Gemma was proficient in three things: stealing, sleeping, and hiding. She was a mediocre level in everything else. Still, she had absorbed some of her dad's knowledge of medicine. Enough to know she had really fucked up her leg.
She'd jumped from the highest balcony in town to injure herself enough for Moira's crazy experiments, and might have overdone it. The trek back up to her house to find her stimpacks was torture, even more so because she knew she couldn't use them yet. She just wanted them on hand in case Moira didn't have enough. If she fixed this within the next 24 hours, she might walk properly again. Maybe.
Charon's reclining form shifted to rigid and alert the moment she stepped in the door, his peering eyes fastened to her leg, watching her as she limped into the kitchen. Her hands were shaking with pain and frustration, and she only succeeded in dropping the stimpacks onto the floor. Tears welled in her eyes, and she bit her lip to keep from crying. The pain was making it hard to think.
Scarred hands reached out from behind her and grabbed the stimpacks from the floor, pressing them gently into her hands. She looked up to find Charon's eyes on her, brow wrinkled in either confusion or concern. He squeezed her hands once before letting them go, leaving her fingers curled tightly around the stimpacks. He nodded once to her, then limped back to the couch and hovered over it, unsure whether to sit back down again.
Her house guest was strange this way. He communicated mostly in grunts and nods, and spent most of his time cleaning his gun or counting chems in his pack. Gemma wasn't sure why he hoarded so many and so obsessively checked them, but she supposed she had her strange habits too.
Still, despite their differences, they worked well together. Charon had taken to cleaning the guns she left downstairs, and she had cooked dinner and brought it to the couch to eat together every night. Three days in, it felt comfortable. The silence between them was familiar, friendly. They had no need to tip toe around each other, or worry about upsetting the other or making them uncomfortable, their friendship just flowed. Well, at least she thought of it as friendship. She wasn't sure about Charon, he was hard to read on the best of days.
And ow, oh fuck, today definitely wasn't the best of days.
She stuffed the stimpacks into her pocket and started limping her way back to the front door, attempting and failing to stay steady on her own two legs. Without a word, Charon rose and slid his arm under hers, as she had done to him, to support her shoulders. At his height, it was awkward, but between the two of them, they made it to Moira's without injuring themselves further.
The kid was a lunatic. She'd just nearly crippled herself to help with "research", which was a debatable word when applied to Moira, and she already agreed again to help by getting irradiated. Now, they were standing shoulder to shoulder near the atom bomb, watching the highly irradiated water ripple in the night breeze. The town was quiet, too quiet, Charon could practically hear Gemma's indecision. If she held his contract, he would have removed her from this situation without hesitation. As her friend, however, he had no say in her decisions, as idiotic as they were. Still….
"This is stupid, smoothskin, even for you."
Gemma jumped at his voice, turning her large eyes towards him in surprise. After a moment of staring, she shrugged.
"Even if she fixes you up, the amount of radiation she wants you to expose yourself to could permanently change you. You could end up like me."
She just shrugged again, patted his shoulder, and crouched down to cup some of the water in her hands. There was little he could do but watch as she drank handful after handful, shuddering after every sip. He stepped into the pool and dragged her out when he noticed the radiation burns on her hands, and she shot him a glare before he fell to the ground and threw up all over his boots.
Like he'd said, lunatic.
He scooped her up like an old doll and carried her to Moira's shop, eager to get this over with. His leg was nearly fully healed, and he felt the contract pulling on him more every day. Charon wanted to be sure the kid wouldn't get into too much trouble when he had to leave, so it was best to get it over with while he was here.
Moira poked and prodded and asked yes or no questions like she normally did. To Charon's satisfaction, the kid threw up all over the shop floor before Moira gave her the meds. She chattered incessantly, telling him to make sure she got plenty of rest and fluids and not to worry too much about the gene mutation. Charon just nodded before carting the mostly-unconscious vaultie back to her shack. She laid on the couch for the rest of the night, tossing and turning and waking up to vomit into the bucket left beside her. He was sorely tempted to use a Med-X on her, but his contract would not allow him to take any more chems from the pack.
By the next morning, Gemma was sleeping peacefully, and Charon's bones were itching with anticipation. It was time to go. It was well passed the time for him to go, but he had lingered as long as he could.
He lowered himself gently onto the couch by her head, gingerly brushing the hair from her face so he could check her fever. With relief, he found her cool to the touch. She shifted under his ministrations, pressing her head into his lap, sighing contentedly when she found a comfortable position using him as a pillow.
As odd as it was, Charon found himself wishing he never had to move. He wanted this, with surprising vehemency. He wanted their easy days to go on, where the most he had to worry about was her astounding capacity for idiotic decisions. All the more reason he had to leave, today. He was getting attached, and worse than that, so was she. Ahzrukhal would never approve of friendships, and if Gemma ever came sniffing around asking for him, his employer was likely to make him kill her just for the fun of it.
No, he had to cut this off before it grew into something he couldn't end, if it hadn't already. It's not like Gemma was the first to treat him with kindness. He tried reminding himself of Quinn and Willow and all the others who were friendly with him until Ahzrukhal had ordered him back to work. There was nothing special about this single smoothskin, or so he tried to tell himself.
Abruptly, his skin started to burn and he knew he couldn't remain any longer.
He slipped from beneath her and reached for a blanket instead, tucking it around her as she repositioned, seeking the fading warmth of him on the cushions. Charon found himself wishing he had something to leave her, but quickly shook that thought away. He was not a sentimental man, and it was better that she forget him.
Even if he knew he would never forget her.