Aimee paced back and forth in front of the wooden door leading to Vault 101's cavern with her hands wringing themselves in front of her body, once in a while daring to sneak a peek at the still wooden door- darkness peeking out at her from between the boards like ominous slivers of something she would not expect coming. Charon could see the nervousness she carried, as it was riddled all over not only her face, but her presence.
Charon gave a slightly cocky smirk and a tilt of his head. "What are your orders, MeeMee?"
She spun around faster than his eyes could follow to gawk at him.
"First of all, wipe that damned smirk off your face. Second of all, you are to call me Aimee or the nickname you picked out for me- which I love very much, by the way. And third of all- oh, that feels weird to say… You are to stay out here."
He gave a soft frown and a barely noticeable quip in his brow. "Whatever for?"
"Everyone in there aren't used to-… well," She rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly as if it had grown stiff, flicking a hand out to him with her palm facing up and her fingers crooked. "You."
"You mean a walking, living and breathing corpse?"
She cringed at his words. "Char-bear…"
"I know you don't wish to say it, but it is what you think and I know." She could sense the hurt in his eyes.
"It's not like that, Charon." She spoke firmly, looking back at him with her hands on her broad hips. "As far as the people down there know, this place is a hellhole of radiation. Inhabitable, but a hellhole none the less. They don't know what's up here, and I don't want them freaking out or something…"
"…It would be best." He finally growled out reluctantly, eyes darting away from her.
"Thank you," She gave an airy sigh of relief as a small smile crept into her lips.
"But I completely disagree with having to stay here while you go in alone."
The smile looked as if it had been smacked off her face. "What? Wha- why?"
"You said that the "party" they threw you when you departed wasn't exactly…heartwarming." His tone suddenly sounded as if it were laced with barbed wire upon the last word. "What makes you think the welcoming committee is going to be any better?"
Aimee sighed, running her fingers through her curls. They felt longer than they should have, stopping a little before her shoulders and her bangs were still in her eyes… If Butch had gotten any good at hairdressing, maybe she could ask for a trim- if he didn't skip his lessons like he bragged that he did when they were younger.
No- I'm not taking the chance. Then I really will have to kill something…
"Charon, I don't want them freaking out if they see you. It's the last thing I need…" She walked over to him, where he was perched on a rock with his arms folded over his chest. She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "You said before that they get mad at things they don't understand, right?"
"Don't use my words against me." He tilted his head back a little, as if trying to get a better look at her. "But… It's plausible that they will not understand what I am and become terrified…"
"Well, I meant more of our relationship." She shrugged, sitting on a smaller rock next to him and folded her legs up in front of her, tucking her hands underneath to keep them from slipping off the rock as she looked up to her big ghoul.
"Our relationship? Me being your bodyguard?"
"No, not that- I meant the fact that I consider you as one of my closest friends. Closer than Amata, and I've known her since I was a baby." The statement made the muscle in his neck twitch, and she realized that with the comparison she made to someone she also called a good friend, something must have clicked in his head- causing him to see just how much he meant to her. "And I don't want someone shooting at you because they're scared of you… Not my fault you've got that "I'm gonna paint the walls with your blood" air going on about you. I wouldn't put it past you if someone laid a hand on me- I've seen you actually do it before…"
"So you admit that someone in there will attempt to hurt you?" Charon asked for change of subject.
"I never said they wouldn't try- almost a year later, they've still gotta have some bumps and bruises from back then after I was done with them, and maybe a sour grudge or two. I have to imagine that some of them won't be too happy with my mysterious return."
"I'm coming with you," He spoke as he stood up.
"Oh, no, you so aren't going in there with me!"
He looked back at her and gave a simple blink as he pulled the shotgun from his back, cocking it- almost as if it would get his point across loud and clear.
"I said no, Char-bear!" She got up and strode towards him, pushing his weapon down to look up into his eyes with all the seriousness she could muster into her neutral orbs. "Haven't you been listening? I don't want you getting hurt because those jerk-offs are mad at me!"
"I believe they'd be trying to hurt me more so because they believe zombies roam the outside world and have come to eat their brains opposed to your return." He pointed out, keeping his shotgun in hand.
Aimee sighed, moving her hands away and pointed to the rock he was once perched on with the other on her broad hip firmly.
"Sit down and stop whining."
He opened his mouth to talk, but stopped when she jabbed her sharp finger at the abandoned rock again as if her were a small child being punished.
"Char-bear, please…" Her voice and face softened. "I don't want to order you to."
"Why not? You have my contract."
"That doesn't mean that I have the right to boss you around!"
"It entitles you to that right exactly."
"If I am your employer, than that means that I am responsible for your wellbeing, and if looking out for your wellbeing means telling you to sit on a rock like a lump to keep you from being shot at then I will tell you to sit on a fucking rock like the grumpy lump that you are!"
Charon could see the anger flaring in her eyes. So without further ado, and a few grumbles under his breath, his shotgun was clipped to the straps on his back as he ambled over to the rock and plopped down, placing an elbow on one knee to cradle the corner of his jaw in his upturned palm.
Aimee gave a sad sigh and walked over to him, picking up his free hand from his lap to get his attention as she held it in both of hers.
"I promise I'll come back to you unharmed, alright? If any of them mess with me they'll either get a knee to the family jewels or an elbow to the ovaries- sound good enough?"
He glanced up at her, removing his jaw from his cradling palm then looked down at his large hand intertwined in both of hers. She looked so small in comparison to him- yes, she was just small in general, but never had she looked so petite then when she was standing at his side… And the softness of her pale, porcelain-like digits wrapped over his ruined paw of red flesh and decrepit muscle made something in him twitch. It felt like a switch clicked upright in his head, telling him that this was familiar somehow. But long ago when he still had skin, matching that of the hands that once held his.
"And if you come back injured, or do not come back at all-?" He asked with his voice trailing off.
"I will- uhm…" She tapped her chin in thought. "What do you want?"
"For you to come back unharmed- or for me to go in with you in the first place to keep you from getting hurt would be nice, too." She caught the snarky sarcasm in his voice.
"Shuddup." Aimee gave a sigh. "We'll think of something. But I highly doubt we'll need to because I'll be totally fine! Now, stay here and I'll be back in… I don't know, actually. To be safe, let's say a few hours."
"As you wish." Charon finally spoke, giving a nod. "Do what needs to be done and get back here in one piece. I'd like to have something more than a body part for Doc Church to examine."
She shot him a nasty look over her shoulder as she went to the wooden door, trying not to jump at how loudly it shrieked when it came open.
"Nice to know you have some faith in me, Char-bear…" Her face softened. "Why don't you head back to Megaton, and I'll go home when I'm finished up here."
"Is that an order or a statement?"
"Uh- a friendly suggestion, more like it…" She furrowed her brows together.
"I prefer to wait here for your return."
Aimee gave a nod and a little wave of a goodbye as she entered the cavern and the door creaked shut behind her- letting a menacing slam rebound around her, reaching down the stuffy tunnel. She took a hard swallow as she stepped forward, glancing around at every rock and rolling wall surface as if it were new for her. It wasn't, but it felt like she hadn't stepped into this place in a million years let alone only one- and barely a year at that. It would be in a couple of months, though, she had to remind herself.
She stopped with wide eyes up at the giant steel door played before her- looking like an enormous cog wheel. She averted her eyes to the console at her side where a red blinking light flashed at her. Not wanting to waste any time, her fingers clicked across the keys before her mind could register that they were moving on their own- but the letters being clicked rattled around in her skull as the keys were pushed down.
A-M-A-T-A…
The klaxon siren began to sound off and she clamped her hands over her ears, immediately wishing she could crumple to her knees or maybe run back outside to Charon and possibly cry. A whole mess of images, noises, faces, and voices seemed to sweep over her in never-ending wave after rough wave.
Amata frantically trying to help me escape, outlining her plan while using a lot of sweeping hand motions with her voice cracking over every few words through her tears. I had barely listened to any of it- my mind kept wandering off to dad's smiling face, telling me that I had done a good job on a drawing I had done of Andy just the night before and he sent me to bed with a hug and kiss on the forehead. He was as normal as could be. Or maybe he wasn't, and I just didn't notice?…
A wooden bat in hand, heavy and smeared with crimson as it skidded along the floor behind me... I stumbled down a long metal hall, my free hand dragging along the wall to leave a streak of waning red in my wake. I took a moment to look over my shoulder and stare at Officer Kendall's battered body before violently heaving whatever I had in her stomach against the wall and on the floor. Some of it got into my hair, I recall.
Smashing radroaches- so little in that small room but so many more outside… Ellen DeLoria shrieking like a banshee, curled up in a ball at my feet while Butch stood in the doorway, gawking as if I had grown another head. He tossed me his Tunnel Snakes jacket without saying another word, helping his mother off the floor and taking her to the disheveled living room to give her a beer so she could calm down. He then turned to me and thanked me, before telling me to get the hell out because the guards could be there any minute now.
I didn't know when or how, but I found Jonas with his limbs sprawled in different directions- some bent in funny angles with the bones jutting out from his dark skin, glasses askew on his face with his familiar lab coat stained red with his blood... I clung onto him, collapsed on the floor with him sprawled across my lap, crying and weeping because he was like a big brother to me... He was the brother I always wanted... Something was poking out of his coat pocket- I took it, slipping it into my Pip-Boy with tears running down my cheeks. It was her dad's voice saying that he loved me, and Jonas advising he hurry in the background. I continued to weep as I plucked his broken glasses off his face- the wire rims were all bent out of shape, and one of the lenses was completely shattered with the glass sticking out in sharp shards all around his right eye, imbedded in his chocolate skin.
Another hall, another corridor- so much blood- how much was radroach, how much was human, how much of it was even mine?
Then I was suddenly staring down the barrel of a 10mm pistol, and the grinning face of the Overseer as I stood at the open mouth of the secret tunnel he had hiding under his desk. "I won." He mouthed as he shot me in the chest, right over my screaming heart, and I tumbled down the stairs, hitting my head on the last step. I laid at the bottom with my arm bending in a funny way like Jonas' and the wind knocked out of me. I gazed up at Alphonse one last time before he closed the tunnel on me, and I was suddenly shrouded in darkness with the pain ringing in me like a dinner bell. So I got up, gripping my shoulder and ran down the hall to the nearest exit.
I opened the door, unable to cover my ears as well as I wanted when the siren began to blare because of my bad arm. Amata was suddenly at my side, shrieking and crying about my injured limb, but all I did was stare forward with more tears coming from my eyes. The door was right there. The door was right there, only a few yards away and I couldn't get my fucking feet to move. But then, at the wooden door all the way at the opposite end of the tunnel, I saw it. It was streaming through the rotted boards, illuminating the disturbed particles that danced through the air with the wind billowing through the cracks of the door.
It was sunlight. And sunlight looked pure- purer than anything she could imagine.
I took a step forward. Then another, and another with Amata still yelling about my arm. I didn't listen because I didn't care- all I saw was light, and all I heard- or wanted to hear- was silence.
But then another door opened behind us and two officers emerged, shooting at me. Amata was dragged out of sight, presumably back to her father as I broke out into a fevered run with my bat dragging behind me in the dirt by my good arm. They stopped shooting once my feet left the metal threshold of the Vault's gear-like door, and it slowly began to climb closed behind me.
My bat clattered to the ground as I leapt forward at the very end of the tunnel.
My mind barely acknowledged the clean prints of thick fingers on the door from someone who had used it recently, and prior to me shoving my injured shoulder into it to tumble outside.
I lay sprawled across the ground like a butchered rag doll, taking gulping lungful after lungful of air- alternating between my mouth and nose once every few inhales so I could smell the dryness and then taste it.
Aimee looked up at the sky-
The first time I've ever seen sunlight…
-blinding her with its purity and she knew right then-
It burns… But I can't look away… I'll never look away…
-that the sunlight was hers and no one else's-
No one else's…
She uncovered her ears once the siren stopped and the doorway was free, but she dare not enter. Not just yet. She stepped up onto the metal platform looming below the Vault's mouth, staring into what she thought would have been so familiar- and it was- it was her little hole in the ground, the place she grew up in, in shambles at her feet.
Sandbags created short walls, reaching about waist-high, to each side of the short stairwell in front of her that led up to the main door that led to the heart of the Vault. Fold out signs, white with bold red lettering were placed at each side as well with the painted messages demanding that the remaining Vault Dwellers keep away from the front room that led to the exit- unless they had a death wish. The room smelled rank with decayed flesh, and silence she expected to hear was no longer there with the quiet chitter of radroaches from somewhere in front of her and the rebounding silence of the long, narrow cavern behind her. Papers were tossed all over the dirty floor, and from the side of the sandbag wall on her left she saw blood splattered across the metal ground- a hand with curled fingers revealing itself while the rest of the body was hiding behind the sandbag wall, the stiff limb in sync with the splattered blood.
Aimee took a moment to look down at herself, lightly pulling back the collar of her shirt then tugging the sleeve down her shoulder. She gazed at the ravaged indent that peeked right over the cup of her ratty white bra. It looked like a suckered scar, lighter in color than her already pale skin and the sound of a 10mm pistol in the hands of an Overseer clicked in the back of her mind when she ran her fingertip over it.
If she hadn't been wearing the bulletproof vest she stripped off a dead guard and slipped it on under her suit, she would have died that day. She could only imagine Alphonse's anger upon hearing that she lived and successfully escaped, and now, he's probably sending a lovely "welcome home" package of a handful of guards to come meet her at the front gates of the Vault if he were watching the terminal screen that was connected to the camera staring down at her right now.
But no one stomped in to greet her, so she gave an airy sigh as she lightly fingered over the indent where the bullet from his 10mm pistol had impacted.
"Well…I'm coming home." Aimee said aloud as she removed her shaking fingers from the scar and made her first step over the threshold. Almost immediately after saying that false statement to herself, as the Capital Wasteland was her real home, a voice in the back of her head answered;
"And you're in hell."