Note: I want to say this is a placeholder, but I need to move this plot. This chapter is, honestly, mostly filler. It'll get exciting real soon.

"You gotta stop doin' that thing," Jericho said, holding up his rifle. His foot was propped up on the back of a Super Mutant, dead on the floor, as Lillie made her way toward a wall.

She put her fingers onto the cracked surface, and turned her head in his direction. "Doing what thing?" she said, her eyes about two feet to the left of him.

"That fuckin' nose thing you're doin'. When you lie." Jericho lifted his foot and brought it down hard, on the back of the mutant's head. Damn things twitching after dying, shit, made him nervous. Fuckin' mutants.

She frowned, and moved along the wall, feeling for the doorway. "Didn't know I was," she said, quietly. Her head turned back to the door, and she grabbed the knob.

"Your dad knew you was lying," he added, walking along behind her, slowly. She walked like a drunk, wobbling all over the damn place. "Christ, maybe you should turn off the damn radio. 'Least then you'll be able to see."

"Well," Lillie said, holding the railing and moving down the stairs more confidently, "if I did that, you know what's going to happen."

"Yeah, but you said―" he grabbed the back of her armor before she fell on the last step. She pushed herself upright from her bent position. "You said you wanted them assholes to show up."

"I did," she admitted, one hand moving to pull out her pistol. She held it up after making sure the clip was loaded, and turned herself slightly. "But not yet. First we make sure this is ready to go. Then..." she sighed, and pulled herself forward by the edge of another doorway.

"Fuckin' stinks in here," Jericho muttered, moving along with her as she began to explore the room.

"That's what dead things do," she whispered, moving into another hallway. She dropped to a crouch and took a cautious step.

"You know what I don't get," he added, not willing to force his knees into a crouch. Was too old for that bullshit, anyway. And hell... they always saw him coming, in the past. He grinned a little.

"What I don't get is you tellin' papa I smell. How the fuck is that a lie?" He stared down at the yellow hair, the back of her head about thigh-level.

Lillie moved one hand up to her mouth in a shushing gesture. He listened, but all he could hear was dripping water and a low hum from some kind of generator. She moved across the hallway, slowly, and held her head near another doorway. After a moment, she gestured with her pistol for him to shoot into the room.

Well, she was right, one of the big ugly bastards was right there. "How the hell you hearin' that," he wondered.

"Not very easily, if you keep talking," she grumbled, shooting a look in his direction. "Come on, jerk."

"Jerk," he mocked, grinning slyly. "Goddamn. I oughta teach you to talk shit, too."

"Just because I don't use your bastardized version of English doesn't mean I'm less of a threat," she started, her voice serious. "Stop being an asshole."

Jericho chuckled, following behind her. "Might like you a little more if you didn't act so fuckin' hoity-toity."

"Shush," she said. "There's more mutants ahead."

After clearing the mutants from the basement, Jericho grabbed the chain link fence separating the upper level from the open space to the floor below. Stared down into the water and smoked a cigarette, eyeballing the drop.

"Can we please go now," Lillie said, sounding annoyed. "There's a whole lot of things I want to do today, but hanging out in this nasty basement is not one of them."

"Calm your tits, I'm thinkin'," he answered, without looking at her.

"Oh," she said, like that answered everything. "You need some med-x for the pain?"

"Hardy fuckin' har har," he grumbled, but he was grinning.

"I'm learning," she sniped back. "From the best, even."

His head swelled up again. Remembered how he'd felt when he first started talking to her. Her and that damn smile she'd given him...

"See? That's what I like to see," he said, dropping the cigarette through the fencing and watching it hit the water below, hissing. "You lost some of that shit, after finding your daddy."

"I don't really want to talk―" she started, huffing and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Yeah, so what?" he said, turning to look at her. "Makin' me talk about the shit I don't wanna. You ain't been the same since he showed up. Did just fine when we wasn't around him."

Lillie scoffed and looked away. "Whatever, Jericho," she muttered. "It's none of your business."

"Yeah, I thought so," he said. "Little baby flower, all growed up." He coughed and spat on the floor. "Jesus, you're so fuckin' stupid, doin' all this shit for him, for free even."

"Don't you even," she said, glaring in his direction. "Anything I do here, it's for Colonel―" she snapped her mouth shut, colored, and looked down at the floor.

He saw that, but didn't comment. Little girl was all bothered about this Colonel fella. He'd heard her saying all that shit about it, back in the Vault jail. Couldn't imagine what type of man would get her all flustered. Her, all "beat your ass in the morning instead of coffee" and playing at being coy. All mind games and fuckin' idolizing smiles.

Heh, maybe it was the fucking uniform. He'd seen that a few times, when some bitch raider took down a soldier and stole his gear. For a good fuck... yeah, he'd played pretend, just like Lillie was, a couple times.

"This fuckin' Enclave bullshit is gonna get you killed," he said, staring at her. "I ain't ever sworn no fuckin' allegiance."

"Why do you give a shit," she said, but the curse fell flat in her voice.

"Because, kid," he said, pushing himself away from the fencing. "Like I said, I like ya."

Lillie sighed, lowering her arms. "Well," she said, sounding dejected. "You know how it is. You get in with people and you... can't leave easy."

Yeah, he knew. Remembered what happened when he got caught out. He'd literally dragged his bloodied ass through those gates at Megaton, only to be held up by Simms and questioned while his fucking intestines were threatening to spill. Only reason he'd survived was fucking goodwill... and the sack of caps he'd stolen.

She thumbed her head where she had all those scars and blinked into the dark room. "I don't know that I want to leave, though," she said.

"Even after all that shit your dad said?" he asked, gauging her reaction.

She made a frustrated noise. "I wish he'd stayed dead," she mumbled, snottily.

Jericho laughed, in spite of the seriousness of the conversation. Stupid kid, that's all she was. Had no fucking clue how good she had it. Knowing her dad wasn't gonna kill her, or worse―Jericho shook his head at her.

"C'mon," he said, moving toward the door. "Think the smell's getting to me."

Reached the upstairs of the place only to be told to go back down to the basement, anyway. He grumbled under his breath and ignored the looks her dad was shooting at him. Parked his ass on the steps leading up to the controls in the rotunda, and smoked another cigarette as Lillie made her way through the sub levels.

"I expect you to be less crude, if I'm paying you," James said, his attitude just as snotty as Lillie's was.

"Yeah, and I fuckin' expect to actually get paid," he muttered back.

James shut his fat mouth then, and kept puttering about inside of that control room. Some nice-looking woman with him, doing assistant stuff. Jericho watched her walking around, wondering.

Sober again. Kept shit better in his head when he was, no argument there. When Lillie asked him to teach her how to lie, she'd looked so damn innocent his booze-fried brain just lost it.

Once he'd sobered up, he knew it was gonna be an uphill battle. Wished he hadn't told her yes. Christ, but she was shit for lying. Really. Even her trying to say she didn't need him around―that damn nose wiggle she did, like she was some kind of pretty-ass mole rat. Well, she wasn't no mole-rat, but she was pretty and he was bored as fuck back in Megaton. Pretty sure she knew he wasn't leaving any time soon.

She wasn't kidding, though. Did need to be taught. Didn't know if he was the right kind of teacher she needed. But she did need him to watch out for her ass. Right now she was wondering around blindly through the basement, stopping at every damn intercom and didn't her daddy give him a nice shit-filled look every time it sounded off.

Screw the man, Jericho was old. Older than all of the people in the damn building, even. Lillie was young and if she fell down, her knee bones weren't gonna drum a beat against each other. She was gonna fall down a couple times, too, didn't seem like she was all that good at actually being blind.

He'd thought she could see better than she did, but he'd gotten her over that railing pretty quick. That one was almost kinda disappointing, now that he thought about it.

Expected she was gonna put him flat on his ass. She didn't. She really was trusting him, like she said. Kinda... hell, no kinda, just was. He was flattered. All them flirty comments she made trying to make him feel big and badass, but when she couldn't hack it no more he finally felt the realness of her compliments.

Before, he could give a shit about her way of talking. She didn't give him a good reason to stay until she leveled with him about not knowing the rules of the game. After that, her treating him all fair and square, like... he snorted, then coughed and hacked up blood again. Like her making plans and letting him in on them, like he was in the know, instead of the "come here, do this" shit that Moriarty always tried.

Stared at the oozing spit on the metal stair step and sighed. She actually sounded worried about him, too, when he got shot. She wasn't worried about him having a hole in his gut either. Was worried about him being sick, coughing up blood.

Never met no one that wanted to talk to him about that. Everyone else turned their head or pretended it wasn't happening. Even that dumbass Doc Church wasn't hot on telling him the truth. That, what he'd told Lillie, that was the fuckin' truth through and through.

"When she gets back, I'll need her to clear one of the pipes," James said, interrupting his thoughts. "You'll have to go with her, there's a big drop in there and I don't want her hitting her head on anything―"

"Yeah, alright," Jericho said. "Stop treatin' me like some kind of fuckin' babysitter."

James fixed him with a look like Simms used to give him. One of those, "you mind your shit" kind of looks. Jericho rolled his eyes at him and looked away, ignoring him.

Now he wondered why Lillie wanted James to stay dead. Implied the man had died, before. He wasn't, but who knew. Looked healthy enough.

When she came to the rotunda, Jericho pushed her back out the door and down through the place. "You think about what I said?" he asked her.

She stumbled on the rubble in the hallway, but pinched in her face. "Which part?" she asked, curious.

"That Enclave bullshit," he said, moving to open the pipe. "Getting out of the racket."

"Well..." she "hmm"ed a little. "I'll have an answer for that in about two or three minutes."

He glanced back at her and saw her turn off the radio on her Pip-Boy, and rolled his eyes. Whatever her plan was with them fucks... it was about to get turned up hot.

Shit, though. It was still a lot more interesting than Megaton.