Hey guys, important chapter here, lot of ground covered, lot of hints as to what is coming later, juicy all the way through I hope. Enjoy!

Chapter 22

Jane sits down heavily at the bar and orders a whisky. Her luck has been shit ever since crossing the point where she decided she was in the east. Courier work pays well, but damn if it isn't going to get her shot in the head some day. At present, she is in care of a package bound for the Commonwealth further north. Weeks ago she decided to lessen her trip by coming straight to this area, the Capital Wasteland as the locals call it, and hopefully finding a barge or something to take her up the coast via the sea. Good idea really, except that the only barge operating in the entire area is run by some crazy bitch named Nadine and she only sails as far as some dump called Point Lookout.

Then, to make matter worse, a group of mercenaries know as Talon Company somehow got word that a courier from the west was about and carrying an important package. That radio jockey, Three Dog, was right, they are not the polite type when it comes to getting what they want. She easily dispatched the first group to come after her, but ever since they seem to just show up out of nowhere, and often at the most inconvenient times. They pinned her down at the back of a metro tunnel and for days she fought trough the dark warrens and paths, desperately searching for an escape.

When she finally did managed to find her way out, after about three days, she was immediately picked up by Supermutants and hauled off to one of their camps where they planned on eating her. Fortunately for her, some mercenaries escorting a kid to the nearby settlement of Rivet City showed up and took out the mutants for her. At the time, she was way to overwhelmed to be thankful, and she may have even attacked the guy who set her loose, but looking back now, she realizes that was likely a huge mistake. There were only four of them, plus a vicious dog, and yet they managed to desimate the mutants as if it was nothing. She could use a group of guys like that during her trip north.

She is about halfway through her third drink when someone sits down next to her and orders a vodka, straight up. From the corner of her eye she sizes him up and lands on a single conclusion, this bastard is a mean bastard. His dirty blond hair is long and ragged, despite looking as though it was recently washed. His face is hollow and his eyes sunk deep, giving him a haunted appearance. He is dressed in sturdy combat armor with a leather jacked underneath... Wait, this is the guy she attacked when he rescued her! Shit, she lowers her face and hopes he doesn't recognize her. He was very pissed when they last spoke, right after she attacked him. Attack. No, against him it would be more like she tried to attack, and he humored her. Please don't let him see her.

"Hey," shit, he even has a scary voice, "I know you."

"Um..."

"You're that girl from the Super's camp. Well, what do you know? Didn't figure you would stick around here very long, not with us being here as well. I thought you couldn't stand the sight of me?"

What? Is that the impression she gave? Okay, so maybe he isn't still pissed off at her. "Yeah, you see, I have been having some money troubles, and back there I said some things, I didn't really say them. I mean, I didn't really mean said. Shit, I mean I didn't really mean them..?"

He lifts a brow, "Is that your idea of an apology?"

"Um, yes..."

"All right then." He turns up the bottle of vodka and swallows down several large gulps, leaving the bottle almost half empty. He doesn't even cough, stutter, or react at all to all the tissue that has to be absolutely screaming in protest from inside his throat after a drink like that, especially straight up. "Something wrong?" he looks at her out of the corner of his eye and she suddenly feels as though she has to explain herself. "I mean, most people don't drink that heavily unless something is wrong. Its why I am drinking so much.

The man chuckles. "Honestly, it is none of your fucking business, but for some reason, I am about to tell all." He proceeds to explain that he is from a nearby vault that never opened after the war, vault 101. He was exiled on pain of death because his Father escaped. He also details all the shit he has been through in his attempt to find his Father. Damn, she though her trip has been bad. Her experience seems like a walk in the park of daises and roses compared to his. "thats um, damn."

"You did ask."

"So are you going to go talk to this Doctor or not?"

he sighs and lowers his head a bit. "Now there is the question of the hour. to talk to her and find out where the old bastard died, or not to and get on with my life?"

Jane tilts her head to the side a little, "How do you know he is dead?"

"Simple, its the Capital Wasteland. Explain to me how someone from a vault could survive this long out here? Even he was born up here on the surface like Moriarty said, he has been in the vault for all of nineteen years, plenty of time for someone to go soft."

Jane scrunches up her face, "Um, I am looking at a damn good reason for why someone like you could survive out here."

The man lifts a brow, as though that hadn't occurred to him. "What, exactly, to you mean by that?"

"Look at yourself, look at where you are, how long you have made it out here, and unlike your Father you had no idea what you were getting into. Yet you have made it this far, who can say good old dad hasn't as well?"

They sit in silence for a few minutes as the man thinks it over. Actually, according to his story, he is only nineteen or twenty. Not much older than her eighteen years of age. he sure doesn't look it though. "You know what," he eventually says, "even if you are wrong, some of what you say makes sense." He turns to her with a small amount of brightness in his eyes. "By the way, what is your name?"

"Jane."

"Just Jane?"

She smiles, "Yup, Just Jane."

He smiles back at her, something she is sure is supposed to be a warm expression, but with his face it is just scary, "Well then, Just Jane, thank you." He stands up and starts towards the exit. Something occurs to her. "Hey," she shouts after him, "what is your name?"

He stops at the top of the stairs to the exit and looks at her over his shoulder, "Nick, Just Nick."

Nick steps through the door to Rivet Cities science labs and surveys the open area below him. There are tables set up with all sorts of scientific equipment. Some of it Nick recognizes from when his Father started training him in some medicine, the rest of it he doesn't recognize. Four people in white lab coats are milling about, and as far as he can tell, failing to do anything scientific at all. From his elevated position he spots the woman who must be Doctor Li and makes his way over to her.

She is looking through the scopes of a microscope and does not notice his approach. "Doctor Li?"

"If you are here with more of our samples leave them with one of my assistants." she replies with a dismissive gesture and without looking up.

Nick decides suddenly that he has been through too much shit to be willing to deal with being brushed off by some snobby scientist. "MADISON!" He slams his fist into the table, rattling the equipment placed there.

"Jame!" She gasps, jerking back and stumbling over herself when she doesn't recognize Nick, "what... Who are you?"

Upon hearing his Father's name, Nick's anger finally boils over and he suddenly knows exactly how much he wants to find his Father and exactly what he is going to do when he does. "Where is he?"

"Who?"

"Damn it woman!" Nick again slams a fist into a table. Behind him the other scientists are rushing from the room, calling for security. "Where is James? Where is my fucking Father?"

The expressions that cross Doctor Li's face are profound. First confusion, then disbelief, and finally, horror. "Oh my god," she gasps, "it is you. James's son? Catherine's little boy? You, you look like him." Her words hit Nick like a brick wall. "Yet, with your mother's eyes."

Nick's fists clinch tightly, "Tell me where he is. I know he came to speak with you." The raw emotion causes Doctor Li to retreat a step. "NOW!" Nick roars, jumping forward and grabbing the small woman by the front of her coat. "TELL ME!"

She scrambles, trying to break free of his grip, but he holds fast. "I don't know" she all but screams, "he came in talking about Project Purity! I told him it was useless, the facility has been abandoned for too long! He insisted I help him but I couldn't! He ran off to the memorial on his own! I looked for him there, but he was gone when I arrived!"

"Where," Nick's voice is lower now, the fury has been replaced by malice, "where is he?"

"I don't know," she insists frantically, "I don't know!"

Nick roars in fury and lifts her off the ground. "Wait!" she screams, "wait, there were holotapes, I found them all over the memorial! I didn't listen to them, take them if you want!" Suddenly realizing that he is holding a woman off the ground, likely appearing as though he is going to kill her, Nick releases Doctor Li and stumbles back a few paces, backing into a table and knocking it over. Glass beakers and several computers smash against the ground. "I," Nick stumbles over his words, sickened by his actions, "I don't know, I am so sorry."

He sinks to his knees. The reality of everything he has done to get here suddenly slamming into him. The fact that he has changed so much. Seconds ago, he was holding a woman up in the air, and he was going to kill her if she couldn't tell him anything. The admission of that hurts him, deep. He starts to shudder uncontrollably. Anyone else would have cried, yet he found himself unable to. Instead he closes his eyes and just shakes, breathing in ragged gasps. He has no idea how long he is like that, the eternity broken only when he feels a gentle hand on his shoulder. Instinctively he jerks away from the contact and draws his pistol. Doctor Li does not make a sound, but her eyes go wide with fear. Slowly, Nick lowers the gun and begins to shake again. "I am so sorry." he somehow manages to say between breaths.

Doctor Li hesitates for a second, but then sits down next to him and puts an arm over his shoulders. The contact feels alien and bizarre, yet Nick does not pull away. "I think I understand." she whispers in a comforting tone. "You are afraid. Afraid of what the wasteland has done to you, of what it is doing to you. And of what it may have done to your Father. He loves you, no matter what you may think. I can assure you of that one thing. Why else would he abandon his life's work to raise you in the vault?"

Her words are kind, and Nick feels himself beginning to calm a little. Yet she is wrong. At this point, he cares little about how much his father may have changed, or how he once loved him. Now all Nick can see is himself. All he can see is the thing he has become in order to survive. All he can see is the look his Father is going to give him, when Nick shoves a gun in his face and forces him to realize just what he has done to his only child.

Jane steps out of Rivet Cities main entrance and stretches her arms above her head. After a night of drowning herself in multiple bottles of whiskey, and a morning after of dealing with the hangover, she decided to face the rest of her trip with optimism. It that guy Nick could survive through all the hell he was dragged through, she could make it to the Commonwealth and be back home within the year. Optimism, yay!

She shoulders her pack, now stuffed with supplies that she, um, liberated, from a few stores in the cities market. She crosses the extendable bridge and checks her compass before setting off along the coast. As she walks she finds herself daydreaming about Nick, weird right? She barely knows anything about the guy, aside from what he told her last night, and yet she feels strangely connected to him. Maybe it has something to do with the way he is searching for his Father. She can understand the need to find something that is missing.

For years and years she had done nothing but wander the Mojave desert after her clan was whipped out by disease. As far as she knows, she is the only survivor. There were not a lot of people willing to help a lone gypsy girl lost in the desert. too many bigots in the NCR, and the Legion would have just made her into a slave. None of the free standing settlements would help either. sure, it was fine for her to curl up in an ally or beg for food, but ask for a job, hell no! Way too uncivilized! She was alone, afraid, and just knew that eventually some pig was going to get hot and rape her.

Through some miracle, the Mojave express found her first. A courier who went by the name of Jack of All Trades found her and started using her as his personal baggage carrier. At first, she thought the guy hated her and only kept her around because she worked for food and would carry all his stuff for him. As time went by, she realized he was pushing her to find out how much she could take. Eventually he started dividing his work loads between the two of them. His trust in her was endearing and she worked to live up to his regard. One day she went back to the outpost they usually met up at, and he never showed. She waited. For nearly two whole weeks she passed up jobs and slept in the dumpster out back of the outpost.

Near the middle of her third week, she finally got word. A letter, folded three times, and stamped with a wax seal. It was sent from The NCR Bone yard. It was from Jack, of course. It told her that he wouldn't be meeting up with her again, that he believed that she no longer needed him and that she was ready to be on her own again, but that she could always count on him if she needed him. At first it hurt, the fact that he didn't see her in person. Later she realized that it was just the sort of thing he would do. She assumes he changed professions and disappeared as she hasn't heard from him since. He isn't known as Jack of All Trades for nothing.

She kept an eye out for any sign of him, or what he might be up to. So perhaps that is why she feels connected to Nick. Because she is always searching for the only man who has ever shown her any affection outside of a one night stand. She may never again lay eyes on Nick, but she sure as hell will never forget him. She hopes he finds his Father, and gets the closure he needs. Even if that closure involves killing his dad.

So, I realize that these past few chapters have taken a dark turn, but things should get better right? I mean, in the game the LW finds Dad and all is well, right? Yeah, I wasn't buying it either. I'm sure some of you have already guessed who Jane is, I didn't do much to keep her identity secret, and yes, she will be appearing again, just maybe not in this particular story...