Charon dislikes the Mister Handy. He has seen them at work before, dismantled a few of them in his time (exploded a good lot more), but he has never had to live in close quarters with one. It is incessant, buzzing constantly around the house with a level of cleanliness that more resembles fanatical fervor then anything that would be intentionally programed. Worst of all, it seems to have developed a strong distaste for him.

Each time Eva and Charon return from a trip, the bot floats gleefully towards its owner, welcoming her home and offering up various pleasantries, usually starting with a glass of water and ending in a painful attempt at humor. If it's possible for a robot to look cheerful, this Mister Handy has mastered it.

How it reacts to spotting Charon however is a different story.

It never seems to see him at first, too busy hovering around Eva like an excitable pet. Then it's eye stocks swivel around and the metal shielding around it's glass eyes contract in what could only be described as a narrowed squint.
"Oh" it mumbles, "He's back too."

Eva seems amused by the one-sided rivalry between her robot butler and her bodyguard, snorting at the obvious dislike in the machine's simulated accent. She pats its hull gently and nods.

"Yup, as always. You're going to have to learn to get used to that."

The bot huffs, turning its eye stocks back towards its preferred person.

"Yes, yes of course Ma'am but when will he learn to wipe his feet at the door?"

She snorts and walks by, lugging her overloaded bag towards the couch to start sorting through what's worth keeping and what she's willing to sell. As soon as her back is turned, the Mister Handy whirls around, narrowing its eye shielding down to a point. Charon glares back. He knows it's a robot and the response is useless but it's so easy to hate this thing. He follows Eva to the couch, deliberately knocking the mud from his boots as he goes.

The insulted 'harrumph' it makes is too satisfying to deny.

Eva is smirking when he sits down. The Mister Handy is puttering around, hoovering up the dirt and muttering under its breath.

"You're mean." She nudges his arm with her elbow teasingly. "He's just not used to you yet, you don't have to antagonize him."

Charon pulls open his own pack and begins sorting bullets. "I'm not."

The bot scoffs audibly by the front door. Eva hides a chuckle behind her hand and Charon shoots her a glare as well. "Though I wouldn't mind pulling that thing apart for scraps. It would make a good number of bullets."

He can hear its fans whir faster with indignation as it makes its way back upstairs.

Eva took a bit of damage this mission, several pieces of shrapnel from a nearby triggered landmine cut up her cheek as they dove for cover and the hypertrophic scars forming from the use of a particularly expired stimpak crinkle when she smiles.

"I like him in one piece, Charon. He's a lot more useful and bullets can't tell any good jokes." A chipper British voice wafts down from the second floor. "Thank you, Ma'am." It sounds incredibly pleased.

Most of the bullets Charon has sorted so far have been shotgun shells so the bot's smug tone is easier to ignore. Still, it's an easy comeback.

"Neither can that thing."

He's rewarded with another muffled laugh and the topic being dropped. They continue sorting in silence for several minutes.

"Charon…" Eva sounds thoughtful. "Do you remember anything prewar?" Her eyes are fixed on a pocket watch they found early yesterday. It's in surprisingly good condition, even maintaining a bit of shine through the years of tarnish. The gears inside could be useful but they will most likely sell it for scrap. She rubs a thumb over the smooth surface.

Charon frowns, pushing the bullets to keep aside and brushing the ones to sell back into the bag. "No." He doesn't like this line of questioning. It happens often with his more inquisitive employers and trying to remember that far back makes his head ache in an all too familiar way. Eva has flipped the watch open and is slowly spinning the minute hand around its face.

"Do you wish you could?"

That's new. Usually he's pressed for details or ordered to try harder. Those orders are one of the worst, causing splitting headaches until he manages to pull some small fact from clouded memories. 'Trees were greener then' or 'it rained a lot more'. He clears his throat, though it does nothing for the deep rasp of his voice.

"I don't. It doesn't matter."

He sounds angrier then he expected. That has been happening more often as of late. Little hints of inflection, mostly annoyance, have been slipping into his tone without his intending them too. He doesn't know what's causing it but he expects it's purely because he has been speaking more then he's used to. Something's bound to slip in occasionally.

Eva nods, the glass over the watch face has long since shattered but a few shards still extend around the rim. She nicks herself on one and they both watch as the wound slowly closes up, leaving a small raised scar behind. The stimpak must still be in her system. Eva rubs the new scar against the side of her hand mindlessly.

"Okay." She places the watch carefully in her 'to keep' pile.

"Sometimes I think I can imagine it perfectly. The vault always tried so hard to simulate it but I think it distorted over time."

It was hot today so Eva is wearing lighter pants, old tough fabric that's been haphazardly chopped off at the knee. He can see several scars knitting across her skin, jagged and dark against her near translucent skin.

"I guess we distorted over time too."

She looks up at him suddenly, pale eyes focusing on his in her usual forward way. With eye contact, she feels unnervingly close, though he hadn't noticed her proximity until now. The sensation of her thigh pressing against his has become a daily thing, something he has learned to ignore. Now he's uncomfortably aware of it but pulling away feels like a sort of submission and he will not be intimidated. Charon still isn't certain if her strange lack of personal space is a power play but if it is, he's not going to lose.

"Did you know I'm not even originally from the vault?" She's watching for a reaction, he's sure of it, but she isn't going to get one. He doesn't care about her or her past, the only thing that really intrigues him is whatever she is hiding that got her so much in such a short span of time. He stares back down, impassive.

"My dad brought me there as a baby but I don't even have their genetics. This," she gestures down at herself, "is all environmental."

She looks back towards him with an unreadable energy lighting her eyes. "They can't have originally looked like this, right? The lights must have been designed to make people look normal at first but we never tanned from light exposure and everything was so dark." She looks towards the door, where evening light is spilling through the open frame.

"I was blinded for a solid day when I left." She chuckles but it's humorless now. "I climbed under a rock and hid." She's watching him so closely. "It's funny, isn't it? I look like I came out from under a rock and I actually did."

Eva snorts and suddenly the electric energy in the room dissipates. She's back to her usual self, laughing quietly as she faces towards the dusky light.

"We were supposed to be a preservation of humanity but it was pointless." Eva catches up the pocket watch, rubbing at the surface like the tarnish might just wipe away. "Humanity still exists," She glances back at him, smiling like they're sharing a joke. "we were just a faded memory that even we didn't remember."

Eva stares down at the watch for another moment, her brow crinkled, then pushes it into the opposite pile. She pulls a fistful of bullets from the bottom of her bag and begins to sort them.

Tomorrow Eva and Charon bring the rest of what they found down to the market to sell. The watch sells for twenty caps and Eva tucks them away without a second glance.