Charon

She's not only crazy, she's reckless.

She went after a yao guai with her SMG, which just pisses them off. God only knows how many rounds we had to put into that thing. Whoever we sell the meat to will get their full daily value of lead, that's for sure.

I try to think about what Bones told me to do when I saw the signs of her starting to unravel. Try to get her to open up, get her to talk.

"Let's talk."

"About what?"

"About anything." Just get her talking.

I try getting her to talk about her family, but she becomes sad, silent.

One day, I slip, and call her Mallie. I can't help it – after more than a month out here, she acts and sounds so much like her now. She starts crying, and it seems like it takes forever for her to calm down, to stop.

She wipes her eye with her stump. "I'm not me anymore. I'm turning into her."

"That's not true." She's lost her identity. She doesn't know who she is anymore.

That night she gets drunk, falls asleep soundly by my side.

I realize that it's been a long time since I've seen her smile, be happy.

Her happiness had been taken from her by the Enclave. Her innocence had been taken by me. Her identity, along with her hand, had been taken by a stranger with a shotgun.

I decide that it's high time that we stop into the next town, hit a saloon, find some singing, some dancing, some people. She already likes to drink, so it's easier to get her to go than I thought.

We find a group of shacks in the mountains – what qualifies as a town is pretty loose these days. Before we enter the town, we steel ourselves for what we might find. There's a significant chance that we could find the town unfriendly or even downright hostile to my presence.

We'd run across problems before – people out here don't tend to see many ghouls, so they're either scared or angry when they see me. In one town, we were run out after I was accused of sleeping with her. I'm definitely guilty, but wrong woman.

It doesn't escape my notice that when my employer was male, I never had to worry about this particular accusation. I mention this to Wendy, and she laughs – for the first time in a long time. "I don't suppose any of your male employers came onto you?"

"Well, there was that one…"

She leans in, hoping for a juicy tidbit.

"Just kidding. No. Not one."

She sighs, disappointed.

I shrug my shoulders. "Their loss, huh?"

We laugh.

Wendy

It's nice to be around people again.

Charon sits in a barstool in the corner, nursing a beer. There was a pretty tense moment when we first walked in, but when I assured them that he wouldn't eat their brains, they calmed down pretty quick.

I was delighted to find a small stage inside. "Live music! The last time I heard anything live was that harmonica." A guard on the caravan had played a decent tune, but I was way too tired to enjoy it. Ya know…sprints.

I order a beer and sit next to him, waiting for the music to start.

Charon

It's nice to see her having fun, smiling, laughing, dancing. There's some fumbling in the beginning, but the locals compensate for her missing hand. She tries to get me to join in, but I wave her off, tell her to go have fun. I'm pretty good at kickin' ass, but I never really learned how to dance. Besides – it'd be kinda hard to find a dance partner for someone as tall as I am.

She dances and drinks herself silly. I carry her back to the room we'd rented for the night and drop her on the bed. I pull her close under the covers and soak up her body heat. She drops off to sleep as soon as her head hits the pillow, a smile on her face.