresh mind looking a situation over can help. Besides that, most of the time we just write everything in our notebook." She affectionately patted her bag. "Since we don't know what the other does – basically blacking out – we aren't prepared for any of the consequences. After a few disastrous situations, we both agreed to start jotting out experiences in a book. People we've met, places we've been, things we've found, stuff we've killed. That sort of thing."

Charon had seen his employer writing things in it before bed. He also knew that Ely wasn't very honest with her entries. "You know Ely lies in her writings, right?"

Olive nodded, "Of course I do. It's somewhat of an unspoken code that we don't have to express everything we did – just a good generalization. I often lie to her. Like I didn't jot down that it was you who hurt me after the psycho. I just fudged some dates so all she would know is I was somehow injured after meeting you."

The ghoul allowed himself to digest this. He was very curious about this Smoothskin but now he knew a way to get to know her and Ely better. She wasn't very protective of the notebook and the ghoul had no doubts about being able to swipe it during the night. And Charon could easily justify it as 'need to know' information.

As for right now...

Charon pointed ahead of them to what looked like a small bundle of houses on the horizon. "It'll be dark soon. We should find shelter. If no one lives there, we'll find a dark corner for the night. If it's inhabited, maybe they'll have an inn."


Light was just starting to fade as the pair entered the small bundle of homes. The place was definitely inhabited but no one was coming out to meet them.

"Put the gun away," Olive chided, "and don't look so mean." As the ghoul slung the shotgun back over his shoulder, his employer went to one of the homes and knocked on the front door. "Hello? Anyone home?"

There was no response.

"I'm really sorry if we're interrupting dinner, but my friend and I were wondering if you had a place we could stay for the night. We'll gladly pay you."

Footsteps approached the door and Olive took a few steps back, waiting patiently. People out in the wastes were very cautious and for good reason. Instead of opening the door a crack to see who was on their front steps, a balding man in a checkered red shirt threw the door open wide. "Why hello! Linda said she thought she heard someone at the door." The man stuck his hand out, "Jack Smith."

Olive couldn't help but smile. It wasn't often she met someone who welcomed her so readily – much less knew how to do a proper handshake. She grabbed his hand with her own and gave it a good shake. "Olive Hollins. Good to meet you."

"What can our humble town do for you, Ms. Hollins?"

Blushing, the girl waved her hand. "Please call me Olive. Been a very long time since anyone has used my last name."

Jack Smith beamed at her. "Olive it is! Please call me Jack. We were just getting ready to sit down for dinner. Would you and your..." Jack squinted into the darkness behind Olive, "friend like to join us?"

"Charon, come over and say hello."

The ghoul stomped up to the front door, crossing his arms and staring the shorter man down, blatantly ignoring the offered handshake.

Sighing, Olive lightly smacked the leather-covered shoulder. "I'm sorry about him. Charon's not used to using things called manners."

"Few people are," Jack mumbled. "Few people are. Anyway, you two must be exhausted! Come in! Come in! Linda, dear, set out two more plates for dinner!"

A thin, short haired woman stuck her head into the living room. "Oh! ...oh?" She stared at the ghoul, a bit unsure. "Honey..."

"Now, Linda, don't be rude. This is Olive and Charon. They're both very tired from their travels and could use a place to rest and a decent meal." Jack waved a hand up the stairway. "The two of you can have the room on the left for the night. There's a bunk bed so there will be plenty of room. Feel free to leave your things there and go get washed up for dinner. Linda made stew!"