There was no other sound but the weeping of rain, the flutter of pages, the lonesome howl of wind that crept through the cracks. The heat of her breath washed over his arm; the texture of her lips sanctified his flesh. A rousing stir of tremendous passion coiled in his groin as her fingertips lightly traced invisible roads in his palm, as though the entire world was being held inside for her viewing pleasure…which, for him, it most certainly was.

Those words she was waiting to hear still had not formed on his tongue; the mere remembrance of that night salted his eyes and curled smoke in his lungs. The walls were shifting, rolling, crying out in harmonious agony as he was pulled through, like some twisted tunnel that had no end. He had left her. He left her. She was gone. How could he leave-

"Cross." A whisper. A breath of his name. "…it's alright…I'm sorry, I asked too much."

The ghoul turned, for he had bolted from his place and was standing away from her. A feral, consuming air in heaving draughts as his limbs trembled and twitched and longed to get away, away from those screeches of metal and clouds of dust. From that crushing guilt of being so helpless to save her-

"Fuck," he croaked, and he smothered his head in his palm as he began to cry. "I can't…I can't."

"I'm not going to ask you to," she said with the utmost patience of a saint. Evelyn reached out and took his remaining hand to brush against her face, the soft skin that was still slick with sweat and flush from sex. "It's alright, let's give it time, okay? Come here, come back to me."

Come back to me. He'd always come back; there was no other path for him to travel, it always wound up at her feet; a lone pilgrimage, carried by his weathered body and tired soul, he would always find his way home.

He nearly fell against her, his head buried in the crook of her shoulder and arms wrapped around her body like rusted chains- old, heavy, and despite being so strong, were on the cusp of shattering. How could someone so much smaller be so capable of bearing his weight?

The frame of his skull was cradled in her hands; he could see the reflection of himself in her beautiful eyes. They were just as everchanging as she was: joyous, serene, melancholy, fiery. His grotesque appearance should have been frightening; he had struggled for so long to accept the horrid creature he had become, long dead from the man women once looked upon with smitten smiles. She had never come to know that piece of him…and she never would. She had met him, and loved him, and agreed to be the one thing in his life that was a constant for what he was now, and he was absolute in that he would never love anything else as much as he did with her.

A deep thrum of his heart pulsed a radiant glow in his chest.

Her eyes widened slightly as her colors grew a light shade of emerald. The tingling of electrified static seared like a lightning strike through every nerve ending in her body. She gasped- had radiation always felt so…blissful? There was no skull-pounding nausea, or heated burn threatening to dull her sinuses permanently. It was unadulterated euphoria, and before either of them could make heads or tails of the situation, she thrust her tongue inside his mouth and delivered the most delicious moan he had ever consumed.

The fine line between higher cognitive function and primal instinct snapped so severely it whiplashed through the backside of his skull. He responded to her lustful cry with a ferocious snarl; he wasn't sure whether his heart or his dick would explode first from the amount of blood hammering through it. His scarred and throbbing erection slicked against the skin of her stomach as she ripped her suit from her body, the weeping precum slathered like fluorescent dye across her waist.

"I want you inside me," she whispered in his hot mouth. "Please baby."

The entire world could have been watching; he could have been propped on a stage, being belittled behind those eyes full of nothing but bigotry and disgust. The whole nation could be enduring the second apocalyptic nuclear flame, atomized down to the smallest molecule as his body was burned alive. None of those things would have forced the slightest pause the moment he thrust himself so deep inside, he was certain he broke her.

A faint whimper left her lips, and then no sound was made besides the firm smacks of his hips railing her cunt, his balls wet from slapping her frothed clit. Their coupling was nasty, and cast a blanket of shame over any semblance of making love; he dipped his fingers inside her mouth and gagged her, his eyes focused with a killer intensity as he watched every emotion play across her face.

Her legs widened, a begging attempt at getting him deeper- she was so drunk in the swirling haze of her ecstasy she was becoming greedy; she wanted more of him, and like a fused limb responding to her impulse, he obeyed.

His hand moved to wrap around the backside of her neck; his thumb lodged at the base of her skull, his four fingers laughably enveloped around her trachea. The ghoul could crush her so effortlessly, whether intentional or not. It sparked a sense of danger, a divergence from the dreamy haze she was swimming in. He thrust her head down to the floor, her forehead flush against the cold tile as her breasts slapped her face with every stab he made. Her lower back was pressed down, and he spread her legs to the point she feared she would rip in half. The first thrust was pounded, and by God, it was glorious.

"Oh my God." The words trembled from her lips like a prayer of reverence, the lust in her voice breathing syllables of pure awe and elation. He filled her to the brim, the rough texture of his cock scraping at her swollen insides like a dream; no previous union in her entire life had ever delivered such a revelation before; it was earth-shattering, and it cast a gray hue on every color she had come to know previously.

A graze of his rough fingertip came to lightly stroke her pulsating nub- it was almost enough to blind her. It retreated, and something of a pained cry left her lips from the withdrawal. He continued to pound into her, neither forgiving in his pace nor his power, and every spearing jab added a wave of an incessant need to be submerged completely under. Cross came back around, cupping her groin in his entire palm and giving a firm squeeze. She bucked, writhed, slapped a hand against the ground and cracked it. Another clench, and she began to pant his name like some dirty curse, wet and quivering.

Her own hand came around to the sheer slickness between her thighs- she couldn't bear it, she needed it. A dark bravado of a laugh met her ears amidst the clapping of their flesh; he was fucking with her, toying with that delicate string that pulled a thick, hot desire to be released into heavenly rapture. Her arm was grabbed and twisted behind herself; the hand still encompassed around her throat squeezing till she choked.

"Beg for it."

A ferocious growl left her own lips with what air she had left; her wrist was released, and the pad of his thumb came up and lightly grazed her- the unspoken promise for her subservience to him. If he were ever to conduct an interrogation, it wouldn't be a question as to his method. She sang high and low like a caged bird, twisting praises with desperation until she felt his own iron resolve begin to crack. His breaths were like bellows, the grunts and whispers drawn from his mouth becoming increasingly eager as he swallowed her sinful prayers like a parched confession.

"Get me to fuckin' cum baby," he rasped, so thick and huskily she bit her lip to muffle her scream. "Get your pussy to blow my cock."

It only took a few firm strokes of his thumb- that rigid texture scraping more so than caressing her clit with the expertise of a sexual deviant. Her entire body spasmed, and her cunt clenched down hard, attempting to swallow the massive cock spilling hot fluid inside of her. No sound could be made from her mouth as her brain fired off white jabs of light behind her eyes.

Cross couldn't remove himself if he tried- he'd never felt her tug at his dick so strongly before; a lewd sucking noise was made between them as he gave a ragged smack against her ass, once, twice, and then he groaned as it became too much to bear, the ecstasy overwhelming.

Fuck. He went to pull out; she was still jerking him off and blowing his load. He clenched his jaw and ripped himself free, spurting the remainder down her spine. Holy fuckin' Christ.

It was another tally to the best fucks he'd ever experienced, and not surprisingly enough, they were all with her.

They laid together, her curled on her side with him flat on his back, both breathing heavy and completely lost in their own dreamy sense of wonder.

When he finally collected enough of his fragmented reality to piece a larger picture, he propped one arm behind his head and turned to stupidly grin at her.

"You…" A throaty cough rumbled his chest. "You okay?" he rasped, the question applicable to them both.

She sluggishly nodded, her half-lidded eyes steadily lowering until she feigned sleep. Her curled fingers splayed out and her shoulders relaxed. He blinked and tilted his head- she did fall asleep.

Damn, he thought with smug satisfaction. What a fucking waste these past few days were; he quite suddenly felt ridiculous and silly at his prior lack of confidence in his bedroom skills. He didn't fuck his way across the wasteland for two centuries and not come away with every trick in the book to spoil her with, and now he was more than giddy for their future explorations…he hadn't come across a sex toy since Vegas, he could really blow her mind if-

A loud creak from a door opening spun his head around. He groaned, still rather dizzy and unsure if he wasn't about to pass out, but he forced himself to stand and at least shrug into his pants. The pack of smokes in his pocket invited a lulling buzz to settle out his cloud-riding high, and he laid his jacket over her curled form like a blanket. A white cigarette was firmly grabbed with his mouth, a more than satisfied sigh rolled from his shoulders, and he settled his weight on the edge of a desk as he took that first, sweet nicotine rush after lighting it.

His gaze shifted to the side; she was still slumbering and wonderfully unaware of the world. Cross mouthed his smoke as he adjusted his revolver in the backside of his waistband, his eyes narrowed and perceptively watching for any hint to their guest. He was making an educated bet it was more than likely Charon- that huge bastard was as quiet as a ghost when he wanted to be- and so it came with some surprise that it was indeed not the towering ferryman, or even a ghoul.

Cross had his gun aimed high and true at the masked individual's forehead- he rarely missed. The hammer was clicked back, its intentions more verbal than any words he could have spoken. The figure paused, their rifle peeking out from the shadows, gleaming bright and untarnished.

"Recall code- Vic-"

The bang reverberated around the empty room; the acrid smell of gunpowder ever familiar to his nose. The gunmen dropped in a slump from their position. Cross already had the hammer cocked back again, picking out another target as Evelyn bolted awake. Another shot, another thud of a body dropping, and they waited in eerie silence before he turned to her.

"What's going on?!" She twisted around in her spot and blinked the sleep from her eyes, a hand smearing at the drool from her mouth. "What was it?"

"Don't know, don't care to ask," he rasped, procuring two bullets from his pocket for a quick reload. "You good to walk?"

She nodded, not caring for his mess on her skin as she shunted her vault suit up and zipped it closed, her fingers clumsily lacing her boots from the sudden adrenaline rush. Cross knelt beside her, finishing the job himself and then holding her chin in one hand.

"Are you good?" he asked in a serious manner. "I'll fuckin' carry ya if I have to."

"I'll be fine." She tucked her hair behind her ears, the trembling in her fingers betraying her nerves.

"Ya ain't got to be scared," he said gently.

She met his eyes. "It's not me I'm scared for."

They came to the first corpse. The merc crouched beside it, removing the helmet to unmask the unsuccessful assassin.

"He's not Brotherhood," Evelyn commented quietly at his side.

Cross picked up the bulky rifle; the light refracted off his silver ring as he rotated his hand under the light.

"What is that?" she asked.

He didn't answer the question; he'd only seen a handful of them back in the Commonwealth during the fiasco with the Institute and their free-range synths. Lydia liked to collect them and dissect the things like a kid at a science exhibit- well, the guns and the synths. There could only be one logical reason as to their presence in this extremely isolated, particular location.

The laser rifle made a clatter at their feet; his large hands enveloped around her shoulders, the tight grip giving her heart a reason to flutter.

"You have to fuckin' promise me no matter what the fuck you see, or hear from this point on, you're not goin' to leave my side unless I'm dead, or dyin', do you understand?" When her lower lip quivered and it appeared she was about to cry, he shook her roughly. "Evelyn, do you fuckin' understand?! I need to hear you say it!"

"I-I understand," she said thickly. "What is-?!"

"We ain't got time. If I go down, you get to Charon, okay? You promise me that."

"...I promise."

"Alright, stay close to me." The merc wrapped his three fingers around the handle of his knife; they crept through the exhibit, straining for any sound of possible intruders.

Cross came to the door, slowly cracking it open with his shoulder to peer into the empty lobby. It was clear, and he swung it wide for them to exit through. Her footsteps pattered towards the entrance leading back into Underworld, but he halted her before she could burst inside- a ghoulish scream echoed from within, followed by the chaos of laser fire and shotgun blasts. The merc grabbed her hand and began to pull her away.

"No-no! Charon-!"

"I'll go back for him," he rasped in urgency. "C'mere."

He shoved her behind some rubble beside the mammoth display; she was gripping his jacket sleeve and whimpering, terribly frightened with his lack of answers and uncharacteristically grim demeanor.

"You're goin' to fuckin' hide for me here, do you understand?"

"But-"

"If Charon or I don't fuckin' come back out, you get yourself to that Paladin, do you fuckin' understand? You do not wait for us- you don't come fuckin' lookin', you assume the worst and run."

"Cross you're scaring me," she sobbed, refusing to loosen her hold on him. "No, no, Cross!"

He left her, coming to the front door and firing off a few shots as he opened it. The lobby was given silence after he stepped inside, and she was left whimpering pitifully in her place as her heart threatened to be puked from her chest.

Minutes passed, she waited with bated breath- a burst as the door slammed open- the ghoul hostess from before, escaping with her singed arm held close to her chest. Evelyn stood, fully revealing herself to come to the woman's aid; Greta whipped her head to the movement, opened her mouth, and then disintegrated into a pile of bright ash.

Another disguised figure appeared in the doorway, lowering his weapon as Evelyn hid from view.

"It's clear!"

You assume the worst and run.

Their footsteps stamped around back inside. Her eyes wandered from the empty doorway to her hands, and she became transfixed on the sight of her wedding band.

…it was the perfect size; it held some tarnish, weathered from the years of the elements, perhaps so lovingly worn by a past mate. Marriage had been offered only once before, but she didn't have to think twice before committing to the man that had placed it on her finger.

…he was an idiot. The biggest sap and bald-headed goon the wasteland ever had to offer. A mouth so filthy from vulgarity, and who knows how many past women, murmuring nothing but sweet love and heated kisses for her to solely enjoy. She couldn't leave him- she couldn't leave Charon, the man that provided the biggest security blanket for her to wrap into when the world grew scary and dark. She needed them, as much, or even more so, than they needed her.

"She's not here."

"She is…keep looking."

That…that voice.

The voice was the same as it was- everything became a little hazy. Evelyn stood upright, the man that had been her first for so many things was guiding her feet to the open doorway. A single glance around the room gave true homage to the city's name. Dr. Barrows was lifeless on the floor, face down in a puddle of his own blood. A pile of glowing ash in the doorway of The Chop Shop told the unfortunate end of his assistant. A ghoul was slumped over the banister, another was sprawled up the stairs…

She came to stand inside, blurring out the smeared blood and lifeless corpses in favor of the few still alive in the center of it all.

"Thomas?" she questioned in a hushed tone.

The glowing ghoul turned at the sound of her voice.

"Hello, Evelyn," Thomas rasped. "…it is good to see you, again."

Her eyes looked behind him. "Charon," she choked out.

He was on his knees, hands manacled behind his back and a smoldering glower in his eyes. A few laser burns across his thigh and shoulder were still singing as they slowly burned, his chest drawing ragged breaths. Charon met her eyes, and they softened.

Cross was knelt beside him, just as worse for wear, and she brought her gaze to his face. She had never seen such malicious evilness to him before- bone-chillingly cold and darkly hateful- it quivered her insides. The moment he saw her, he slumped in subtle defeat; his every bit of burning wrath snuffing itself out.

Thomas held up a hand to the masked individuals at his side. "Do not fire unless I command it." The ghoul then considered his next words. "She will come along, quietly…"

"Stop it, Thomas," she breathed.

"Evelyn, I know this appears-"

She bit back the sob in her throat and clawed at the pit of everlasting fury for some semblance of power.

"If you ever fucking loved me," she screamed, her wails seemingly ripped from the monolith of hellish souls itself, "you'll let them go, and you'll tell me what the fuck is going on!"

He was silent.

"Thomas," she cried. "You owe that much to me."

The glowing ghoul turned away slightly, his twitching hands diving deep inside his pockets; a momentary illusion that nothing about their past held them grounded in the present.

"I do love you. I always did," he confessed. "I want you to know that." And then he looked down at the floor. "Restrain her."

A sudden pierce stabbed in her lower gut; she glanced down, bewildered at having been stung; a syringe was protruding. With sluggish hands, she pulled it free to let it drop from her weak grip. The world was spinning on multiple axes…this hot blooming in her chest-

"-don't kill him, it's fine, he won't harm her-"

She was on all fours; the voices were drawing into meaningless, thick babble. They slurred so heavily, like the weight of her head on her shoulders. Something light and warm and ever-familiar nuzzled against her face. She closed her eyes, Cross's faint glow a comforting light behind her eyelids. She felt the desperate kiss of his rugged mouth, and she briefly wondered if this was the last moment that she would ever share with him...

I love you, she thought with the last of her fleeting consciousness.

And the world was gone.