The Pitt was a whirlpool of gunfire, screams, and murky darkness lit by burning cars and buildings. Valeria moved cautiously through the ruins, staying near the pools of light keeping the Trogs at bay. The battle for the Pitt had moved to other parts of the city, and all Valeria found where bodies, both slaves and raiders joined in death. They gave mute testimony to the savagery of the fighting. Slaves lay sprawled where the raiders shot them from the ramps overhead. She also saw the mutilated bodies of bosses hanging or impaled on power poles. Nowhere did Valeria find Milly, living or dead.

Valeria finally arrived at the Fort Pitt Bridge, one of the few still crossing the radiated waters of the Monongahela river. It was now a radioactive inferno covered with bodies and burning wrecks. A large group of slaves had apparently made a desperate attempt to escape and detonated the mines covering the bridge. Once the fusion cores of the derelict cars were breached the bridge was consumed by fire and choked with black smoke.

Valeria watched a mushroom cloud of fire roar toward the sky as another car exploded, then turned to look back at the Pitt. Gunfire crackled in the distance, and there was no sign that the floodlights keeping the Trogs out of Haven had been turned back on. Valeria turned back to the bridge and made sure the pack of supplies she had taken from Ashur's cache was secure as well as her hammer. She had consumed all the bloodpacks she found in the medical supply, knowing she would need all of her remaining strength to escape the Pitt as well as heal from her wounds.

Another fireball erupted from the bridge as Valeria lifted Marie's cryo-crib and looked at the sleeping infant's face through the glass panel. Valeria then looked up at the radioactive hell in front of her and with a snarl charged headlong into it.

Valeria's hair blackened and her skin blistered as she ran half-blinded through walls of searing heat. Valeria couldn't see the other side of the bridge, but knew the only way out was through the flames. She leaped a burning wreck when an explosion filled her vision with white light and flung her against the steel rail of the bridge. Deafened and stunned, Valeria fought to stay conscious then realized Marie was no longer in her arms. She staggered to her feet and saw the capsule surrounded by flames near the gutted shell of a truck. With a scream Valeria hurled herself forward, heedless of the pain as she seized the capsule and leaped through a cloud of radioactive smoke.

Valeria finally emerged from the inferno and dropped to her knees coughing and gagging as she clutched the crib to her. It was several minutes before her radiation fueled healing reduced the pain to where she could take a shuddering breath and open her eyes to look at the crib. It took a moment to focus as Valeria wiped soot from the window with a blistered hand. The indicator lights were green and the little girl was still sleeping in her artificially induced slumber and Valeria felt an unexpected surge of relief. She painfully stood and turned to look back at the Pitt. She had no choice, but still felt she had abandoned all the slaves fighting and dying in the city. Looking down at the baby in her arms she turned her back on the Pitt, and with a heavy heart limped toward the train yard beyond the bridge.

She soon found the hand car that had carried her north, and after securing Marie and their supplies on it began to work the lever. Valeria worried about leaving Marie in the cryo-crib too long, but knew she had little choice if she intended to put some distance between them and pursuit. Among the supplies Ashur cached was a bag of cloth diapers and several cans of Mama Dolce Infant Formula. There was also a pamphlet extolling the virtues of the cryo-crib accompanied by images of perfectly coiffed housewives in spring dresses cooking and cleaning while their infants peacefully slumbered. In the back was a warning in tiny letters that extended use could result in neurological damage.

Once they returned to the wastes, the wind had begun to blow incessantly. With the wastelands devoid of covering vegetation, massive dust storms began to shroud everything in a thick tan fog. When Valeria finally took Marie out of the crib, the little girl immediately began to wail. Back in Vault 101, Valeria had taken the Home Economics course all girls had to take. Aside from the basics of cooking and cleaning, she also learned how to change and care for infants. The problem was that there were no real babies to practice with, and dolls did little to prepare her for the real thing.

For days, Marie alternated between crying and sleeping as Valeria frantically tried to tend to the infant while watching for attacks and trying to keep the hand car moving. She was grateful for the clouds of dust that hid them from predators. Finally the day came when Marie was wailing and Valeria had tried everything she could think of to make the baby stop. Suddenly, the lack of sleep and the stress of constant vigilance were too much and Valeria seized the tightly swaddled infant and screamed. Once she started she couldn't stop, and all the fear and anger she had suppressed since she fled the vault exploded out of her in one long howl of anguish. Spent, Valeria bent over Marie with tears welling from her eyes for the first time in months. Valeria cried for several minutes before she realized that Marie was silent. Opening her eyes, she found the little girl's wide brown eyes staring into hers with solemn fascination. With a cough, Valeria wiped her face and started to laugh as she hugged Marie.

After that moment, it was still difficult and dangerous, but Marie was no longer a demanding screaming burden, but a little person who Valeria had to care for and protect. By the time the two of them had reached the last train tunnel, Valeria was getting a feel for Marie's rhythms, and starting to recognize subtle differences in her cries. Valeria had also found a mostly intact teddy bear in a ruin they had sheltered in, which Marie seemed to find great comfort in chewing on.

Valeria was starting to wonder what she'd do once she returned to the Capital Wasteland. Her father's trail was months cold, and she knew she couldn't take Marie wandering in the wastes. With no idea where to take her, Valeria had begun to wonder if she could raise Marie herself. Perhaps she could find some isolated place where they both could be safe. As she had been told, Marie seemed to be immune to disease and radiation, so perhaps some place no one else would go? Valeria had never considered having a family of her own, she was always too different to think it was possible. For the first time she thought she understood why her father had gone to Vault 101.

Then she had a thought that chilled her. What would she say when Marie eventually asked about her parents? Her father never answered her questions except in generalities, and Valeria knew she couldn't do the same. Deserving or not, Marie's parents died by her hand, and nothing would ever change that fact.

Without her Pipboy, Valeria would have been completely lost. The constant storm made it impossible to make out landmarks, and Valeria had never traveled the northern DC wasteland. Valeria's stamina was beginning to wane when she finally came to a ruined cluster of buildings near an old metro. Night was beginning to fall, and she knew from experience that darkness would be total. She descended into the shadows until she came to wall of collapsed rubble. She turned the crib off and lifted out Marie, shielding from the storm outside with her own body. Valeria fed and changed her, then held the baby in her arms until they both fell asleep with the wind roaring outside.

Marie woke them both up with a sneeze. Valeria opened the last can of formula and mixed a bottle for Marie who greedily gulped it down. She than wrapped Marie in the blanket and placed her back in the crib.

"Shit! What do we have here?" Valeria whirled, grabbing her Sledge and saw a man in heavy combat armor and a mask pointing a rifle at her.

"You're that mutant from the Vault!" He exclaimed. "There can't be two freaks like you running around!" He raised his rifle and added. "Guess I get to keep the bounty!"

Valeria was frantic with the realization that Marie was exposed and any gunfire could kill her. Before the bounty hunter could fire, she leaped at him knocking him to the ground before bringing her hammer down with all her strength.

Valeria searched the dead mercenary noting he had a white talon emblazoned on his breastplate as she found a holodisk. She seized the disk and whirled as she heard shouts of "Over here!" Valeria ran to Marie and closed the crib muffling her cries. She then picked up the crib and ran into the storm hoping to lose their pursuers in the swirling dust. She could hear bullets tearing past her as she tried to leap the boulders that appeared in her path. Suddenly the ground dropped away and she skidded to a stop at the edge of a cliff. Behind her she heard a shout of "Keep firing!" Desperately she turned to shield Marie as she looked for anyplace to jump. Still advancing the bounty hunters got her range and fired another volley. Valeria shuddered from the impact of the rounds, and clutching Marie's crib fell into churning cloud below.

"Time for a story Marie." Valeria said to the little girl lying in the crib. Marie was swaddled tightly as she stared up at the mobile of little red rockets rotating above her. Valeria spotted the book titled "You're SPECIAL" in the lap of Marie's teddy bear on the floor. Valeria stooped to pick it up when Marie started to fuss.

"What is it Marie? Are you hungry?" She looked around and saw a bottle on a table nearby.

"You're not going to feed that to my daughter!" Valeria turned and saw Sandra standing behind her, her arms crossed and blood staining the front of her lab coat.

"It's okay." Valeria said hurriedly. "I'm only using formula and purified Vault water."

"Really?" Sandra sneered. "I'm her mother, how could you possibly know what Marie needs?"

"You were trying to kill me!" Valeria said, shaking her head in confusion. "I was drugged, I didn't mean for it to happen!"

"And that makes it better you monster!" Sandra shrieked. "Look what you're trying to feed Marie!"

Valeria looked down and saw a bloodpack in her hand. She shook her head in denial.

"I didn't mean to!" Valeria sobbed as she fell to her knees, her eyes squeezed shut as Marie's cries filled the air around her. Suddenly the pure tones of a violin cut through the shrieks and the world went dark.

Valeria awoke to a ceiling shrouded in shadows with the sound of the violin still around her. She turned her head to see she was lying on a steel bed covered by a dingy mattress. She was in a sparsely furnished room lit by a lantern hanging from the wall. Next to it was an old woman in a Brahmin hide dress playing a violin over Marie's crib.

Valeria pulled herself to a sitting position, wincing at the pain of her wounds. At the sound, the woman stopped playing and turned around.

"Oh, you're awake." She said. "When Crow brought you here you looked like something the cat dragged in."

"Where am I?" Valeria asked as she looked around the small shack.

"You're in my home." Replied the old woman. "Excuse my manners, I don't meet many new faces out here. My name is Agatha."

"Valeria, and that's Marie." She added gesturing toward the crib.

"So that's the little darling's name." Said Agatha smiling at Marie. She carefully set the violin and bow down on a nearby desk and held out her hand to Valeria. "I'm very pleased to meet you."

"How did I get here?" Valeria asked releasing the old woman's hand.

"Traders stop by on their routes for some music." Agatha explained. "Crow's a tribal and a pretty odd fellow. He said you were lying in the rocks at the base of a cliff shot full of holes. He said he wouldn't have found you if it hadn't been for Marie's crying." She turned again to smile at the sleeping infant before continuing.

"You were all kinds of lucky Crow got to you before anything else did. He said it looked like you took the fall for Marie." Agatha chuckled. "He said you bore the mark of one who was hunted, but that it wasn't your time to go to the spirit." Agatha shook her head. "Like I said, he's an odd one."

"This Crow brought me here with Marie?" Valeria asked.

"Yes." Agatha replied. "He couldn't take you with him, but he said I had nothing to fear from you. At first I wasn't sure about that, but you were in such a bad way, and poor little Marie didn't have anyone else."

"Are we in a settlement?" Valeria wondered looking around.

"No, just me out here." Agatha replied. "My late husband built this house so we would be hidden from the raiders and mutants. Only the caravans know about this place, and they stop by to deliver supplies."

Valeria looked around the shack noting the Captain Cosmos poster and a teddy bear lying next to Marie's crib that appeared in better condition then the one she found in the wastes. Agatha noted Valeria's gaze and smiled sadly.

"We got that bear years ago when we thought…Well, we never had any children of our own." Agatha explained with a sigh. "I never could bring myself to throw it away."

Valeria looked down at her armor, and then around for her other gear. "Did I have anything else with me?" She asked Agatha.

"Your things are over there with the metal boxes." Agatha said pointing to an old surgical screen sectioning off part of the shack. "They also found you with this." She added, picking up a holotape from the desk and handing it to Valeria. Valeria accessed it with her Pipboy and read a bounty of one thousand caps if her head was delivered as proof she had been killed. There was no name signed to it, and Valeria set it down on the bed. There had been no mistake; she had stumbled on a team of mercenaries who had a contract to kill her.

"I was attacked by soldiers with a white claw on their armor." Valeria said, looking up at Agatha.

"A white claw?" Agatha thought a moment then said. "The traders made some mention of a group of mercenaries with that sign. They call themselves 'Talon Company'. They say they're a bad bunch."

The mercenaries that attacked her had been well armed and accurate even in the storm. Who wanted her dead badly enough to hire professional killers? Was Wernher coming after her? He had contacts with the slavers that could extend his reach to the Capital Wasteland.

"Are the slavers a problem?" Valeria asked.

"Not for me." Agatha admitted. "But the traders say they've raided out of Paradise Falls a lot more lately."

Valeria shook her head and slowly stood from the bed. After her experience in the Pitt, she had no trouble attacking slavers. If Eulogy Jones had put the price on her for Wernher, she was going to shut him down. She walked over to Marie's crib and looked down at the sleeping little girl.

"Turns out she loves violin music." Agatha said hesitantly as Valeria stared down at the crib. "Puts her right to sleep."

"There is something I have to do." Valeria said, not looking up from the crib. "Can I leave Marie with you…until I get back?"

"Of course." Agatha replied. "I have what's left of that formula you brought, and I'll have Doc Hoff bring some Brahmin milk by on his next shipment."

"Thank you." Valeria said as she looked up to meet Agatha's eyes. "I was wondering…"

"What dear?"

"Could you…play the music Marie likes?"

"Of course." Agatha replied with a smile as she picked up her instrument, waited for Valeria to sit, and then touched the bow to the strings.