The Vault cell was darkened but not unwelcome. After having been outside, in the wastes... Lillie stared at the ceiling, lying on the bed and holding her hand to her chest with his message tucked into her palm. She missed Raven Rock, so much―

Lillie ran her fingers over the tilted writing on the paper, not looking at it but picturing the message in her mind. She smiled, softly, and let her mind drift off as her dad and Jericho got into an argument about something she probably should have been listening to.

He―He cared, still. It was so very important to her that he cared. He had lied, and he had been rude, and he had turned a weapon onto her―but he was at the mercy of a greater mind. It wasn't... wasn't his fault. Not hers, either. The one who should be blamed... she closed her eyes and tried to keep the smile on her face.

She felt the ache in her heart. The President had definitely set this whole plan into motion, causing her anger. Colonel Autumn's reply to her messages... She smiled wider. He respected her, enough to send this message. He―

Her smile slowly disappeared. The President had pushed her into the wastes, and expected her to go "home". But it wasn't home. He'd based his plans on her perceived affiliation with the people inside the Vault, but his plan was crucially flawed. Broken at the base, and in danger of falling.

Because her dad had lied, in order to protect her. Like Colonel Autumn lied... she sighed. She'd been as angry as ever, when her dad showed up at the Vault door, and even though he'd pleaded with her to listen to him and understand that he'd only ever meant the best―his lie had caused such a long shadow and she wasn't entirely sure how they would get away from it.

It was even more dangerous now, more than it had been before. And... and she realized that if she were not of pure stock, he would―Lillie pushed the thought from her mind. No. No, she would ignore that. She needed to be strong for this, and that―

The very idea that she would be unacceptable in what she had been raised to be, simply for her breeding, would destroy her.

She turned her mind back to the situation at hand. Inside the Vault, awaiting a verdict given by the Overseer after he spoke with his people. President Eden expected she would encourage these people to join the Enclave, to further its goals―and she would, but not for President Eden.

Anything she did now, she did for Colonel Autumn. She was firm in that. He was more worthy of being in charge than the President, who had been manipulating them both―and his hand had steadied the Enclave, through the years. He was smart enough to know that President Eden was dangerous to his people―a tyrant, who moved the pieces on the board and wasn't afraid to sacrifice them. Pawns that could be saved, yet, pawns that did not need to be lost.

She sighed. Pawns she'd never had a chance to know, because of both the President and the Colonel. She hadn't been allowed to interact with the people she was supposed to be loyal to; maybe that was a good thing, given the disclosure she'd been handed.

"What the fuck are you goin' on about!" Jericho was asking her dad, arms crossed and staring down at him with a nasty look on his face. Lillie turned her attention back to them.

"I don't need to explain myself to―" James looked him up and down and shook his head. "I don't even need to know where Lillie found you, but I can only assume it was the tail-end of a Brahmin. Hence the smell."

Jericho's arms dropped and he lunged at her dad, intent to grab him. Lillie snapped at him. "Stop messing around!"

She sat up on the bed as Jericho stopped in his motion, making aggravated noises. "God, you two." She rubbed her cheek and shoved the message into a pocket.

"Uppity cocksucker," Jericho muttered, staring at her dad hatefully.

"Jericho, you need to behave," Lillie told him, frowning. "I need your help, not your heinous lack of manners."

He rolled his eyes, crossed his arms again, and flopped down onto the bed on the other side of the room. Stared at the wall and muttered to himself in a low tone. She pursed her lips and watched him for a moment.

"Dad," she said, turning to him.

He sighed and turned to face her. "Lillie, can we please talk on an equal level?" he asked, looking very tired and very confused.

"I don't think so," she said, coldly. "One can't have equivocal conversations with liars."

"Lillie," he said, reproachfully. "That's―"

"Unfair?" she said, tilting her head at him. "Undeserved? Perhaps... understated, would be more fitting. You have no idea what your lie has done―" she bared her teeth in anger. "What your lie brought on us, on others!"

"I deserve this anger, sweetie," he said, calmly. "I know the ramification―"

"No, you don't!" she shouted, heatedly. "You―oh, my God, Dad, do you realize what will happen to you when the President finds out?! What will happen to me? Or―" she stopped herself. It was none of his business what she thought of anyone else. If he couldn't trust her with the truth of their lives, she wasn't about to give him her honest opinion of Colonel Autumn.

"Lillie, calm down," he said. "Let me explain."

"More bullshit," Jericho muttered. Lillie glared at him and he studied the floor intently.

"Your mother died, and I couldn't keep you safe!" James said, raising his voice. "Almodovar wouldn't let me into the Vault. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't protect you any other way―"

"If you'd been honest with the President―" she interrupted.

Her dad cut through hers with another interruption. "If I had been honest with Eden, he probably would have thrown us in an incinerator, Lillie!"

She scoffed. "I doubt that," she muttered.

"You don't understand." He rubbed his face. "Sweetie, I didn't think that you would have to come back here. Ever. And when Eden told me about your goal―"

"Well, I'm going to have to finish that, now aren't I?" she snapped. "And it's on your head what happens." Lillie crossed her legs. "I'm not particularly interested in being a traitor." She glared at him. "Everything that was planned for―everything about my life―I was designed for this! And―and―" her eyes began to tear up a little, and she looked away.

"Lillie―" he said, and closed his eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry. I really can't offer you much more than an apology―"

"More?" she scoffed. "How―" she jammed her mouth shut. "I'm not going to argue with you about this." She wiped her face. "And we aren't even―we're not Enclave if we aren't from the Vault, Dad!" Her voice wobbled a little.

She hated to let that out. Hated to think it, didn't want to, but now she'd never have her knight because her dad lied and she didn't deserve to even be near him―

She was outcast, Mowgli in the jungle. There were no knights in the jungle. Only animals with bared teeth and claws, and she'd fight for it but she would never fit into their world. She couldn't fit into the world that he came from, nor the one her father took her from―

She felt a stabbing pain in his chest. She had no future, nothing. She'd been Enclave, and now... now she was an automatic traitor. His respect had finally been delivered, and she didn't even deserve it.

"Lillie, I didn't have a choice but to lie―"

"Everyone has a choice, Dad!" she shrieked, her voice carrying a little too loudly in the small room. Jericho winced and stuck a finger in his ear, glancing up at her. "It's the foundation of a free world, to choose! You chose to lie! You chose to destroy everything with that lie! You―" She covered her eyes and brought her knees up to her chest. He'd taken her away from a life she might have led, and now he had taken the life she had led! It was―she wanted to cry, but she couldn't let them see―

"Because we were alone, Lillie, and I made a decision to save us?" He stopped himself. "Lillie, there's more going on than you understand! I want you to learn―"

"And you couldn't teach me before!?" she snapped back at him, wiping her face. She growled in frustration. "I'm done with it! I'm done with your lies, and I'm done with―"

"You've been conned into working for those who would have condemned us to die!" he shot back. "I couldn't protect you, I know that! I can't make it any better, Lillie, not the way this―the way everything turned out―" He clenched his fists and stared at her. "I told you that you shouldn't trust anyone. I warned you that you had to make your own decisions―"

"You said I shouldn't trust him!" she yelled, her feet hitting the floor angrily. Lillie stood up and moved into her dad's personal space, putting herself into his face like Jericho had when he was arguing with her. "But―you're just jealous!"

"Jealous?" he sputtered, incredulously. "Jealous of a man who would have put a bullet through my head if he were allowed? Eden was the only thing that kept me alive for the five years that I was imprisoned! And you―you were brainwashed, by those idiots! Brainwashed into believing that they were the only answer! You do not have all the facts―how can you form your own opinion with limited knowledge of the truth?"

"You're jealous that Colonel Autumn could protect me!" she said, spitting at him. He was deflecting her line of argument. It told her volumes about how he actually felt; he didn't want to talk about the Colonel―and she would force him to, because she wanted to know why. Why he was evasive―

"You couldn't protect me, and he could, and you don't want to believe that!" she summed up, her eyes locked on his. Why he was trying to convince her of such horrible actions by someone who had tried to help.

He pressed his mouth together, staring at her. Lillie watched his nostrils flare in anger. "Lillie," he said, in a low and serious voice, "I already have my suspicions about the nature of your relationship with that man. Please." His voice broke with emotion. "Please don't confirm them in this way―"

He thought she loved Colonel Autumn, then. It explained why he'd been so tetchy with her in the laboratory prison. Explained why he was so firm on her not trusting him. She'd turned him off the subject, the last time. She hadn't―she hadn't known what to feel, then. After the events of the last week, and her own mistakes, she had a better idea of what she had felt. What she did feel.

She trusted him. She trusted him with her life, because he was trusting her, and he deserved that much in return. Even if she couldn't ever have what she'd―she put her foot down on that thought. No, Lillie. Not right now―

"For the love of God, Dad," she muttered, "you're acting like I've been forced into something I shouldn't want."

"Good God," he muttered, covering his eyes with one hand. "Lillie―"

"I don't want to hear it," she said, backing away and crossing her arms, staring at him. "You'll think what you want, no matter what I say. But you will let me complete my mission." She turned her head. "Jericho?"

"What?" he groaned, rubbing his forehead. He leaned his elbows onto his knees and stared at her.

"I need you to think of the worst, most nasty, most horrific, thing you've ever seen in the wastes. Put it into a story. When the Overseer comes back, and he will, I want you to tell that story to them. Put some effort into it. Make it disturbing." Lillie tilted her head and smiled at him. "I think you'll enjoy that."

Jericho snorted out a laugh, one corner of his mouth turning up as he sat upright. Lillie watched his eyes, saw the little light that shined through. He liked it when she smiled at him. She could tell. If it got her where she needed to go... she would smile until her cheeks hurt.

She curled her hand near her chin again, her eyes reduced to slits as she watched him thinking. "You're sure they're not gonna just throw us out on our asses?" he asked, rubbing his fingertips together on one hand.

"I am," she said, retreating to the bed on the other side of the room. "We are going to impress on them the value of a life lived underground, and ask them to side with the Enclave."

"Ain't that the shit Nathan's always on about?" Jericho wondered.

"Jericho," she said, chastising him. "I told you that you could leave if you wanted. In for a penny, now."

He laughed again, and kicked out his legs, lying down on the bed with his hands behind his head. "Nah, I'm good. 'Sides... you're startin' to grow on me."

Her dad sighed and stared at the far wall, without a word. Lillie pulled the message from her pocket again and held it to her heart, trying not to hurt.

For him. She'd finish this, for him.

And then...