A/N: HEY ALL! Pretty long chapter a head of 'ya! I REALLY ENJOYED THE DIALOG IN THIS ONE! The back and forth with Butch and Aimee made me ROFLCOPTER everywhere at some points xD Btw, most of the chapter is dialogue- just Aimee talking to the Rebels about all the shit going on and whatever. I hope it's not too boring!

Also, the latest chapter for A Trial of Risk and Fall will NOT be posted this week, as it is not yet finished. I'm still trying to figure out how to end it, and school and stuff is catching up to me... I was able to post for this story and Saving Me because the chapters were already pre-written. Sorry guys

Anyways, enjoy!

Happy reading, happy writing!

~Konfessionist out!~

Aimee clopped up the metal staircase, Elaine up and at the ready in front of her as she cautiously stepped onto the next floor with Freddie at her side.

"We're almost there- thanks for saving my ass down there, by the way." He nodded over his shoulder to the bottom of the stairs.

She looked back as well, finding a few bodies of radroaches that had crawled out from a nearby vent and tried attacking them from behind. She stomped on one or two, crushing their bodies or their skulls and sent a few rounds out of Elaine into another before realizing it was a waste of ammo. She cut one down the middle with Charlie afterwards, from between the antennas to its first pair of skittering legs, coating her hand in the slimy, translucent green juices that lashed out at her. She was going to wipe it off on her shirt, but decided that finding a nearby sink or water fountain was better. She didn't want to walk around with her clothes smelling like feet when she probably already smelled bad enough for some of the people down here.

I know there are a few water fountains around the clinic… I can clean up there. She finalized as she looked on, finding that the hallway ahead of them, leading to the clinic, was crowded with furniture. A skeleton of metal shelving was angled against the wall long ways with a broken terminal on one of the shelves, a gurney was laying straight across the floor with the wheels sticking straight up and squeaking as they gently rolled on their pegs, even an overturned table was against the wall. Mattresses littered the floor along with piles of paperwork, dishes like plates and cups, other broken electronics, some articles of what appeared to be clothing or bedding…

Oh, and a Tunnel Snake.

Butch DeLoria, the childhood bully himself, was leaning against one of the pillars opposite of the clinic door. His feet were crossed at the ankle with his arms folded in front of him, his chin lowered to his chest as if he were sleeping. A toothpick shifted between his thin lips, and Aimee had to assume he was simply thinking- not sleeping.

He's gonna hurt himself if he keeps that up. She thought sourly, glancing to Freddie as he stepped past the angled shelving and cabinet towards Butch with a smile on his face.

"Amata's signal got through!" He called to the Serpent King, stopping when his leader looked up with an impassive look ghosting across his face. He twitched the toothpick to the other corner of his mouth and continued chewing on it. "She's gonna help us get outta here!"

"The fuck are 'ya talkin' about, Gomez?" He asked lazily, and then yawned. "And where the hell were you, anyways? Amata was chewin' my ear off 'bout you- I told her I wasn't the damn monkey keeper, 'n I don't keep tabs on 'ya. She nearly ripped my arm off when I said it- somethin' 'bout staying together and shit..."

"Jeeze, almost a year later and you still don't learn a damn thing, DeLoria." Aimee snapped, stepping towards them from her place behind the small blockade of furniture after assuming Butch probably couldn't see her. "If you were any more stupid, you'd have to be watered twice a week, I swear."

Butch said nothing as he shrugged his hands into his leather jacket pockets, his thumbs catching on the fabric so they jut out. He shot her a coy smirk, tilting his head back as if he needed to get a better look at her. He didn't seem all that surprised that she had returned, and that she was right there in front of him.

"And it looks like you're still vertically challenged, half-pint... I think you actually got shorter."

She narrowed her eyes, shooting a horrid scowl at him with her finger twitching on Elaine's trigger.

"Yeah, it's been a year- but don't think I've gotten rusty. I can still mow you down." He grinned wolfishly.

"What are you doing outside?" She shot back coolly.

"What the hell are 'ya talkin' about? Outside where?"

"Outside here. I mean, someone had to let you out of your cage, right?" She smiled cruelly when Butch grimaced, and then glanced over to Freddie. "Where's Amata?"

"Probably trynna break The Crotch out of jail." Butch answered even though he knew the question wasn't meant for him, and pushed away from the wall to walk a few steps towards them. "'Ya got a lot of balls comin' back here after you and your dad fucked everything up for the rest of us."

Aimee snapped her eyes to his. He continued chewing on his toothpick. But when she said nothing, he smiled.

"What are you doin' back in here anyways? You were out there, weren't you? Free to do whatever the hell you wanted and you decide to come back here." He shook his head in disappointment. "Haven't I taught you anything when you were still here?"

"You didn't teach me shit-all, so get your foot out of your fucking mouth Butch." He blinked at her in surprise when she said "shit," and his toothpick almost dropped out of his mouth when she said "fucking." It was interesting to see that he was more surprised by the colorful additions to her vocabulary than her overall return, and she had to wonder if she was really that much of a goody-goody to these people when she escaped. But, his surprised expression quickly reverted back to his collected smile in no time.

"Looks like you're not a goody-two-shoes no more." He pointed out, confirming her thoughts- sadly.

"Freddie, mind telling me what's going on?" Aimee asked, turning to the newest generation of the Gomez clan. "Or at least catch me up? I got what I could from your dad- he said Alphonse is dead and Allen Mack's in charge now. That true?"

Freddie nodded solemnly. "Overseer Mack is worse than Amata's bitch of a dad ever was. He's a lot more paranoid, always forcing rules down our throats like it was candy, I swear."

"He also told me the Vault was opened before." She pointed out, brushing her hair out of her eyes with her relatively clean and radroach gizzard juice-free hand.

"How long did it take you to figure that one out?" Butch asked snidely.

"About five minutes after I left the Vault." She replied, trying to keep a level head and handed Freddie Elaine. "Please, hold this before I shoot his fucking head off."

"Uh- okay…" He took the gun reluctantly, observing it curiously as the two got to talking.

"'Ya wouldn't shoot me," Butch grinned broadly.

"Your right. I wouldn't. I'd most likely tear your limbs apart and watch you try to squirm away from me."

He frowned. "Woah. The fuck's got your panties in a bunch?"

"I've got a snake in my boot." She shot bacl with a raised brow as if the answer was obvious- which it was...

"We're with the Rebels,Freddie and me, trynna fight against Mack with a few other people like Amata and Old Lady Palmer." He ignored her comment, continuing on. "Freddie's a dumbshit, but he's right. Overseer Mack is worse than Amata's pops ever was, what with all the deaths, the lies and bullshit- and now he's got us on lockdown. Like a buncha fuckin' rats in his little funhouse." He spoke, scratching his jaw and slid his toothpick to the other side of his mouth again. "Amata said she'd try to send out some S.O.S. to 'ya, but didn't know if it'd get past all the metal and rocks and whatever. Looks like it worked, though- since you're here now."

"An S.O.S., huh?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, Save Our Skins, pipsqueak." He replied, looking up at Freddie as he continued to study Elaine curiously.

"S.O.S. stands for Save Our Ship…" She rolled her eyes and rubbed the back of her neck.

"Either way, you're saving something. Lucky you. So you gonna help us or not?"

"Why should I?"

"'Cause you came down here for a reason, right?"

"What if I came just to pick up some of my junk?"

"You're a little goody-two-shoes-"

"You said I wasn't anymore." She shrugged, putting her hands on her broad hips. "I don't know why I let Charon talk me into helping you guys- I should have just terminated the distress signal channel from my Pip-Boy and kept on walking. The more I hear and the longer I'm down here, the more I wanna go back outside and not come back."

Butch's dark brows furrowed together with slight concern. "The hell happened to 'ya, short-stop? You're not-… You. You changed."

"The fuck do you care, DeLoria?" She flinched mentally, waving a dismissive hand at him as she walked towards the clinic doors. Why was everyone getting so choked up about her supposedly changing? She hadn't changed that much!... Had she?

"What were you expecting me to say?" He asked as he walked after her, and she stopped to look back at him.

"Nothing- nothing at all, as you don't have a right to say a fucking thing. I didn't wake up this morning thinking that I'd be going back to Vault 101. And even when I was walking the halls, I didn't think you'd be alive. I thought a radroach would have gotten you or something."

He cringed in offense, rolling his toothpick between two of his fingers.

"So you gonna help us or not?" He snapped. "'Ya couldn't have just come down here to get your shit together or to tell me off. You came down here 'cause you were worried 'bout us, weren't you?"

She frowned. "I came down here because a good friend of mine convinced me it was the right thing to do," And I am so killing him when I get back up there… She added on mentally.

"Well, you're here, so you might as well make yourself useful and help us out." He gave a toothy grin. "Don'cha think?"

Aimee sighed, slapping her hand to the console for the clinic doors. "I'm not agreeing to shit till I can talk to Ama-"

"AIMEE!" Amata squealed as she bolted out of the clinic and barged into her, sending them both tumbling back so they slammed into the pillar Butch previously occupied. Aimee was on the floor, head connected with the pillar, with Amata sprawled across her lap.

"Oh my God! I can't believe you're back!" She squealed again, sitting up and giving her friend a broad grin before it disappeared from her lips, looking onto Aimee's irritated glare as she rubbed the back of her head.

"The fuck did you do that for?" She winced, shaking her head clear of the fog that began to settle and blinked. "I feel like a damn dinner bell now! My ears are ringing…" She wiggled her pinkie finger in her ear for emphasis.

"S- Sorry… I- Just missed you, is all." She frowned with her brows knitting together above her sad eyes. Normally, Aimee probably would have reciprocated the tackle with a big bear hug, but like everyone was saying lately- you're different now. You're not Aimee anymore. You're someone else- a someone else I don't like one bit.

"You could have shown me that you missed me without tackling me…" She argued quietly, getting up from the floor and helping Amata up after her. "I got your signal and came back to do some damage control- lemme get you up to speed on what I know. Your father died and Allen took his place and put everyone on lockdown, right?" Amata nodded. "I'm under the impression that the Rebels want to get out of here."

"We don't want to complete leave!" Amata cried, gesturing towards the clinic where more Vault Dwellers resided. They were either sleeping on mattresses, sitting on the floor, leaning against walls- one was vomiting in the corner- and a few others seemed to be severely injured or dead already. Aimee swallowed and looked back to her childhood friend as some eyes seemed to meet hers with a glimmer of hope in them.

Charon was a bit... well, wrong. The Vault wasn't in the Wasteland, but the scenery was no different if you imagined the steel walls were open space of dead plants and trees and houses.

"Seems like most of you are kinda dead already." She muttered under her breath, hoping Amata didn't hear. "So what is it that you guys want?"

"We do want to leave, but the Vault is our home. We were born here and we grew up here, you know?"

"What's with all this "we" stuff? If you were listening to some of the people around here, you'd know I'm not from down here. I'm from up there."

There was a small noise as Butch's toothpick slipped out of his mouth and ticked on the ground. There was a popping noise as Amata's jaw seemed to have dropped to her chest, which was followed by a loud clatter as Freddie dropped Elaine. Some of the Rebels from inside the clinic looked up as well, having been close enough to hear what she had said.

"Wa- Wait a minute!" Butch cried, holding his hands up in a "time out" gesture. "You saying you aren't- you weren't born in here? You were born up there?"

"Yeah- I figured since Old Lady Palmer told you guys that the Vault has been opened before, she'd tell you about my father and I… I've been told that I was born out there, but my dad brought me here when I was just a baby for some reason."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Amata cried.

"Oh, I am so sorry that the fact that I still might be in shock about my entire life being a fucking lie is an inconvenience for you! Also, please excuse me while I find a nearby payphone to contact you on while I'm outside busting my ass just to fucking survive! If I had known sooner, I probably would have fucking told you!"

Amata cringed away at her booming voice and livid eyes, darting her own watery eyes away and hugged herself tightly.

"I- I didn't… I wasn't thinking- I'm sorry."

"Damn right you weren't fucking thinking!" She threw her arms up in the air exasperatedly.

"Well how do you think I feel, Aimee?" She yelled, glaring back at her while still hugging herself tightly. "Your life isn't the only one that was a big fat lie! What about the rest of us? My dad- he lied to all of us and said that the Vault was never opened and never will be opened! We were lied to too and now he's dead! What about your father, Aimee? Where is he?"

Aimee bit down on her lower lip till it turned as white as her teeth. "…I haven't found him yet. I was on my way to a new lead when I got your signal."

Her eyes widened. "Wa- Wait… A year later and you still haven't found him?"

She felt something awful, like an ember glowing deeply in the pit of her stomach, flare up into her chest. She was mad- beyond mad- she was… she didn't know how to describe it. She- she wasn't just angry. She was hateful. She hated everyone- all of them- accusing her father of something he had no control of- calling him a traitor, amongst other names, but he had his own reasons for escaping. How dare they point fingers at her father, blaming him for problems that were already there to begin with, and then turn around and beg for her help? How do they have the balls to do that?

They were either quite stupid, or stupidly courageous to pull a stunt like this.

So, with all the work done in her head, she spun on her heel and walked to Freddie, snatching Elaine out of his startled hands, put her into the holster on her waist, and walked away from the three of them with her head held high.

"Ai- Aimee! Wait! Where are you going?" Amata cried out after her. "You still need to help us!"

"I see no reason to need or even want to help you!" She bellowed, stopping in the middle of the hallway with her hands tightly clasping the backpack straps on her shoulders. "You all still blame my father for all your problems- and then you have the gall- the nerve- to demand help from me and expect me to roll over and do it!" She twisted her chin over her shoulder, sending them a malicious sneer. "My dad didn't leave, he escaped- and it's called escaping for a reason. Because there's something better up there!"

"Don't you think that's why we want to leave, half-pint?" Butch quipped. Freddie and Amata both sent him warning glares, but he shrugged them off and walked towards Aimee with his hands in his pockets. "Because anything up there, has to be better than doing the same old thing everyday down here. After all, you said 'ya came down here 'cause your friend told you it was the right thing to do. Sharon- right?"

"I don't know why I let Charon talk me into helping you guys- I should have just terminated the distress signal channel from my Pip-Boy and kept on walking. The more I hear and the longer I'm down here, the more I wanna go back outside and not come back."

Aimee pushed her forehead into her hand and pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers, closing her eyes slowly and sighed. Where had her mind gone? Charon didn't talk her into believing that this was the right thing to do- he got her to see something she had already known but didn't want to face. He had her realize that as much as she was angry with these people, they still deserved a chance to live and explore and discover like she had. If her father hadn't escaped, she wouldn't have been able to find out about her true past, even though it was a lie, and if he hadn't escaped, she would have only lived a life where marrying and reproducing the next generation of Vault Dwellers to only repeat the cycle was the only thing she'd amount to. If her father hadn't escaped… She wouldn't have gone outside and helped all those people. She wouldn't have made her life an adventure. And, most importantly, she wouldn't have met Charon…

"When things got rough, she always said "The right thing isn't always the easiest thing- but that is what makes the reward so much more worthwhile."What do you think is the right thing to do?"

It made her realize that what he said was probably the best advice she was ever given. Even though her father was very insightful, and told her many life lessons that she still remembered to this day, she never thought that she heard something more insightful in her life. She now wanted to know who this person was- a woman, Charon made it sound like- and then realized that it might have been Rose. The woman that he called her once before, like back at the Museum of Technology.

Who was Rose to you, Charon?... And who were you to her?

Amata shuffled over after a few moments, still hugging herself and stood by Butch's side. She opened her mouth to speak, but Aimee cut her off.

"Ch- Charon…" The three Vault Dwellers gawked at her as she turned around, still fingering the straps on her shoulders and stared at her feet. She wondered if he would be ashamed to see her acting like this, or proud that she was telling everyone where to stuff it. "His name's Charon- not Sharon- and yes, he convinced me to come down here and help you guys."

"Wait- he? Your friend's a dude? Hah!" Butch snickered. "But Sharon's a girls name!"

Aimee narrowed her eyes. "You ever wonder what life would be like if you got enough oxygen at birth, DeLoria?"

He immediately went silent, reciprocating the glare she was sending him.

"Wait, so where's your friend Charon now?" Amata asked quietly. "Is he not here with you?"

"I thought he'd be saf- better off waiting outside." She shrugged, looking down the stairs as if hoping he was standing there, waiting for her to give him some sort of direction. "He's not that… social. Doesn't like hanging around big crowds of people." She explained, looking back to them. "I don't think he would have liked it down here."

Of course, he probably wouldn't have minded if he was at least able to kill something…

"Are you still going to help us, Aimee?" Freddie asked hopefully, stepping towards her with an outstretched hand. "We don't think it's your dad's fault. We never did." He looked back to Amata and Butch, then turned his eyes to some of the other Vault Dwellers (the ones that were able to pick themselves up off the floor or peel themselves off from the walls) who looked out from the clinic doorway. "It's anyone who's not with us that blames your dad. We wanna leave like he did- like you did- 'cause it's just… There's nothing down here! It's the same people, the same walls, the same lights… What's the sun like, Aimee? And the sky? And the ground and other people? What's it all like?"

She smiled a little at all his questions and she brushed her hair out of her eyes, walking back to them to only simply brush past. She didn't bother looking back, as she already knew that they were probably gawking at each other in bewilderment. They followed her as she made her way to the center floor of the clinic and darted her eyes to all the faces of the Rebels that circled around her, blocking off any entrance or exit. They were all faces that she recognized, but all seemingly distorted- hungry, frightened, with sunken eyes and tight-lipped mouths… They looked like they were on their way to turning into ghouls and then becoming feral. They looked… deprived. Deprived of everything they deserved- they deserved to know what it was like to have the sun washing down on them, they deserved to know what it was like roaming the Wastes (as dead as it was) with nothing but blue skies above their heads…

They deserve a chance to live. She decided, imagining Charon standing right next to her, giving an approving nod of his head without showing any emotion whatsoever. She had to do everything in her power not to turn around and ask, "Are you proud of me, Char-bear? Did I do good?"

"…It'd be no fun if I told you what it all was like." Aimee finally spoke with a slight chuckle and shook her head, looking back to Freddie, Amata, and Butch- who seemed unamused as he played with his switchblade. "Your first time outside wouldn't be any fun if I told you what it all was like. Besides, everyone experiences differently… Like I said before, the Capital Wasteland is my home. You'll all probably feel a bit- differently, than what I feel."

"Wait, so does that mean-?..." Amata asked as she chewed on her lower lip, her eyes dancing wildly in her eye sockets.

"I'll help you." She confirmed.

Her answer was only met back by a sliver of silence before a scream ruptured throughout the clinic, Butch dropped his switchblade on the ground with a clatter, and with a devastated noise of ruptured flesh, blood splattered across the office window on the far side of the clinic. The sea of on looking Rebels parted in horror as Aimee charged forward with Amata tailing her, barging into her father's old office to find Andy hovering over a massacred body. Amata gagged and, covering her mouth, ran back out to vomit some place. Aimee simply stood at the door, looking onto Beatrice's mutilated body with only a twinge of sorrow in her heart. Seeing ruined bodies such as this wasn't knew for her, as she's seen bodies that didn't even look like bodies when the Raiders or Super Mutants or Feral Ghouls were done with them.

"Andy, what on Earth did you do?" She sighed, walking forward with her arms folded over her chest. "Decided to take a whirl in the "mad doctor" track when being a maintenance robot wasn't exciting enough?" She cracked.

"Ah, yes! I see that you've come back to Vault 101, Miss Carter!" Andy quipped, spinning around to prod one of his sensory "eyes" straight into her face, causing her to flinch back in surprise. Blood was slashed across the yellow flickering glass dome. "Well, you see- after your father left the Vault and with Jonas dead, I was put in charge of any and all medical cases!"

"Well, that explains part of what happened in this place. It looks like a slaughter house!" She looked down at Beatrice's body again, which was missing a leg from the knee down, but bone fragments and muscle ligaments were strewn across the floor, the furniture, and she looked up just in time to see what looked like a flap of marred and bloody skin peel off from the ceiling to land on Andy's outstretched sensory limb with a sick plop. He shook it off with relative ease, and it landed on the floor by Aimee's foot. She didn't even flinch or bat an eye.

"I suppose I can explain that." He whirred away, changing his flamethrower attachment to a hose and began to spray down the floor. The blood was swept away, all the bright crimson watered down before circling down the drain in the middle of the floor. "Ms. Beatrice sprained her big toe- the left one- and I felt that the best course of action would be to amputate…"

"The entire leg?" Aimee exclaimed, slapping a hand to her forehead. "You should have simply wrapped her toe in compression bandages and prescribed some sleep and minimal walking!"

Andy was quiet as he turned to look at her with his main sensory eye.

"Well, I see that you must be the real doctor here." He snipped sarcastically.

"Better than you, tin can." She shot back with a smile, gesturing to Beatrice. "You said it was the left big toe, right?"

"Yes, I most certainly did!"

"…You amputated the right leg, Andy…"

"I realize I performed amputation on her leg, mistress."

"No, no, no. I mean you amputated the wrong leg!"

"You said it was the right leg, and now you tell me it's the wrong leg?"

"…Do you have a wire loose or something?" Aimee murmured as she squeezed the bridge of her nose and gave a long, weary sigh.

This little return visit home was probably more trouble than it was worth… But somehow, somewhere in the midst of her worried thoughts, Aimee was doing this so she could go back to Charon and get her nod of approval and then move on to find her father. Then, she smiled a little at the idea of possibly getting her reward from Charon in the form of a little pet on the head, like before… It was actually kind of cute.

It's almost like he's forgotten-... Forgotten how to be affectionate... Like, this is the best he can do for me.

So as she spun Andy around and pulled away the lid on his backside, gazing into the wires, she thought of how she would diffuse the dilemma Vault 101 had, and how she would ultimately come to help these strangers that she thought she once knew.