Leah used to hate it, but now she couldn't get enough of it. She couldn't go a single second without it, really. It was a Vault thing and at the time it had driven her crazy, the whole motivation behind asking her father whether or not there was life outside. And yet here she was, in the wild Wasteland, with it again.

Busy work.

The Overseer had used it as a tool, to numb the curiosity that would inevitably stem in the minds of the population he ruled over. Leah had seen through all that brahmin-shit and yet now it was the only solace she had.

Ironic. How fucking ironic.

Sweat began to bead on her forehead as she scrubbed. Gob watched, his brow furrowed in concern as she scoured the bar for what had to be the third time now. Her shirt sleeves were pushed up above her shoulders, exposing the corded muscle beneath smooth skin as she cleaned. She grunted a little as she came across a sticky spot that just wouldn't fucking go away, brushing vigorously and gritting her teeth in the effort.

The bar was the cleanest it had ever been, but she couldn't stop, not until she'd thought up some other mindless chore to do. She'd already helped inventory both Craterside Supply and The Brass Lantern, sort out the medical supplies for Doc Church, recheck all of the pipes for Walter, and, hell, even wash the damn atomic bomb for the stupid Church of the Atom.

"Smoothskin," Gob muttered, coming forward to stop her. She sighed and dropped her hands from the bar, ducking her head and turning away.

"It's not your fault," he insisted softly.

She growled, lifting her eyes to meet his. "I'll be back sometime tonight. Don't wait up for me."

He sighed once she'd left and leaned back against the bar. Nova peered down at him from the second story, her eyes soft and sad. He shrugged up at her.

"She's pretty torn up over it. Did she . . . you know, have feelings for him?"

Gob scoffed and turned to walk into the backroom, laughing loudly. "Like someone as pretty as Leah could have feelings for a ghoul. I swear, Nova, you get more loopy every day."

"Yeah," she chuckled dryly, eyes downcast as her cheeks turned pink. "I guess I do, don't I?"


"Moira!" she called, her voice dry and almost desperate. "Moira! Where are you?"

"Oh! Um, wait down there, Leah! Shit," the redhead hissed breathlessly.

Leah frowned. She'd never heard her friend curse before. "Is everything okay?"

"Fine! Fine. It's all fine!" She poked her head around the corner upstairs, forcing a smile. Her shoulder was bare, throwing Leah off-guard. Since when did Moira hang out naked upstairs?

"Just tell her to leave," a gruff voice murmured and realization slapped Leah in the face with the force of a two-ton truck.

"Oh, my God," Leah gasped, turning away instantly. "Jesus Christ, you guys! I knew you guys were getting close, but I didn't know you'd be fucking during the day!"

"Oh, no," Moira sighed, facepalming. She turned and hissed, "You had to go and say something, didn't you?"

Leah faintly heard Quinn's loud laugh. "Can't help it, smoothskin. I'm making love to a beautiful woman and I won't hesitate to let everybody know."

Moira's expression went from slightly irritated to appreciative in a quarter of a second. "Aww," she murmured and then disappeared and Leah heard the sound of a kiss being exchanged.

Leah shuddered and turned for the door. "Gross, guys. I'm out of here!"

"Mmmf!" came Moira's muffled response as she probably tried to pull away, and Quinn probably held her back.

She broke into open air with a gasp for air. Christ, she just wanted a fucking chore to do and she ends up walking in on Quinn and Moira. A shudder rolled down her spine.

She paused with a frown. It wasn't disgust she was feeling, just . . . irritation? Anger?

Jealousy. She was jealous.

Not that she wanted to fuck Quinn. No, definitely didn't want to fuck Quinn. But . . .

An image of Charon instantly burst into her mind and she cursed under her breath, resting against the wall of Craterside Supply. She rummaged through the bag at her side and—a-ha!—found the little box she kept for emergencies just as these. She popped the cigarette into her mouth, grabbed her shishkebob and lit it with a swipe of the weapon. Inhaling the sharp smoke, she trudged back toward her house. There was something there, in Charon's face, that . . . affected her. Moved something within her, like the stoking of a fire that had existed only in embers before.

She rushed into her house and slammed the door behind her.

"Is anything the matter, mada – ?"

"No, don't bother me," she bit out tersely, tossing her cigarette down and stomping on it before darting up the stairs. She quickly locked her bedroom door and ripped herself out of her clothes. Fully naked, skin flushed, she flopped down onto her bed.

Leah closed her eyes. It seemed she could still feel the weight of him pressing down beside her on the bed as he worked on his shotgun, his voice soft and yet rough in the quiet of the room, the sometimes lilting silence that he allowed to pass between words. She gulped, hand trailing down her stomach to the junction between her thighs.

She gasped as she found her most sensitive spot. Images of him on top of her, furious and rough and out to kill, it shamed her and yet she was more aroused than ever. She'd always known that there was something within him that had been struggling to break free and she had been the one to let it loose. Her throat still burned but there had been something about Charon's animalistic violence that spurred her arousal on.

Her free hand flung out and gripped the rim of metal beside her bed. She sighed and threw her head back into the pillow, her fingers increasing the pace on her slick skin. Charon's face was behind her eyelids, expression dark, rough hands discovering every inch of her body.

Smoothskin.

Stars burst in her vision, heat radiating from her skin as she pulsed with pleasure. She reached her climax hard and fast, clutching the sheets until every shock had left her body. She panted and every muscle that had bunched up during her orgasm immediately relaxed.

Leah swallowed and turned onto her side. After her orgasm, she felt a rush of shame. She had betrayed Charon, fucked with him like it was a game even though he'd gone through two fucking centuries of slavery, and here she was getting off to his anger. She closed her eyes as tears prickled beneath her eyelids.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

Come home.


I am never fucking going back to that place.

Charon looked up at the sunset with a grim smile. He could go anywhere, absolutely anywhere. His body count for the day was already up to about thirty-eight, but he'd lost count back at the old shopping building. So many raiders in such a little space . . . it was an angry, bitter bastard's paradise. He was covered in blood and yet he didn't feel it. He didn't feel anything, not the sun on his ruined skin or the weight of his shotgun in his hand. His armor was insubstantial on his body. He was nothing and his world was nothing anymore but the rage, the bottled-up demon that had broken free of its cage the instant she had –

The instant that the contract had been ripped, he corrected himself with a low growl. Any sense of civility and calmness was torn to pieces whenever she entered his mind, which was a lot more frequently than he'd expected . . . or wanted. The animal inside of him hated her with the passion of the burning sun he could not feel.

He continued through the barren land, daring anybody or anything to try and get in his way. He was immovable, unstoppable, a force to be fucking reckoned with!

He was free. Finally free.


"Leah? Leah, baby?"

She flinched from the voice and scrabbled away from it, shoving herself further into the corner of the room. Complete darkness surrounded her, unbroken and impenetrable by even the tiniest crack of light.

Footsteps rang lightly up the stairs.

"Leah, I know you're in there," the soft voice said. She was right outside of the door, Leah could tell, and she didn't want to see her, she didn't want to see anybody. And she never wanted to look at herself again.

The door was gently pushed open and Leah squinted into the light, just barely able to make out Nova's silhouette.

"Oh, baby," she sighed and came forward.

"Careful," Leah croaked. It had been hours since she'd used her voice. She cleared her throat and pointed over to the other side of the room. "There's glass on the floor."

Nova frowned and carefully tiptoed past the shattered pieces of glass toward the bed. "Why is there glass there, love?" She sat down gently next to her friend and touched her hand.

"I . . ." She sighed. "I broke a mirror."

"Oh." Nova pulled her legs up and hugged them to her chest, just like Leah was doing. She understood. She didn't need to explain. She'd been a whore nearly her entire life. She knew exactly what it was like to hate your own reflection.

She pulled the younger girl into her arms and held her as she cried. She reeked of guilt and shame and there was nothing she could do, absolutely nothing at all.

"I deserve this," she mouthed to herself.

Nova rubbed her cheek against her hair and yet to Leah it seemed like she was nodding. She closed her eyes and nodded back. "I do. I do. I do."


"She okay yet?" Quinn asked, feeling guilty about earlier. Charon had almost killed the girl and here he was flaunting his new sexual status in front of her. He ran a hand over his face, skin prickling in shame.

Nova dropped onto a barstool, smoking a cigarette. The girl was most certainly not okay yet, but she forced a smile and nodded. "Yeah, she'll be all right."

Quinn visibly relaxed. "Oh, good. Good, good. I was worried."

"Yeah." She and Gob exchanged an anxious glance. They knew Leah well and she was exactly the type of person to take this hard. She'd barely known Charon, only been travelling with him for a couple weeks if that long. But she'd sensed the monster in him and wanted to fix it—had to fix it, a compulsion, an unbearable urge.

And . . . Nova had noticed the way the girl looked at him, awed, fascinated. There was some strange energy between the two, rolling up within Leah like a wave and maybe it would have . . . well . . . Nova shook her head. It was no use speculating now.

He was gone and he might never come back.


Charon perched at the top of a nearby pile of rubble and pulled forward a sniper rifle he'd nicked from a raider. He steadied it in front of him and, smiling to himself, lowered his eye to the scope.

The crosshair zeroed in on a female raider with a pink Mohawk. She pouted and simpered as if bored, closing and opening a switchblade, over and over again. She turned and shouted something at someone, but from this distance Charon couldn't hear it.

It was just as well. He pulled the trigger and then nothing the girl had ever said mattered anymore.

In the scope he watched her head explode from the shot. Charon whooped and got to his feet, grinning proudly. He turned over his shoulder with a smirk ready and then paused.

No one was there. Of course no one was there. Why would he turn like that? Who was he hoping to impress?

As the cries of the shocked and furious raiders rose up behind him, he felt his entire body go cold. The thing within him shuddered and faltered, rising angrily once again as it sensed its hold on him waver. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and turned, shotgun at the ready.

The monster was happy to take care of the rest.


Leah giggled incessantly, sprawled out as she was on the roof of the Church of the Atom. Leo glanced at her and then back up at the sky, chuckling along with her.

"You . . . you sure you should be doing this?" she asked, feeling every fiber of her being tremble and tickle. Every muscle in her body would tense and then relax in random succession. Her fingers twitched open and the empty Jet inhaler tumbled out of her hand.

"Oops," she whimpered, watching it clatter down the roof and fall. She heard it splash a second later into the irradiated water below.

"I'm not doing any Jet," Leo insisted with a grin, watching her. "You are, you crazy junkie."

"I've never done . . . done this before." Her giggling was becoming uncontrollable. She turned onto her side and clutched her belly as laughter shook through her. The cold metal felt like ice beneath her and for a moment the image of Antarctica took over her mind and she was in a snow drift, surrounded by white and polar bears. "It's so cold," she murmured, reaching out for the bear, whose black, black eyes stared dolefully at her before she turned and walked away.

"Waiiiit," Leah moaned and then hands were shaking her, touching her face.

"Leah. Calm down."

She opened her eyes and Leo was there, his face very close to hers. He was sort of handsome, from this angle and up close and when his pores were opening to her blooming flowers in all different colors. Flowers. How long had it been since she'd seen one of those. She reached forward to cup one of them and instead felt her hand make contact with his cheek.

"You know, I was surprised when you said you wanted to try it," he admitted huskily. He laughed a little under his breath. "You just never struck me as the type, especially when you shocked me out of using ever again."

"Yeah, well. First everything for a time and all that," she quoted nonsensically and his laughter was very nice, very nice indeed.

Charon never laughed, it seemed. But she mustn't think of Charon because she wanted him, oh did she want him and there was no denying it anymore, not when her skin was burning and her hands were dying to be on his flesh feeling his breath hot on her neck and his lips were touching hers and she was kissing back.

"You taste sweet," she murmured against his lips, "Charon."

The kiss was ended and a low voice said, "Charon? Leah, you all right?"

Her eyes popped open and she saw Leo there and she cursed and turned away. "God damn it, Leo. You . . . I thought you were someone else."

"Evidently. Maybe I should get you home."

"No, just let me ride this out here," she groaned in protest. Her eyes were closed and she could see Charon clear as if he were in front of her behind her eyelids. He was speaking to her low and soft and she listened, drinking in his words.

It's so good to see you. I thought you'd never come.

For good or ill.


The cool night air probably would have felt good to him, if sensations still worked the same for him anymore. For some reason they didn't. It was a small price to pay for his freedom, though. He'd give up his damn sight to be free if he'd had to.

But he hadn't had to. No, he'd gotten his freedom and even made a . . . a friend in the process. He'd been freed.

She'd freed him.

He clenched his eyes shut, willing the thought to leave his mind. The anger managed to push it out, purring, wanting to please its master. Charon nodded in satisfaction and settled back into a lying position. He needed a good night's sleep.

Fifty-three lives today and the anger was still there, pulsing in his veins and tugging at his attention. It was almost getting irritating: he was becoming angry with the anger. Heat rushed uncomfortably in his shoulders and he shrugged them to ease it.

He was free . . . and he wasn't.