Chapter Thirty-Eight: Catwalks and Awkward Silences
Charon makes his way through the marketplace, idly eyeing the wares that various merchants are selling. He makes his way through the crowded marketplace to Flak and Shrapnel's booth. Shrapnel sits at the counter repairing a submachine gun and Flak leans over his shoulder to watch him work. Flak looks up as Charon approaches and the old ghoul raises a hand in recognition.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey," Flak answers, craning his head to look behind Charon. "Where's that kid that's always following you around? What's her name? Sunflower?"
"Sunshine," he says quietly. "I came by myself." Flak nods, choosing not to comment and walks over to one of the various wardrobes that he keeps the stock of their store in. He unlocks it and steps back to allow Charon to rummage through it.
"Shotgun shells, same as always?" Flak asks. Charon nods and leans over to scoop up one ragged box on the bottom of the wardrobe. He grunts as his joints pop and a nimble hand snatches the box just out of his reach. He looks up into the smiling face of Harkness.
"What the hell do you want?" he grumbles before he can even think to be polite. The smile never falters from Harkness face.
"You're a cheerful one," he says. He holds the box of ammo out to Charon. "Here." Charon stands up, gritting his teeth at how slowly he straightens his spine. He eyes Harkness warily before accepting the box of ammo.
"Where's Sunshine?" Harkness asks, looking around. Of course, Charon thinks to himself.
"Resting," Charon says curtly. "Kid's had a rough time of it." Harkness nods, as if in understanding, and crosses his arms.
"And Project Purity?" At the disgruntled look on Charon's face, his grin grows even wider. "Li told me she might need me to throw someone off the bridge. Once she calmed down, she told me she was leaving to work on a 'Project Purity' and if she was needed to just head over to the Jefferson Memorial."
"We haven't started but James and the kid have high hopes for it. If you'll excuse me," he says, turning away from Harkness stiffly.
"You don't like me very much, do you?" Charon looks into Harkness' face, a face he recognizes, and hears a voice float to him from the past.
Aw hell, sarge. You're grumpy as all get-out, aren't you?
"I don't like much of anyone," Charon says. "And neither do you." Harkess arches one perfectly symmetrical and artificial eyebrow.
"What makes you say that? I think I'm a hell of a people person, if I do say so myself." His voice drops in volume and he says lowly, "Despite not actually being a person."
"You're a soldier," Charon says and Harkness stiffens ever so slightly. Hell of a convincing automaton, he thinks to himself. "You shoot first and save the pleasantries for later. Eventually you were promoted to Captain of the 55th Infantry Division. But you started as a bushy eyed kid back in '68. Barely eighteen. Had the whole world ahead of you but no people skills. Your wife could have attested to that." Harkness had moved back from Charon as he spoke. His arms are crossed tightly over his chest and his posture has stiffened. He no longer has that cocky nonchalant air about him.
"Those are my memories," he says. "Well, the memories Pinkerton implanted in me. How do you know all of that? Did he tell you?"
"No, Jack," Charon says. "He didn't." After a tense and powerful silence, Harkness asks quietly,
"Harkness wasn't someone Pinkerton made up, was he?"
"No," Charon says. "I served with him. Trained him, back when I was a soldier in the U.S Army. Before the world went to hell in a hand basket." And at the height of my conditioning. Harkness tilts his head.
"You aren't in these memories. At least, not as you are now."
"No," Charon says, surprised at how easy his voice sounds. "I suppose I'm not."
"You remember anything else?" Harkness asks, and Charon is surprised at the lack of bitterness in his voice. He'd expected the android to be angry but he only sounds weary and that causes a heaviness to settle in his stomach.
"No," he says, turning his back and feeling sorry that he said anything at all.
"Not even your real name? So I know what to call you? I don't think Charon was the name you were born with." Charon wishes he'd shut up or be asking out of malice. But he sounds genuinely curious, sounds almost longingly now that he knows that the past in his head was real. He wonders if Harkness has any friends besides Sunshine.
"It might as well have been," he answers and his voice is a little sharper than he'd meant it to be. Harkness nods and backs up a step. He picks a magazine up from the corner of Sharpnel's desk and holds it out to him. Future Weapons Today declares the peeling and torn cover.
"For Sunshine," he offers. "So you can teach her about her rifle." Charon nods stiffly and takes it from him. Harkness smiles a strange sort of half-smile.
Charon flees from Flak 'N Shrapnel's but his past haunts him all the way to the Jefferson Memorial.
A cry echoes throughout the room and Sunshine flies up with a strangled gasp. The blankets tumble from the bed onto the floor and she inhales with a deep, shaky breath. Running her hand through her hair, she catches sight of her Pip-Boy.
6:30, the twinkling green numbers read.
"Huh," she says. "Almost two hours. That's pretty good, huh boy?" Dogmeat barks, rolling around at the foot of the bed. Still she finds herself running a hand longingly over the blankets and sheets of the bed. The Weatherly Hotel boasted that it housed the most comfortable beds in the Wastleland and Sunshine agreed. The beds were even comfier than her bed in Megaton.
However, that did little to help her stay asleep. Some things couldn't be pushed away with comfort or fatigue. She stretches, trying to ease away some of the stiffness and tension that has settled in her muscles. She pops and creaks like the worn out bed frame and stands from the bed. Her stomach growls but she doesn't much feel like eating. She pulls her boots on and swings her plasma rifle over her shoulder. Dogmeat trails behind her, tail wagging. If he is bothered by not getting more sleep, he doesn't show it. She opens the door to her rented room and makes her way through the boat to the marketplace. She'd better head to Project Purity. Maybe she should find Charon and they could go together. She licks her lips and sighs. Things had been frosty between them and she wasn't sure how to act around him anymore.
Harkness, along with most of his security force, is sitting at Gary's Galley. He takes a deep swig of beer and laughs at something one of his guards said. He looks tired, as tired as an android is able to and she wonders if he's told anyone. She ducks out of sight when he lifts his head. She wants to be alone and she isn't sure how she feels about that. She darts past Seagrave Holmes' trinket shop, Potomac Attire, and Flak 'N Shrapnel's. She bounces up the steps to the exit and pushes the door open.
The sun is setting over the Potomac River and her eyes trace the shaky reflection of it in the water. After unloading some of her purified water to Carlos, she makes her way down the stairs. She shivers in the cooling air and begins the short walk to the Jefferson Memorial. She tries to stay on her guard, knowing that even though her destination is a short distance away, she could fall into trouble. Life is dangerous out in the Wasteland. But the night is silent. All she can hear is the pitiful flowing of the river and ship that houses Rivet City creaking against the wind. Even Dogmeat seems completely silent.
It's almost peaceful and that scares her because she's forgotten what peace feels like.
"Hello, sweetie!" Her father's cheer is infectious and she finds herself grinning as she waves at him. He and the Rivet City scientists are standing outside of the Memorial, drinking bottled dirty water and leaning against the crumbling brick walls.
"Hi Dad," she says, surveying the pile of super mutant corpses that he and the Rivet City scientists had dragged out of the memorial. "You guys have been busy." He grins, wiping the sweat from his brow.
"Yes, we have! But don't worry, we didn't do it alone!" At the moment, the door to the memorial opens and Charon exits with a grunt. He drags a rather large super mutant corpse over his shoulder, the feet of it kicking up dust, and he moves past them to deposit it onto the large pile already amassed.
"That's the last one," he says. He cracks his neck and catches Sunshine's eye. They stare at each other in uncomfortable silence. "I thought you were still sleeping," he says after a moment. She shrugs.
"I feel perfectly fine," she says. "Good as new." He eyes her doubtfully and she gives him a huge and tight grin.
"You sure?" he asks. He hovers near her, anxious and like he wants to reach a hand out to touch her. But he doesn't and she finds herself missing that would-be-closeness. She nods.
"I'd like to keep busy," she says, keeping her voice from shaking. "Do something productive." He nods and she feels her father's hand grip her shoulder.
"I'm sure we'll find something," he says with a sad smile. The group turns and they begin to walk into the Jefferson Memorial. The inside is worse than Sunshine remembers. She eyes the rubble and the rusted equipment and thinks that their small group will have their work cut out for them. Doctor Li brought some people with her from Rivet City's Science Lab. To her dismay, there are not as many as she thought there would be. She sees Janice, Doctor Li's assistant and three other men she recognized from around the lab but didn't know the name of. One of them glares heatedly at her and she isn't sure why. Maybe because she wasn't here to help clear out the super mutant corpses?
"This place could really use some tidying," she says. The man who has been glaring at her since she'd arrived scoffs but she doesn't pay him any mind.
"All in due time," her father says. "Now that we've dragged the super mutants out so they won't stick up the place, the priority is to get Project Purity up and running." She nods, and opens her mouth to speak, but an agitated voice cuts in.
"That's all well and good, Dr. Maddox," the glaring man says with unmasked contempt dripping in his voice. "But some of us didn't get to sleep all day like Sleeping Beauty over here and we'd like to get our four hours, if you'd be so kind."
"Of course, Daniel," James says politely. "My apologies." Daniel huffs and pushes past Sunshine, glaring at her all the while. One of the other men that she doesn't recognize follows behind him and pats her shoulder almost apologetically.
"Someone is a little grumpy," she says. James nods.
"Yes," he answers. "My fault. But nothing I can fix at the moment." He looks at Sunshine with a cautious optimism and asks, "Are you ready to get to work, sweetheart?"
"Born ready," she says without a moment's hesitation and her father rewards her with a weary smile.
"Well then, let's get to work."
Charon walks the perimeter of Jefferson Memorial, taking in all of the details. The Memorial lies at the very edge of the Tidal Basin and about half a mile from Rivet City. Those are its only redeeming qualities. The sprawling nature of the Memorial's catwalks make it almost indefensible. Ideally, there would need to be a patrol but he was only one man and the only other person he could trust to defend themselves, let alone the Memorial, would be Sunshine. But he couldn't put her on patrol, not when she is needed to work on the purifier.
Remembering the look on her face at the thought of working on the purifier makes Charon smile despite himself. It had been an expression of absolute joy overtaking the weariness and it had made him feel happy to see her happy, though he would never express it.
Couldn't express it.
He sighs and he cups the back of his neck with his hand. He's gone over this with himself more times that he cares to remember. She'd kissed him. His heart thumps wildly in his chest whenever he thinks of it.
You're perfect, her voice plays in his head. He smiles ruefully and looks down at his arm, lined with patches of ancient skin and ugly, uncovered muscle. She had kissed him, and held him, and had seemed so genuine in her affection. In his entire two centuries of life, he feels that the hardest thing he had ever done was to push her away and further the distance between them.
"Cracks in the southern facing wall," he hears her voice before he sees her. He walks toward her voice on instinct and sees her down by the back of the building, completely absorbed with speaking into her Pip-Boy. "Nothing too extensive on this side. At worse we'd have to worry about it leaking when it rained." She looks up at the sky and then back down at Dogmeat. "No chance of that, any time soon." The dog yips, catching sight of Charon and wagging his tail.
Charon slips underneath the guardrail and lands on the ground a little ways away from her with a loud thud. To give her credit, she doesn't startle like he thought she would have. The only sign he gets that he surprised her is the way her chest heaves with the effort of fast and heavy breathes.
"Charon!" she says affectionately. She makes a move to step closer to him but stops herself. Keep your distance, remember? "How's the security check?"
"Lousy," he grumbles. "The place is indefensible because of the catwalks at worst and a pain in the ass at best. There's no way I can patrol it effectively by myself. Your father and Doctor Li something about the Brotherhood of Steel, but I doubt we could persuade them." She nods in agreement and says almost thoughtfully,
"They aren't very friendly. Or patient."
"We'll have to hire someone to help with it." Her brow furrows.
"Do we have the caps for that?" she asks. He shrugs.
"We'll have to make do," he says. He notices that her plasma rifle is nowhere to be found. "Do you have a weapon on you?" She nods and pivots, showing him a pistol attached to her hip.
"My rifle is in need of repair," she says. "I'll take it to Flak 'N Shrapnel's once we get settled in." Remember the copy of Future Weapons Today Harkness had handed him, he says,
"I could probably take a look at it for you." Conflicting emotions flicker across her face and she's silent a moment before answering.
"That's great," she says. "If you can find the time." He nods.
"I'm sure I can." Awkward silence falls where normally conversation takes place and she shifts on the balls of her feet.
"I guess I'll go finish recording the damage," she says lightly, walking past him and around the side of the building. He takes note of the careful way she avoided touching him as she squeezed by him and chides himself at the flash of hurt that runs through him. It's better this way. "Good luck with the rest of your security check. Hope it goes better for you."
"You too, Sunshine," he says. She disappears around the corner of the building and he hears her clear her throat.
"Eastern side-not much damage besides a few missing or dangling guardrails on the catwalk. Note: I've been informed that the Memorial will be difficult to defend because of the catwalks. It would be a good idea to gather funds to hire protection." He listens to the quiet hum of her voice as it fades in the distance and shakes his head, continuing his walk of the perimeter. But he makes sure to double back and keep an eye on Sunshine until she walks back into the memorial.
She never notices.
Sunshine returns to her father with a holotape detailing all the damage she could find. He's huddled over a decrepit desk looking at what seem to be blueprints.
"Here ya go, dad," she says, startling him from his study. She hands him the holotape. "It's a bit long."
"Thank you, sweetheart," he says, taking it from her with a grateful smile. She appreciates the gesture, even though they both know that he gave her that assignment to keep her busy. She forces herself to return his smile.
"Anything else, dad?" He shakes his head, tilting it back down toward the blueprints.
"Not tonight, honey. We'll get a fresh start in the morning."
"Right," she says, understanding the not-so-subtle urging to try and sleep again. God, does she really look that tired? "I guess I'll go to bed then." He nods.
"I'm going to turn in soon, too," he says absently, turning one of the blueprints to the side. All at once it hits her how tired her father sounds.
"Don't stay up too late," she says in an effort to tease him. "Big day tomorrow." He smiles.
"Good night, sweetie. Sleep well." She calls Dogmeat and the two of them make their way to the part of the basement that had been converted to sleeping quarters. She sees the bunks with their occupants and resignedly makes her way to an empty one. She picks one in the corner, away from everyone else, and ignores the way Daniel lifts his head off of his pillow just to glare at her.
"That mutt isn't seriously going to sleep in here, is he?"
"Go fuck yourself," she mutters half-heartedly, too tired and weary to think of being polite. "He's potty trained." Daniel makes an indignant noise.
"He stinks," he hisses.
"So do you, Daniel," Janice calls from across the room. "And we're not making you sleep outside. Leave the girl alone." He huffs and pulls a tattered blanket over his head, muttering darkly,
"Oh sure, cater to Maddox's wittle baby and completely ignore the comforts of others."
"Agincourt," Li says from the bunk below him. "You are sleeping on a two hundred year old mattress in a basement that was recently occupied by super mutants. One raggedy mutt is not going to make it worse. Quit your bitching and go to sleep." Daniel falls silent at that, glaring at Sunshine from underneath her pillow. She plops down on her empty two century year old mattress.
"Up, boy," she says loudly, just to spite Daniel, and Dogmeat jumps on the mattress next to her, plopping down on his belly. She wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his fur. Daniel is right-he does stink-but she doesn't care about the smell. Dogmeat is the one living being besides Charon that makes her feel safe at home and she really didn't want to think about what she would do to Agincourt if he said anything against her bodyguard.
Besides, she didn't think Charon could stand to be in the same space with her since she'd up and stupidly kissed him so that worked out just fine.
"You're brilliant, Sunshine," she mutters darkly to herself. "Go and ruin your relationship with the one person besides your father in the whole goddamned wasteland that gives a shit whether you live or die." But that is just it, isn't it? Charon did care about whether she lived or died. But was it because he cared for her genuinely or because it was part of his contract to care? Sunshine feels a tight knot deep in her chest at the thought of Charon having to care for her welfare because he was brainwashed years ago and not because he wanted to. Not because he chose to. Not because he loved her.
Because she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt how she felt about him but she'd never say it to him. She would never put him into that position.
"I love him," she says into Dogmeat's fur and his ears twitch at the words spoken. It felt nice to say it, even if she couldn't say it to him.