Eva is unusually quiet. On more than one occasion Charon has turned a corner to find her silently moving about a room. Even in her heavy hiking boots she can stay undetected with ease. It's becoming something Charon both appreciates and despises.

When they are traveling, it's immensely useful. Having his added firepower has made her bolder, they no longer take hours to creep past each enemy, but she still prefers a stealth approach. The last trouble they encountered, a lone super mutant dragging something grizzly and humanoid behind it, he watched as she crept unnervingly close and skidded a grenade past its feet without attracting its attention. It never noticed the explosive, didn't get a chance to distance its self and died in a single blast.

Charon appreciates that aspect of her silence; super mutants are difficult to drop with a shot gun and bullets are expensive.

He does not appreciate not knowing where this deathly woman is going to suddenly appear.

He is composed enough to hide his surprise each time she startles him but he is usually the one to move around unnoticed. It's disconcerting to find it becoming the other way around. More often than not, he will get the strange sensation of being alone in the house even when he knows she is nearby. It's enough to put his nerves on edge.

It's why he knows something is wrong when he hears her come home.

Charon is in his room, a sparse environment with as minimalist décor as possible. The bed is a luxury in its own right, relatively soft with several mismatched blankets tossed over the surface. Eva keeps reminding him he can decorate, add things to make it feel more homey. It's a frustrating topic of conversation for him because she never grasps how little appeal he finds in the idea. He is cleaning his gun on the small metal table he eventually added to appease her when he hears the front door thud open and someone stumble inside.

Again, Charon is out the door with his gun readied in moments, though he doubts anyone would attempt to break into Eva's house. With the she owns buzzing constantly about, another mystery that startled him his second day by floating out of a storage room and exclaiming loudly that he must be the one who has been dirtying the floors so much as of late, and her new ghoul bodyguard, Eva's home was not a place many people wanted to so much as approach.

He is unsurprised when he doesn't find an intruder but shocked to see his employer, curled over and emptying the contents of her stomach onto the floor. The door is open wide and, from what he can see, she has no obvious wounds. She doesn't even have her usual gun, just the small pistol she carries when she's not planning on leaving the town. He watches her try to stand, clutching onto the door frame for support and tip back over, her legs trembling too violently to support her weight. For a moment, he does not move to help her.

After another bout of retching, Eva pushes herself up enough to look around and catches him standing at the top of the stairs. She grimaces and her expression, oddly enough, is one of embarrassment.

"Hi Charon. Can you come help me out?" Her voice is faint, weak and ragged from stomach acid and her face is shiny with sweat.

"I need to get over to Moira's place but I don't think I can make it the rest of the way." Eva grimaces what might have been an attempt at a self-deprecating smile.

Charon makes his way down the stairs, eyeing her. Is she drunk? For the time he has known her, he has never seen her intoxicated. She doesn't even have any alcohol in the house, save the bottle of vodka kept with her extra bandages and stimpaks.

"Wouldn't it be better to take you to the clinic?" He's close to her now and he can smell her, sweat sour with stress mingling with the sharp sting of vomit. It reminds him of one of his former employers the night he overdosed. He eyes her exposed arms but sees no track marks.

"No, I need to get to Moira. She needs to see this." A faint but rapid ticking is coming from the pip-boy strapped to her arm and he leans closer, watching her arms shake as she struggles to support her weight. It's a pathetic sight. Charon crouches beside her, still searching for some cause of this sickness. Finally, he notices something strange. Her shoes are dark with water and her pants are soaked up to the ankle. Eva starts to tip sideways and he catches her before she hits the floor.

"Are you …irradiated?" There's no other open body of water nearby then that deep puddle surrounding the unexploded bomb in the center of town. Her pip boy usually goes mad whenever they pass by on their way out and he can't see any other reason she would be this suddenly sick.

Eva snorts, "You got me. I didn't mean to let it get this bad but you know," she's crumpled over Charon's bent knee, limp and entirely still save for the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she pants. "shit happens."

Her eyes have started to shut and Charon doubts that is a good sign. Attempting not to jostle her too much, he hoists her up to her feet and begins to guide her out the front door. Carrying her would be easier but the effort to walk might keep her conscious a little longer. He's not certain if that matters but he's not willing to take that chance. The moment Charon fully registered the danger Eva was in, his contract started to take hold and now the urgent need to protect his employer is pulling at him stronger than any physical force ever could. It's unpleasant to say the least.

Eva's head is drooped but she's clinging tightly to the railing beside her, pulling herself along with each step. Halfway to Moira's house, one of her knees gives out beneath her and the sudden drop makes her tip over and vomit a second time. Still, she only stops for a moment, dragging herself weakly back up the railing and swinging drunkenly around the mess.

"I'll get that later." She's starting to slur her words.

The fact that she's concerned about leaving a mess shows how delirious she must be. His contract is revolting against their slow pace, sending sharp pricks of pain through what's left of his skin. Charon scoops her up and starts to run. He kicks in the door he knows to be Moira's shack just as her eyes drift shut and the two people inside both turn towards him, startled at the sudden invasion. The man stands straight, turning his gun towards the invader and if Charon has to drop Eva and strangle him to get by, he is more than willing. By now his head is throbbing with his failure to protect and killing someone pointing a gun at his employer usually does the trick.

Before anything can escalate however, the woman watching rushes over, clapping her hands in an unexpected display of delight.

"Oh, she really went all the way, didn't she?" She's grinning from ear to ear and gesturing over to a table further inside. "I told her she didn't have to get quite so much but really, this will be so much more helpful."

Charon is lost but he spots a stack of rad-away where she has indicated and it's enough to let him place her on the table and step away. Eva's head drops to the side and it's obvious she's entirely lost consciousness. Charon watches as the woman, presumably Moira, waves something under Eva's nose that manages to wake her and carefully guides her into a chair.

She questions Eva on her symptoms, checks her vitals and examines her eyes, tongue and the skin on her ankles that had direct contact with the irradiated water. She grows increasingly pleased, jotting down notes as Eva clutches her head and takes deep breaths, obviously trying to alleviate some of her nausea. If this mad woman doesn't fix her soon, Charon thinks he's going to snap but when he had stepped forward, ready to administer the rad-away himself, Eva had commanded him to wait. Her order fixed the distress coming from the contract but he is still frustrated.

He glances towards the guard still standing near the door, his gun now lowered. The man shrugs, blasé, and turns back to watch the entrance. It's clear Charon is the only sane person in this whole damn house.

Eventually Moira takes out a strange serum and injects it into Eva's arm. By this point, he can't tell if Eva even notices the needle enter her skin but after a few minutes she seems to rally.

"You are my super assistant. This was perfect, it's all going straight into the book." Moira looks gleeful as she tucks several radaways and rad-x into Eva's still trembling arms. Eva manages a weak smile, looking at this woman who nearly killed her like a friend. It makes Charon bristle.

He steps forward, placing one hand on the back of Eva's chair. "Are you done?"

The two women look towards him, seemingly surprised he's still here. Eva then looks back to Moira who pats her arm and grins. "I am all set. Come back and see me when you're up for more research."
Charon helps her stand and walks her towards the door, staring the guard down as they exit. He hates this place.

Eva holds onto his arm the entire way back, frowning at the mess she left on the board walk but continuing on. When they reach the house, the front door still open and the hovering agitatedly by the entrance, she lets him go and wobbles to the kitchen. He watches her gulp down two bottles of clean water and sigh. She grabs a handful of jerky and another bottle of water before collapsing on the couch.

"Something sweet sounds nice but if I get any more radiation in my system, I'm pretty sure I'll melt."

Charon is still at the door, glad that the has already cleaned up any signs of her original sickness. He is incredibly irritated but feeling more at ease now that they are back in their house. He wonders when he started counting it as 'theirs'.

"Or ghoulify." He watches her eyes widen at that, looking up at him sharply with a piece of jerky forgotten in her hand.

"Do you think?" She sounds surprised. "Even though I've been treated?"

Charon shrugs.

Eva looks away, down at her pale hands and he watches her trace a finger over a particularly dark vein. She looks thoughtful.

"Hmm."

She says nothing more so Charon walks away, leaving her to her thoughts.