She tried to hide her limp but the sway of her right hip and the unbalanced shift of her left knee had an asymmetry that would be obvious to a mole rat. He had been hyperfocused on her gait for the past hour as they hiked over the broken hills towards Vault 112. She stumbled over blackened branches and jagged cement, refusing to listen to his suggestions that he carry more of her supplies to help ease her burden.
She was currently ignoring him, likely due to his admission that all the non-stimpack chems had been disposed of.
This was a lie, of course. He kept some med-x in his own pack, hidden and only if it was clear she was in dire need. But she had begun to rely on the painkiller, to a level he knew was potentially dangerous. He waited with the tug of anxiety pulling down on his heart valves, squeezing them shut. All she had to do was simply order him to go retrieve more med-x and he would likely come clean.
He knew this would likely ruin the trust she had placed with him, but he felt this was the right thing to do. It was within his power, until she began to use her contract more precisely, to protect her from herself.
She stopped and took her straps off her shoulder, her bag slumping onto the ground. Her legs buckled and she sat on the dirt, pushing her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. "Fuck."
Charon grunted in response and squatted beside her. Sweat was dripping down her brow. Her chest was rising and falling heavily. "You should drink some water."
She scoffed. "What I need is some goddamn med-x."
"No. You don't." Charon went to her pack, rummaging through the ammo and the random teddy bear for her canteen. He held it under her chin, looking at his reflection in her tinted lenses. He would maintain his conviction, calmly. He knew the early stages of addiction. "I thought you're supposed to be a doctor."
"I am," she snapped, swiping the bottle and unscrewing the cap.
"Yet you ignore the obvious signs that you need some fixer. Or addictol, if any of that still exists. You're hooked. We should head back to the nearest settlement and get you a detox. Am I being irrational?"
She was quiet, sipping her water. He noticed her hand was shaking as the canteen was raised to her lips. Her skin was sallow. "Fine. You're right. I may be experiencing some withdrawal symptoms. But first, we need to get to Vault 112."
He didn't like her answer. "You are not fit for combat. It is not safe for you to be out here right now, in your condition."
She sighed. "I know. You're right." She wiped her brow, biting her lip. "But right now, I'm so close. I can't stop. Dad is so close."
"Leah." Charon almost said something he knew he'd regret.
"What?" She looked up at him, her lips a pale green.
He probably won't be there. "We should at least rest for the night."
She sighed. "Fine. Next safe place you see, we'll set up camp." She ran her fingers through her hair, brushing strands away from her wet forehead. "I just need one dose. Just to make my skin not itch so much." He felt the pocket that held the cache of opiates burn into his thigh. He ignored it. He refused to feel guilty.
This is what needs to be done.
(Necro)
Her hip was no longer the only part of her that hurt. Her head pounded. Her pulse was a drum solo from hell, beating its cruel rhythm against the inside of her skull. She felt both freezing and on fire at the same time. Her breathing was labored. And her vision was blurred.
But she pressed on, refusing to go back. She knew this was her fault, despite how much she resented Charon for ripping her solace from her hands. She wanted nothing more than to order him to go back to Underworld while she went to scavenge for more med-x. Maybe some jet, just because Big Brother wouldn't be watching.
In the back of her mind, she knew she was being childish. She had gotten herself into this mess. She needed to get her shit together. He's helping. I know he is. But why does he have to be such an asshole about it?
They had found an old gas station, where a first aid kit was her first choice to pillage. She ripped the white metal case open, finding only stimpacks and a small pack of fixer. Dad always said I was born lucky. She laughed, feeling fortune finally smile upon her. She held up and shook the tin box, pills rattling its obnoxious cadence for her companion to see.
Silence greeted her, which she had to look to see why her companion wasn't expressing any jubilance or glee. He had his arms crossed, looking down at her and the mess of medicine that she had made when tearing greedily into the box.
"Don't start celebrating all at once, now," She sarcastically muttered as she read the back of the label. She took a dose and crunched down on the pill, the taste like paint and bitter grease. She winced and coughed, washing it down.
"What else did you find?"
She shrugged, organizing the chaos. "Three stimpacks. A bloodpack. Aspirin. Gauze. Don't worry, nothing addictive." She lifted her shades and looked up at him. "Trust me. I'm not planning on taking anything just for fun right now. We're too close to the mark. Besides," She sheepishly smiled, "I really don't want my father to see me strung out."
He nodded, though his eyes were still narrow with distrust. She decided to go about her business and let him sulk. He had been acting strange lately. Quieter. Angrier. She had appreciated the distance most of the day while she jonesed for the needle.
Maybe I was being a bit of a bitch. Understatement of the day. She chewed her lower lip and went to make a barrel fire. Dinner. That'll break the ice.
Charon was already settling in. His leather jacket hung on a pin against the wall. He was cleaning his shotgun, his actions always mindful and meticulous. He avoided looking at her, instead, focusing on his cloth and gun.
She had scrounged some matches and broke off some shelving at a nearby magazine rack, tossing it into an empty oil barrel. The flames ate up the dry wood hungrily, while her stomach rumbled. She was about to dig through her bag for some pork 'n beans when her vision melted into colors and her stomach backflipped into her throat.
She gagged and fell onto her stomach, the earth spinning while she could only hang onto the dusty floor for dear life.
"Leah!" Charon's voice broke through her wooziness, hot hands on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
"Uh," she moaned. "Fixer side effects. This is expected." She let out a cough, expelling some dust she had inhaled. "Just give me-a couple minutes. It usually goes away after then. I just wasn't sure how long it would start working. I usually get the IV." She felt herself being lifted up and flipped onto her back while being hoisted off the ground. She reeled and clenched her eyes shut. "Uh, just let me stay still." She felt herself being lowered back onto the cool ground, her head lifted and subsequently cushioned with a rolled-up shirt. "Thanks."
"This isn't your first time?" He sounded incredulous. Gruff.
"Of course not." She looked up at the dark ceiling. They were in darkness, shadowed with only the green glow from her wrist illuminating their safe haven. "Charon, I know you're looking out for me. But understand that I just like chems. I know how to handle them. I make sure the dose I take is within my weight and tolerance. So long as I can get my hands on some fixer, what's the harm?"
"Your health. Your combat readiness. Your life, Leah." Charon's rough voice was growling. "Leah. How old are you?"
"Nineteen."
"Nineteen. And you think you've got all this figured out. You know how old I am?"
"Uh. Over two hundred."
"Yes. And my whole life I've seen what chems do to people. I saw my mother waste away on jet. And I saw so many people grovel to Ahzrukhal for the shit he was peddling. And you think you can just keep taking and then just pretend all of that never happened with another pill. They call that short-fixing. Eventually, your body becomes resistant to the fixer. And you'll need to up the dose to get the same effect to flush your system."
"I've never heard of this."
"Yeah, you probably didn't in your vault. Daddy probably kept all the limited chems stock locked uptight. I doubt you had any way to get a hold of enough Fixer to try this out. But kid, you're a fucking idiot if you think you're going to go about your life with the way you treat the chems. Maybe you think you know everything, with your precious Vault-Tec education and your fancy gadgets. But you don't know shit about reality."
"Then why is most of Underworld taking jet and living their life just fine?" She glared at him, hating him for talking-for giving her this lecture while she tried to not puke her brains out. What made him think he knew more about medicine than she?
"You were in Underworld and saw ghouls jetting without getting addicted, because we're resistant to chems. We need to up the dose a lot to feel it. So you've probably seen Snowflake taking hit after hit and you think you can match? Well, you should just stay around the Ninth Circle when a smoothskin comes through. I've seen what happens to the young ones that Ahzrukhal would get a hold of. They wouldn't last the year. He'd get them hooked and offer them fixer, at a high price, to play it off that he was the nice guy supplying the cure to his poison. And kids would purge and start all over again. Sound familiar?"
Another wave of nausea rocked her and she cleared her throat, trying not to throw up. "That's not going to be me."
"It's not? Are you planning on quitting? Or keeping this shit up? Because one day, the price is going to be too high, even with all your caps. You're going to one day find out that a whole case of fixer won't stop the shakes. Or that you'll one day need to buy out an entire clinic's worth of chems to feel normal. And it will happen before you reach twenty. You understand, Doc?" Charon slammed his fist hard against the side of the gas station counter, the wood bursting, and splintering. His voice, though still harsh, held a wavering catch to it. "If you were any of my previous employers, I wouldn't care. But you're not like them. You're kind. You're kind to me. You help everywhere you go. My job is to keep you safe, but how can I protect you from yourself? I don't want you to die." He turned away, avoiding eye contact. "I don't want to watch you destroy yourself."
She looked up at him, feeling her eyes sting. His energy was electric. Her heart felt like it was breaking. "I'm sorry."
They stayed in silence. Minutes had past. No distant gunshots or the howl of a rabid dog sounded. Only the awkward quiet that forced her to simmer in her own inner dialogue.
What have I done? She admitted she had gotten carried away back at the Jefferson Memorial. She had taken little extra hits to make sifting through her father's documents bearable. To keep herself feeling good despite how reality made her feel anything but. And true, she may have been neglecting her research for more recreational pursuits. Instead of reflecting and letting the guilt drive her to change, she had instead chosen to hide.
Could she change?
She doubted it. Even at that moment, she didn't want to quit. She didn't want to stop. And she hated herself for it. But it wasn't just about what she wanted anymore. She wasn't on her own to make that call anymore. The circumstances were different. Charon was there and he cared about what happened to her.
In the dark, it was hard to see anything more than the glint in his eyes, the shape of his being that loomed over her with slumped shoulders and pain radiating off his form. Two hundred years and he looked weighed down. I don't want him to suffer anymore. To be passed around with shitty employer to shitty employer, who never gave a damn about him. If there's anything she had the capacity to do, it was to alleviate the suffering of this one person, who cared about her. Maybe it was her savior's complex. Maybe it was because she felt like she owed him for all the times he looked out for her. Whatever it was, she wanted to do better. For him.
"I'll stop, Charon. I'll stop." She forced herself to sit up. She placed one hand over his. "For you. I promise." She wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
(Necro)
She had given him new orders.
"Charon. I'm going to give you all the chems we find. Stimpacks are split between us. But you'll hold onto all the rest. You will be in complete control of my chem use. At your discretion, when you objectively think it's needed for a situation, you can give me what I need. But if I ask for some mentats because I'm bored or some buffout if I feel like I need that extra boost in a situation, you're the one that can tell me, 'no'. No matter what my future orders are." She had thrown him a wry smile. "I'm assuming jet is out of the question, so I won't even bother considering it in a scenario."
He nodded, watching as she took out two packs of mentats, her buffout capsules, and a syringe of psycho which she handed to him. He stared at them, his brain buzzing with confusion. "Where-"
"I had stashed them in my boot back in Jefferson. I didn't know you were planning on dumping my med-x, but I just figured they were out of sight, out of mind, and wouldn't cause any drama. I'm just coming clean."
Now he felt his stomach turn. The med-x syringes were wrapped in a leather case in the side pocket of his pants. He decided to confess his sins as well, ready for her ire. He took out the supplies and placed them on the table where she laid out her supplies.
Her eyebrow raised. Light eyes sparking with heat. "Is that my med-x?"
"Yes."
She looked at him, blinking. "You didn't throw them in the basin." It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"I see." Her face had cooled. She was pensive. Finally, she inhaled sharply and let out a heavy sigh. "Well, I guess we both kept secrets from each other. What matters is we're honest with each other now. Besides, You were right. I was abusing my medical supplies. I was out of line. So thank you, Charon." She gestured for him to take them. "Please keep them out of my sight. And let's get to 112."
They had both barely slept the night before. Charon had remained vigilant and kept watch while Leah had struggled to sleep despite her newfound addictionless state. She blamed the excited jitters of finally finding her father and suggested she stand watch. Charon had insisted that she get her rest, despite her insomnia.
He was weary, but content with how the series of events resulted with his noticeably heavier travel load. He had expected to find himself watching his contract exchange hands after what he had said to her the night before. Despite how she continued to prove him wrong, it still left him feeling like he was in a surreal dream. At any moment, he would wake once more and find himself looking at the peeling plaster of the closet that Ahzrukhal had ordered him to sleep in.
The sun was rising in the distance, bright streams of light piercing through the empty windows of the ruins of Arlington. They were walking down a street he felt as though he remembered. He remembered taking leave and pub crawling with his fellow soldiers one weekend, where pretty smoothskins in dresses and colorful cars lined the sidewalks.
The rest of their journey was peaceful, despite traveling at Leah's limping pace. She had GNR blaring at her wrist, humming along to Let's Go Sunning.
They finally reached a garage, which made Charon wonder if Leah was lost. She continued on confidently, shooting the few radroaches that swarmed at her without her normally hesitant gun trigger finger. If only she was this determined normally, Charon smirked to himself as she cleared a path and began rummaging through shelves. She was bent over in front of him, pushing aside milk crates and cardboard boxes. He admired the view, in no rush to have her deprive him of admiring the shape of her ass that morning.
"It's got to be around here." She stood up and walked hurriedly to the adjacent room. She beelined to a big red button against the wall, slapping it with pizzazz as the floor opened up to reveal stairs leading down into the basement. She pumped her fist, letting out a triumphant cheer. "I found it!"
Charon was now on high alert. He cocked his weapon and looked around, wary of any potential hostiles nearby. The last time they went to a vault had forever tainted his impression on what Vault-Tec had in store. "Leah."
"Hm?" She was already halfway down the stairs, turning impatiently to him.
"If this is anything like the last vault-"
"Then get me out. But I doubt it. Dr. Stanislaus Braun, head of Future-Tec and one of the greatest scientists of his time was overseer of this vault. I doubt he would have arranged for his own vault to end up like the last one. That was just a fluke. Remember," she shot him a reassuring grin, "I spent my whole life in 101. I know how vaults are." She spun and continued down, like a child in a candy store.
Charon sighed to himself, hurrying down to keep his eye on his employer. Her naivety was going to get herself killed if he wasn't careful.
A Robobrain greeted them, gentle voice instructing them to don vault suits. They were suddenly surrounded by similar models, all greeting with recorded voices. The hairs he had left all prickled with concern. She immediately complied, unzipping and unbuttoning and pulling on the blue fabric. He had seen her in the getup enough times that it didn't seem out of the ordinary. But he refused to wear the one the machine kept nudging him with. He let out a guttural noise and pulled it from the clamps of the robot.
"We cannot proceed until all residents wear their assigned Vault-Tec vault suits. Please comply."
"Charon," Leah shot him a half-pleading, half-authoritative frown. "Please."
He inwardly groaned and began taking off his armor, not liking the idea of baring his flesh. He felt vulnerable. And he tensed at thinking of the last time he was singed with lasers.
The vault suit was surprisingly crisp and breathable. He didn't feel too hot or too cold. He twisted his back and pulled his arms up to feel how flexible the material was. He couldn't help but be impressed with the mobility the suit afforded him.
"Pretty nice, huh?" Leah zipped her suit up her chest, running her hands over the fabric of her arms. "I always love this material. I think I'll try to collect a vault suit from every vault in the Capital Wasteland. We should go back to 106 for one." Charon shot her heated glower and she let out a quick laugh. "Just kidding. Come on!"
They followed the Robobrain's instructions and continued deep into the vault. The spaces were immaculate. Polished steel and overly recycled air that smelled vaguely of metal overwhelmed Charon's senses. He was used to the dull browns and strong stenches outside. He kept one eye on his employer and another at every moving robot and automatic doorway that hissed when they walked by. So this is what a vault's supposed to look like? Though his suit kept him comfortable, his neck and head felt cold. The space felt sterile, in a way that seemed devoid of humanity and compassion.
"Oh." Her voice had halted its hyperactivity when they stepped out on a terrace, overlooking what looked like a collection of glass pods. He blinked, a cruel nostalgia scratching in his chest cavity. They reminded him of the vertibird flight simulators he had trained on. He immediately refocused on Leah to avoid thinking of the rest.
Leah. She is looking for her father. She wants to find him. He stared at the back of her head, paying extra attention to the way her hair curled and frizzed. He admired how brown it was, the only brown thing in that godforsaken artificial blue room. She is real. She is in front of me.
He kept himself grounded, fighting the blitz of images that fought to push into his mind. "You have performed exemplary in every field of training yet. You are being considered for our elite program. Would you be interested? Auto E-6 pay and promotion, with a generous financial bonus if you agree to an extension in your contract."
He clenched his jaw tightly and squeezed the metal beam as tightly as he could. He was hunched over, staring down at the simulation pods, his knuckles cracking and stinging. He realized he was hurting himself and relaxed. He inhaled deeply. Where is she?
She was on one of the terminals below, oblivious to his flashbacks. He went to get closer to her, relieved she hadn't seen. His hands and forearms throbbed as they hung limply at his sides. He stood a few feet behind her as she would press her forehead into the glass of a simulator pod, check its associated terminal, then rinse and repeat to the next one.
She finally stopped and let out a gasp. "That's him. Dad!" She pounded on the glass, cupping her eyes like binoculars as she stared into the pod. "Dad!"
Charon went in to get a closer look. An older man with a beard was staring intently into the screen. He was immersed. He knew he wouldn't respond. "Leah, he can't hear you."
"Why not?" Her voice was shrill and whiny. Like a child. "What's wrong with him?"
"Nothing. He's just in a simulation. There's probably a way to shut it off." Charon looked at the terminal, nodding towards it. Leah went onto it, fingers running across the keys. "I don't see a way to stop it. His heart rate is elevated." She was biting her lip and looked around. "I'm going into one of these. I think something is wrong. One of the terminals said that that guy," she pointed across the room to one pod, "Is Braun. The person inside looks old. Very old. I think these are the original vault residents and they've been in some simulation this entire time."
"Then you should not join them. Maybe there's no way out."
"No. My Dad is in there. He wouldn't go in if he didn't have a way out."
"Leah."
"He wouldn't, Charon!" Leah snapped. "I'm going in. Don't try to stop me."
"Leah," he reached for her shoulders and held her firmly. "Look at me."
He looked at her widened eyes, seeing the tears that watered them. "Just think about this. We need a plan. If you get stuck in there, what am I supposed to do?"
She looked around, wildly. "Talk to the Robobrains. Explore the vault. Try to find anything that can help. I'm going in, Charon. I'll get us out. I don't plan on sitting in one of those things for the next two hundred years. But if I am stuck in there for more than three days, break the glass and pull me out of that chair. Okay?"
What if you're still mentally stuck in there? He wanted to ask, but her eyes were furious and determined. In the end, she was in charge. He had to obey her wishes. "Very well. I'll explore this vault and keep you safe. Please be careful."
"I will." She put her arms around his neck and jumped up to kiss him. He helped hold her up, squeezing her tightly. His gut didn't like this plan.
As he watched her sit in the pod and the case enclosed her inside, he put his hand on the glass as her eyes glazed from the monitor winding toward her face. He vaguely remembered what simulations felt like, but he had no idea what he was going to do if she didn't come back out.
He cradled his shotgun and went to find the nearest Robobrain. He'd at least get some answers.
