"Cross, he'll kill me!"
The merc unsheathed his knife and started for her. Jolene emitted a scream as she stumbled backward into the frame of the bed and ended up crashing to the floor in a tangled mess of limbs, her dress hitching past her thighs and a single breast peeking out.
"Sinjin sent me!" she wailed, her hands raised before her face to preserve what was left of her humanity. "H-he told me to come find you, to get information!"
"On what?" he growled, inching closer to smother her with his ire. Every frustration he ever had towards the bastard was now starting to rear its ugly head- if he didn't get his answers soon, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from taking them out on her.
"On your wife!" she sobbed. The flaky charcoal she applied for eyeliner began to run muddy lines down her face, her lipstick skewed in its own ugly grimace. "He-he wanted to know, about your wife!"
Cross already knew this, even though it had been nothing more than a hunch, but just hearing it confirmed from someone else nailed an icy pick straight through his heart. A deep emerald glow thrummed in his chest, producing a faint, almost inaudible buzz in the air from the radiation.
Jolene's hazy eyes went wide, her train of thought derailed as she stared at his growing shimmer. "How are you not feral?" she whispered, more to herself.
Cross turned and slammed his knife straight to the hilt through the top side of the dresser. He picked up the bottle of drug-laced alcohol and threw it to smash against the wall. Jolene shrieked, curling herself into a small ball as he went ballistic and began to tear up the room like some wild animal. When he finally turned to her, his entire body glowed bright, dimming all other light in the room as he seemed to absorb its luminosity. She gaped at him, not recognizing the man she had been so helplessly in love with for so many years. His eyes were so black; the deepest trench of the ocean, where no light ever seemed to touch.
"What do you know about my wife?"
Her lips quivered, and she found herself unable to speak, unable to move. A state of complete shock told her to remain so very small, to hide away from the unblinking pit that was his stare. One wrong move, and he would consume her whole like some gaping pit.
"Tell me!" he roared.
"He wanted to know about the baby!"
Cross instantly dimmed, too stupefied to speak or react in any way.
Jolene licked the oily makeup from her bottom lip, the taste chalky and unpleasant on her tongue. "He…he wanted to get information on the baby…is…is it true?" She slowly got to all fours and crawled towards him like he was the very image of God to worship. "Is it yours?"
The eggy contents in the skillet popped and sizzled as a metal spoon stirred the fried bits around. Her sticky hands wiped down the front of her already soiled apron, wiping the bits of dried crumbs from her fingers before reaching for some utensils. A commotion spun her head around- loud stomping and grunts echoed loudly enough in the concourse to wake the dead. Cross could be heard barking orders around to Can, the elevator made a loud ding, and then all was quiet.
Wonder what he brought home this time? Evelyn thought wryly as she transferred her late afternoon lunch to a plate and drizzled some homemade mirelurk sauce all over it. Rather than taking a seat in a chair that was specifically for her, she leaned against the counter and scarfed down her dish while she watched the archway in anticipation. The heavy footfall of boots announced her husband before he made an appearance.
"So…what was all that noise about?" She twirled a piece of scrambled egg in some purple pulp. "Find out anything interesting in Goodneighbor?" He just stood in the doorway, staring at her. She lowered her fork, the utensil clanging loudly against her plate. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"
As though he were propped in place by a string, it suddenly snapped, and he blinked and wiped a hand down his face as he seemed to come alive. He shrugged nonchalantly. "Nope."
Evelyn blinked at his disheveled appearance as he stepped inside. "…is that blood-?"
"Sorry," he began, but she was already lifting his shirt for any sign of injury. "It ain't mine."
"Is everything alright?" she asked with concern.
"Yep," he lied, but he pulled it off with a sweet kiss on her lips. "Ugh, you taste like damn instamash with deviled eggs."
"It's your baby. He wanted an interesting lunch." She evilly smiled, giving him another kiss with a wrap of her tongue.
"You tryin' to feed me?! Guh." He looked down at her plate and grimaced. "What the fuck you eatin'?"
"Here, try it." She gave a cheeky grin and wiggled her fork in the air by his face, her smile growing devious as he took the bait.
The merc coughed and braced over the sink as she hummed to herself and continued to eat with a bit of sway to her hips. He snatched her blasphemous creation away before it could be finished.
"Hey!"
"You tryin' to kill our kid?!"
"Oh please! It's not that bad!"
"I've had a swamp rat's ass taste better than that," he groused as he tossed the entire dish in a bin. He turned around to her simmering in a pout off to the side. "Got a delivery of tarberries comin' in soon- you can thank me later."
"Thank you?!" she scoffed. She crossed her arms over the bump of her belly, a mean glint smoldering in her eyes. "How was Jolene?"
Cross snapped his mouth shut and just proceeded to clean up her mess on the counter.
"Don't play dumb with me." She dramatically held a hand to her brow, mimicking a lovesick damsel. "Oh, Cross, kiss me and tell me you love me, you fool!"
The ghoul smashed a glass inside the sink…much like he had smashed her brains into the floor in a blind fit of rage. He raised his hand, a deep gash running across his palm.
"Oh my God, hey." Evelyn was at his side, gently holding his bloody hand under the running water. He didn't meet her eyes as he stubbornly looked away. "What happened?"
"Nothin'."
"Don't lie to me."
"I ain't lyin'-"
"You promised you wouldn't keep secrets from me."
"And I'm not!" he snarled. She recoiled from his hostility, and he wiped a streak of blood and water across his face as he reached over to hold her close. He breathed in the scent of her hair, closing his eyes and pretending it was all okay. "You're safe here. I'm goin' to keep you safe. I'm goin' to fuckin' keep you and the baby safe."
Thank you, Cross, for giving me everything I've ever wanted…I will always love you, goon...goodbye.
"No, no, I can't," he blubbered, "I can't fuckin' lose you again."
The restless nights: the way he had just sat in his office back in Kittery, staring out at the dark waters and the rolling fog with nothing to keep him company but his best (and worst) thoughts of her.
"You're stayin' right here, right here, God."
The plague of nightmares: seeing her sink so far down, reminding him even in his subconscious mind of what he had lost.
"I'm not goin' to lose you; I'm not goin' to lose you."
"Cross," she whispered, and he opened his weepy eyes to her face mere inches from his own as she gently pulled him down. "Let's go take a warm bath…okay?"
He sniffled, and rubbed at his eyes with a croaking "okay."
A turn of some taps, a flick of a knob. Rushing water nearly muffled the sound of the voice playing its daily broadcast.
"This is Diamond City Radio, I'm your host, Travis 'Lonely' Miles, here's a hit from-"
Drips of water made small ripples across the bathtub's surface after she spun the taps closed. She tied her bi-colored hair up into a messy bun atop her head, shedding the white gown from her shoulders to halo around her feet. She came around to stand behind him, tenderly removing his soiled clothes with her smaller fingers. He lifted his arms as she pulled his shirt over his head, hugging him from behind while she undid his belt and unzipped his pants, her hands easing down his waistline with her thumbs hooked through his belt loops.
"Boots are all you," she teased as she left him standing there with his pants bundled around his ankles.
With careful tact so as not to slip, she slowly dipped inside the tub to submerge herself into the warm bath. A book settled on a chair within easy reach was cradled in her hands, the dog-eared page tenderly smoothed out.
"My love must be a kind of blind love,"
"Remember when you used to read to him?" She leaned her head against the ceramic as he joined across from her, his legs twining around her like large tree trunks. She propped her feet on his thighs. "Stock said he should be able to actually hear you now."
"I can't see anyone, but you,"
He dipped a washrag inside, the sound of water cascading from his palm as he squeezed the excess free. It was the first thing he did that night after she had told him they were having a child. He had brought her home, stripped her clothes, and gently washed the cold from her skin in a warm bath. It was something he often did, almost every night, and then he…didn't. The hours in his office grew longer, the stack of papers that held any sort of whiff on Sinjin building ever steadily. He sometimes looked right through her- occasionally smuggled a smoke in thinking she wouldn't notice. His obsession with keeping her safe was becoming more and more fanatic by the day; it was some small miracle she had any grip on the chain that kept him from pursuing his prey.
"Are the stars out tonight?"
He slowly worked his way up to the topside of her bump that protruded from the water's surface. A sharp kick hit the side of his hand.
"He's wonderin' just what the fuck was that crap you were eatin'. His tastebuds are goin' to be dogshit on a stick."
That earned him a light giggle. She shifted the book partly closed and held it in one hand over the lip of the tub.
"I can't tell if it's cloudy, or bright,"
"You are so sure it's going to be a boy," she teased.
He lifted her leg out of the water, scrubbing down the inside of her thigh. "I'm tellin' ya, I just know it."
"I only have eyes for you, dear,"
"What if it's a molerat?"
"Then that's goin' to be one hell of an explanation you're goin' to owe me…swear to God, if it ain't a baby and it's just some giant fart-"
"Don't bother coming back," Evelyn scathed as she flicked water at his face. "…I'm pretty sure there's a cell downstairs with your name on it," she said meanly.
"The moon may be high,"
He winked. "Only if this baby comes out lookin' anythin' but me."
"But I can't see a thing in the sky,"
"Then I would count that as a blessing," she sharply jested. She twitched after he pinched her ass, causing her to drop the book from her hands to hit the tile. "Ow!"
He easily reached over, picking up the literature to hand back to her. She clasped a few fingers around the binding and tilted her head forward to bestow a kiss as thanks. He paused just before their lips met, his brows furrowed in rapt concentration as he felt a strong wave of déjà vu muddle his memory.
And then he saw her, clear as day, as though he was seated back at that bar watching a sad, pretty woman (drunk off her rocker) trying to read a book and stumbling out the door. He'd always wondered if it had been a dream that night, sometimes fantasized about who she was, and now as he stared at her bright blue eyes and parted mouth, he knew.
"I only have eyes for you."
"Is something wrong?" she asked as she tilted her head back. "Do you not want to kiss me?"
Water sloshed up and over the rim of the tub in angry waves to splash across the floor, as he propped himself over her and bent down to hold her face beautifully close to his own to perform that same kiss he never had the chance to finish.
"Oh for fuck's sake! Put on some fucking pants! No one wants to see that!" Lydia screeched as she slapped a hand over her eyes and passed them on the stairs.
"But it's like sooo fucking hot!" a girlish rasp answered in return. Cross pointed a bony fingertip at the bottles of booze she ran away with. "Hey! You takin' shit from my personal stash?!"
"You shouldn't be drinking them! Catch ya later!" And she was out the front door.
Evelyn tugged on his hand to continue up the steps. "She really likes this one," she wryly commented at his scowl.
"Like a fuckin' lovesick teenager, swear to Christ." He shook his head. "'fraid she won't come back someday."
"She loves you too much to leave."
"Yeah…if I don't chase her off somehow."
"You've already tried that, and it obviously didn't work," she mused. She smooshed his mouth together as he continued to stare after Lydia's absence. "Aw, imagine if we have a girl!"
"I'll kill any man that touches her," he growled through smushed lips.
"And if she's into other girls-?"
"I'll kill them too," he snapped just as sharply.
"I don't know if that's overly obsessive or overly adorable." They made it to the top, and she held his arm hostage to her side. "You haven't been sleeping very well lately, why don't we take a nap?"
He stopped in the middle of the hallway. "…I can't. I need to go downstairs and get some business settled."
She looked at his weary face and frowned, her mind thinking back to the desperate pleas he had cried out earlier. "Charon's back, so you don't have to shoulder everything yourself anymore. I'm sure he won't mind. You haven't slept since I don't remember when. Come to bed with me, sing a lullaby to the baby." When he still hesitated, she lightly kissed the tender injury inside his palm. "You have all the time in the world to find him, but you won't have moments like these forever."
"I can't help but keep rememberin' how I used to live life without you, back in Kittery," he rasped quietly. He grew deeply ashamed of his confession, as though it was something he should have kept private, but he couldn't stop his mouth from moving. "I don't want to ever go back to that…I don't think I could."
"…something happened in Goodnieghbor, didn't it?" she asked softly. She felt his hand squeeze around her own, reopening the gash to snake blood around their wrists. "You can talk to me. Just talk. This isn't Kittery, this isn't a mercenary deal, I'm not one of your crew, and you're not alone. Okay? You don't ever have to walk those halls without me again." They closed their eyes as they brought their foreheads together, and his breathing began to slow. "Pretty soon, you're going to wish for some peace and quiet."
"Yeah, okay," he breathed.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"
"…I don't. Not right now."
"You want to get in bed and get some sleep?"
"…yeah…sleep sounds good."
Charon had stood outside that house; it had remained empty. He put his hand on the knob, not really thinking of his course of action, and he was mildly surprised when he found it unlocked. The door squeaked as it swung, just as it always did, and he stepped inside, blinking around the gloom of the abandoned house. Wadsworth was still at its station, lifeless and blanketed in a thick layer of dust. Mostly everything was gone, perhaps salvaged by other residents or stolen. Charon remembered the last time he had been in here…he had been so confident they would return.
His boots had carefully trod across the living room- he still acted as though Adam was upstairs asleep, and so he tried not to disturb the groans and creaks in the floor. He had climbed the narrow stairs up to the bedroom he was granted…not like he ever used it. Adam's door had been open just a crack, and he had stepped inside.
It was empty…even the bed was gone.
The ghoul had then vacated the premises and closed the door behind him. He could see Evelyn marching down from the Saloon towards him, a confident sway to her hips and a secret smile on her face. She would have walked right on by him, maybe even given him a curious once over; he would have assessed her as he did with anyone else, ignorant to the fact she was perhaps the most dangerous thing he would ever encounter in the wastes. He would have caught a whiff of the perfume she somehow always found and wore. Adam would have liked her, would've found her pretty. They both would have had their separate thoughts about her as she continued out into the world, never to be seen again…
"So, big boy, what brings you back here?"
The voice had turned his head in the packed barroom. For a split second, he almost hadn't recognized her, mostly due to the fact he had never much paid her any mind before.
Nova had waved around a cigarette and motioned to the bar as though it was the entirety of her wasteland. He could smell the hint of jet creeping off her tongue for how close she had leaned towards him. She looked much older than she should have been.
"I'd never thought I'd see you around without the kid anymore." She stubbed out the end of her smoke in an overfull ashtray, her thin fingers already retrieving another. It was held out to him, and he took it. "Gob told me you actually stopped in, he said, 'Nova, you're not going to believe who came through'."
Her hand slightly shook as she lit the tip of her cigarette with a match, and then she tilted her face towards his to light the end of his smoke with the bright cherry of her own. Charon felt a boot snug around his calf; he had glanced down, and he could visibly see she wasn't wearing any panties underneath her skirt.
"I'm not in the business anymore, honey, but I sometimes make exceptions," she had breathed through her trail of shimmering haze.
Charon had sat upright in his seat and burned the cigarette straight down to the filter with one large inhale. He hadn't had sex in almost two months at this point, but rather than a heated arousal stirring in his gut at the thought of taking her upstairs and slamming the bedframe against the wall, it made him feel…incredibly lonely.
"I am not interested." That is what he had told her.
That was the first night he had held himself, grimacing at the way his large and weathered hand looked coiled around his angry, throbbing cock. It wasn't by any means Evelyn's hand, small and smooth. It was ugly, it was rough, and it was frustrating. He didn't even finish- he just sat on the edge of the bed, naked and erect, staring a hole through the wall as he tried to imagine what Evelyn was doing at that moment…if she was still upset over the fact he had left; he was sure she was.
The present he had wanted to give her before he left was still in his possession; he tenderly looked through its blank discolored pages, stroked the worn spine. A pen was soon in hand, and without even meaning to, he began to write. His penmanship was unpracticed, and it clearly showed by its near illegibility. He was no master of prose, no man of letters…he didn't realize that his hand had been moving against his will until he realized that he had filled nearly three pages full with his ramblings. He slammed the journal shut, angry he had defiled her beautiful gift with his shoddy work. He had then grabbed his bags and left Megaton altogether.
Tenpenny Tower had been his next stop- Roy Phillips and his band of murdering ghouls had been displaced by the Brotherhood long ago. He walked its forgotten halls, mindlessly perused through worthless junk (he had found a pretty dress in a soft shade of blue that he was sure she would love), and overlooked the wastes from the balcony while he drank a fifth of cheap, cloudy vodka. He had then undressed and laid on a bed full of dust and mold as he sipped his bottle and filled more mindless scribbles inside the gilded pages of her book.
The next day he had sat on the floor inside the Robco facility, the next was Evergreen Mills, and then-
Vault 112 was somehow still the same; filled with wandering Robobrains (who had insisted he change into the appropriate attire of a size too small jumpsuit), and shriveled corpses still kept prisoner in their pods. If there was ever a moment he came to regret, this was perhaps the beginning of that.
He had filled many pages that night.
Big Town, Arefu, Oasis, Raven Rock, Grayditch, Paradise Falls, Temple of the Union…
He damn near visited every place, unturned every stone he had stepped upon with the Lone Wanderer. That book was cracked open more and more each day; sometimes he was frustrated he could not write fast enough.
Rivet City had proved easier to access than he had realized. The Muddy Rudder down in the depths of the old aircraft carrier became a week-long stay. Butch DeLoria, although his usual annoying bravado self, was also a small tinge of welcome. They swapped a few memories from times long past; Charon penned away.
The purifier remained in the distance. The Brotherhood wouldn't let him near it, and he didn't care to try.
There were no pages filled.
Underworld.
He waited at that door for hours on end, replaying everything up until that point. He had to strip his armor, growing so hot under its confines that he felt as though he would sweat. When he finally entered inside, coughing at the horrid stench of those that had been left behind, he made quick work of his search.
Their bags were where they had been left- he shouldered his own, pocketed what was useful from Cross's, and explored Evelyn's for a good hour on the floor of Carol's Place. The smoothest skipping rock was hand-picked out from the multitude. He closed his eyes as he inhaled the scent of her through her shirt. Her flowered journal was carefully wrapped in cloth and placed beside his(her) own…her leather one was missing. He scoured and upended nearly everything in that place in search of it- he couldn't bear the thought of leaving it behind…but it was nowhere to be found. He forced himself to accept it was already pilfered by undeserving hands, and he moved about.
Doctor Barrows' terminal and notes of Evelyn had determined that she had been pregnant. Charon stowed away any and all files about her to bring back to Stock; everything else was purged, including Cross's inconclusive findings.
The Ninth Circle had left the last page he needed to fill…it brought a wry smile to his face when he was done. This place had been his end, and his beginning, and he shut their doors behind him for all of his eternity.
The Capital Wasteland was never seen by his eyes again.
Charon continued on, retracing the old roads he had taken previous times on his way to Braxton. For once, he enjoyed a leisurely pace, spending a few nights in more than a few places before growing stiff and needing to itch the scratch of progress. But then his stride would slow, his thoughts less sure. Why did he even need to revisit this place? There was nothing left for him there…and yet, day by day, ever so steadily, his feet would draw him nearer.
He began to procrastinate. He helped a settlement with a raider issue- another with some super mutants terrorizing their front steps. A meek and lone woman had asked for his help in tilling her garden, fixing her fence, and keeping her general company. He stayed there for five days until he brought back a slab of radstag over his shoulder for their dinner one night and she was standing undressed in the kitchen. He had promptly gathered his bags and was out the door as she raced to follow and apologize.
"I'm sorry, I just thought-"
"I am not interested." That is what he had told her. "I have a woman."
He had slept under the canopy of stars with a roaring campfire to keep him company every night after that. He avoided general towns, kept his feet moving, and decided to finally peek inside her new little diary full of the wasteland's dried, paper jewels.
A scribble of cowboy Cross's face, inked with a scowl and trademark cigarette dangling from his mouth with a little 'hurgh hurgh hurgh!' scratched off to the side. Some new poetry, some marked days of passing, general notes…he tenderly replaced every flower back to where she had stamped them inside. He stowed her journal and pulled out the shirt he had kept from her pack, memorizing her unique scent that had a faint trace of something citrus and sweet.
The old ruins of Braxton met him as they did every year; lonely, and full of terrible whispers of things past. He found the remains of a couple smoothskins and their raided campsite; the tunnel they were excavating led straight down to the depths of the vault, to places he had not once set foot in. The more he explored its quiet halls, the angrier he had become. How did he miss all this?!
He knew…he just hadn't wished to admit it so soon.
The pod was as she had described it; her molded handprint on the side was stroked by his fingertips.
He spent two weeks in Braxton, the longest he had ever cared to stay in that city, and just as before, as he did then, he cried.
I want to go home.
Charon was met with utter silence and two bodies sleeping peacefully side by side. A novel was propped open and laying across the swell of her belly; wrappers from sweets crowded the nightstand. Cross kept one hand anchored at her waist, presumably to keep her from laying on her back.
There was much work that needed to be done, even more so now. Neither would be allowed the luxury of something such as this in the coming weeks, but they didn't have a choice, not if they wanted this child to be born into a world without the hounds biting at its neck.
Cross had been utterly ruthless when Charon had burst into that room upon hearing the screaming. It was not the violence that upset him, but the fact that the merc was frantic, the fact he was afraid, smashing that woman's skull repeatedly into the floorboards till blood began to seep onto the floor below their feet.
Her guards had come barreling up the stairwell, ready to defend what was left of the pulpy skull left behind. Charon's instincts to protect his employer overrode the deliberate need to ask what the fuck happened, and so he capped one ghoul in the face with his shotgun, wiping his head clean off his shoulders. Cross had then braced his hands in the doorway; his voice had been strained.
"Bring that one with us," he had ordered, and so Charon did as he was told.
No one could match the ferryman with his monstrous physical build (no one that wasn't Evelyn, at least). The guard had crumpled like wet paper under his fists. When they were the only ones left standing, their heavy breathing overshadowing the wheezing one on the floor, Cross had lowered his arms to hang limply at his sides, and he stepped out into the hall.
"He knows it's mine," he had rasped in a voice so thick Charon had to strain to decipher the words.
Charon now stood over the bed, his rugged and large palm hovering a mere inch above the merc's shoulder. He should wake him…Cross had endured plenty of late nights and long days in his past to make this no issue…he looked over to her. No doubt she had told him to get some sleep, to push today's problems to tomorrow's schedule, and she was the only person he ever listened to. If Cross was able to brush this extreme matter of importance off, even if only for a few hours, then he should let sleeping dogs lie…at least until tomorrow.