"This can't be happening," Sylvia whimpered in denial. "Everyone in there hates me and my dad!"

"The lady who sent out the broadcast wouldn't ask you for help if she hated you," Juliet argued.

Sylvia gulped, nervously looking at her ghoul companion. "You can't go in. They've never seen the outside... they wouldn't understand."

Charon merely grunted.

Now she looked at Juliet. "Will you go with me?"

"Yeah, yeah." She nodded quickly.

The Lone Wanderer took a deep breath before slowly opening the wooden door to the cavern. It seemed so long ago she was on the other side, tripping over the skeletons and barely making it out the door, discovering the sun for the first time.

Now she was going back home.

"Be careful," Charon nearly pleaded to Juliet and Sylvia. What he didn't realize was that he never actually said it, he only thought it. When they were long gone, he sat down on a large rock next to Dogmeat.

Fuck.

Christ.

Juliet.

She was made by goddamn Vault-Tec.

Her mother died.

Alive.

Juliet.

Human.

Vault-Tec.

Juliet.

We'll help you forget. We'll help you get better. You're going to be just fine, Charon.

He needed to stop thinking. It wouldn't end well.

At the vault entrance, Sylvia shakily input the new password, the name of her old best friend. The massive vault door pushed backwards and slid open, the familiar alarm ringing out. The first thing they noticed was a body by the opposite control panel. "J-Jim?" Sylvia recognized, kneeling down to look over him. "He tried to leave... and they stopped him." She theorized.

"HOLD IT!"

The pair turned to see a security officer aiming a pistol at them. "I don't know how you got in here, but-"

"Officer Gomez!" Sylvia squeaked in recognition.

"Sylvia?" He remarked. "Holy shit, you're alive!" He nearly laughed.

"Yeah, I'm alive. Where's Amata?" Sylvia questioned.

"Amata?" Officer Gomez repeated. "She... look, I could get in trouble just for looking at you!"

"What kind of trouble?" Sylvia inquired.

"Everything went crappy when your dad left. He-he's not with you?"

Here it comes.

Juliet looked at Sylvia sadly as she took a deep breath. "He's dead."

Officer Gomez frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that. He was a good friend to me. The Overseer made sure no one else would try to leave. I guess he wasn't expecting you to come back... with company." He lowered his weapon. "Some of your friends want to leave here. You should see them... I won't tell anyone I saw you two."

Sylvia nodded as they decided to press on. "Thank you."

Juliet was on high alert as they entered the atrium.

"You gonna lock me up like you did Brotch? You can't cage a Tunnel Snake!"

"Stay back, Freddie!"

Pow.

"Freddie!" Sylvia shrieked, and this startled Juliet. One second she had her laser rifle out. The next second time froze. The third second she shot the gun out of the old man officer's hand. There had to be a name for this process right? Slow motion was getting old and unoriginal. When time resumed, Juliet's Vault-Tec brain gave her the answer.

Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. VATS for short.

"Mr. Taylor!" Sylvia exclaimed. "You shot at Freddie!"

"It was an accident!" Mr. Taylor argued. "He had a knife! You can't be too careful with those rebels!"

"Rebels?" Sylvia repeated. Juliet lowered her weapon.

"Go away," Mr. Taylor moaned. "This is all your fault."

"I'm sorry," Sylvia replied quietly. "Come on, Juliet."

In the cafeteria, a middle aged woman paid them no mind in her drunken state. "She's always been like that." Sylvia whispered. When they made it to the upper atrium with no issues, they were stopped yet again.

Juliet's eyes nearly popped out of her head. It was a young man with a... horribly familiar haircut standing a few feet away.

The King. Juliet's idol.

"Butch?" Sylvia scoffed.

"Look who came back!" Butch hooted. "You've got a lot of... whoa, who's that pretty girl behind you?"

Juliet blushed.

"Ignore him!" Sylvia groaned in quick annoyance.

Butch grinned. "Since you're here, you have to help us." He requested.

"Are you a rebel?" Juliet assumed.

"Pretty WITH a hot voice!" Butch cheered. "Sylvia, you shouldn't have!"

"I will kill you, Butch." Sylvia threatened.

"There's the goody two shoes I remember," Butch remarked. "Come with me, both of you."

In the clinic now, not only did Sylvia feel extremely homesick, she was also flattened by Amata hugging her. "YOU CAME BACK!"

Butch poked Juliet's shoulder, urging her to step out of the clinic with him. She nodded and followed him out. "So what's your name, pretty girl?" He asked her.

"Juliet," she introduced. She couldn't bring herself to say her last name for the first time ever. She no longer felt like a Carlisle since... she was never one.

"And you live... outside?" Butch continued.

Juliet shook her head. "I used to. I was in Vault 112."

This caused Butch to widen his gorgeous blue eyes. "There are other vaults?"

"There are many." She admitted, her computer like mind listing all the nearby vaults.

"Well... damn."

"Yeah, yeah." She replied awkwardly.

"What kind of gun are you holding?" He asked her curiously. Juliet was slightly surprised. She felt alien in this new world, and now there are people... like her.

Sort of. Minus the two hundred years of being trapped in a simulation.

Sylvia later emerged from the clinic. "I'm going to talk to the Overseer. Juliet, it's better if you stay here. He already won't be happy to know I'm here, but if he saw that I brought an outsider in..."

"I understand," Juliet said. "I'll stay here. Butch will keep me company." She said with a half wink.

Sylvia nodded, sighed and went on her way. Everything was happening way too fast for her.

Dad... died.

She was back home on a mission to save everyone.

Then there was Juliet, a two hundred year old teenage girl who had a history with Charon that neither of them wanted to talk about, especially to each other. She would think of something to do about them after she confronted the Overseer.

When she did just that, she swallowed nervously at the sight of him. He was simply sneering at her.

"Well, well, well..." He merely said.

"Alphonse," Sylvia choked. "Please..."

Juliet wondered if these people of Vault 101 knew the real purpose of them being here. It was logged into her brain. Sure, the vaults could keep whoever lived in them safe from nuclear warfare... but that wasn't their real intention.

Experiments.

Sick experiments, from what Juliet now knew. This vault's experiment wasn't as harsh as some of the others, but...

Butch was telling her about his gang, the Tunnel Snakes, but she wasn't listening. Not really. She looked around the clinic, among all the "rebels" and she gulped. They were probably all related to each other and they had no idea.

Juliet shuddered as Butch tilted his head. "Hey, are you listening to me?"

She bolted her eyes up at him. "Yeah, yeah!" She sputtered. Luckily, before Butch could call her out on her bluff, Sylvia returned... with the Overseer.

Everyone went silent. He looked completely heartless; his hazel eyes were staring coldly at all the young adults plus the outsider teenager in the clinic. Juliet found herself standing behind Butch, in case the Overseer decided to call out her presence.

Butch slightly smirked at her. "It's okay, don't be scared of him."

The Overseer cleared his throat and promptly apologized to the entire group, and then announced he was resigning from his role as Overseer... handing the title over to his daughter.

"Ah, shit," Butch laughed bluntly. "This ought to be interesting! Amata, we can leave now, right?"

The Overseer gave his daughter a firm look, and glanced at everyone else, ignoring Sylvia, and walked out of the clinic.

"I think..." Amata spoke in shock. "I think I will open the vault. But..." She turned her attention to a completely terrified Sylvia. "I have to ask you to leave."

"What-?" Was Sylvia's response.

"You freed us," Amata admitted. "But... I have to ask you to leave, and don't come back. For the vault's sake."

"What?" Sylvia flew into a fit of rage. "You're joking, right? You just said it yourself! I saved you from your dad! AGAIN! My own dad is fucking DEAD! AND YOU'RE ASKING ME TO LEAVE?!"

Juliet could feel the hurt in her voice. She understood... kind of. It wasn't anything like when Autumn laid out how Juliet's entire life was a lie, but it was the same kind of awful pain. She wanted to hug Sylvia and tell her it was okay, but she didn't have time. Sylvia stormed out of the clinic, presumably going to exit the vault... forever.

Juliet pat Butch's shoulder before telling Amata, "In my time, we had a word for people like you. Conceited bitch. I'm sorry I told her about your radio broadcast." And going to follow the Lone Wanderer out of Vault 101, one of the most horrible places Juliet would ever find herself in.

For a mere two days after that, it consisted of Charon sulking around Sylvia's Megaton home. He finally couldn't handle it anymore. The moping around. His young adult contract holder and his teenager...

Wait.

...his?

His what?

He grumbled now.

Sylvia was in her bedroom upstairs. Juliet was half asleep in a green chair downstairs. Dogmeat was laying near the fridge. The robot Wadsworth was floating about.

"That's it!" Charon hissed, waking Juliet up. "Robot, get Sylvia down here." He called out.

"Of course," Wadsworth replied, floating upstairs. After a lot of groaning and complaining a minute later, the Lone Wanderer appeared downstairs, glaring at Charon.

"What?" She scowled.

"We're leaving." Charon decided.

"Leaving where?" Sylvia questioned, narrowing her grey blue eyes up at the ghoul.

"To get that G.E.C.K." Charon reminded. "Don't you want to finish your father's work?"

"He died from it!" Sylvia trembled.

"His death will be in vain if you don't do anything." Charon coldly stated.

Juliet put a hand over her mouth, preparing to watch Sylvia fight him. Instead, she huffed, "Fine! But I'm not the one who knows where Vault 87 is!"

The Vault-Tec Human now cleared her throat.

The teenager of the group was never going to get used to walking for hours on end. During their journey to Lamplight Caverns, she'd came across the scariest thing ever, more terrifying than Super Mutants. It was a Deathclaw that was caged in an Enclave camp. No one wanted anything to do with it, so the group successfully snuck around it, with severe effort to keep Dogmeat's mouth muzzled using their hands to clamp him shut.

It took over half a day to reach the far north west side of the Capital Wasteland. Juliet hoped deeply in her mind that Julia would be there, still chaperoning half of the elementary school for their field trip here. What... what happened to them when the world ended? Julia. Charlie. Jade. Did they live out their lives or did they get blasted into atomic ash? Did they get into Vault 87?

The facility that housed the vault lived up to its name as they entered the cave, following the lit path down until they discovered a stop sign, a rather large gate, and a small boy with a rifle. "Hold it right there!" He squeaked. "Anyone takes another step and I'll blow your fucking heads off!"

Charon was slowly reaching for his shotgun; Dogmeat let out a small bark; Juliet startled everyone by bursting into laughter. "What the hell is so funny?" The boy hissed.

Juliet was damn near hysterical as she hugged herself from laughing so hard. Even she didn't know what was so funny - just the idea of that little boy wielding a gun and swearing like he was all grown up. It was too much for her.

Sylvia threw her arms up. "We're not here to hurt anyone!"

"You all have guns!" The boy remarked.

"You do too, but we can be friends." Sylvia offered.

"You're big, and I don't have big friends. YOU ALL NEED TO GET OUT." The boy angrily threatened.

"We're looking for Vault 87," Sylvia interrupted with a gulp. "It's through this cave, right?"

"Yeah, but that's where the monsters are." The boy answered quietly. "None of you are getting into Little Lamplight. No Mungos allowed!"

As soon as Juliet got herself together, she snorted and said, "Your face looks like my butt!"

Sylvia gasped lightly. The boy smirked. "Oh yeah? I bet you like having a good looking butt!"

"It doesn't smell as bad as you do." Juliet remarked, putting her hands on her hips.

The boy laughed. "You're pretty funny for a Mungo. I guess you guys can come in..."

As the gate roared open, Sylvia was utterly stunned. "Juliet, how did you do all of that?"

The 217 year old shrugged and replied, "I don't know. I'm a child at heart I guess."