Notes: My version of events wanders quite substantially away from what happens in game - but then, my Charon isn't strictly speaking how he's portrayed in Fallout 3, either. So, friends, Romans and Wastelanders, permit me a little bit more creative licence, and once again, forgive me for any finer details that I may have got incorrect.

Lone Wanderer

So, we set off in pursuit of Charon's past, while I put the quest for my own on the back burner. It wasn't until the adrenaline had worn off that my zeal for doing the right thing began to waver and I started to regret my impulsive decision. Dad was out there somewhere right now, and I was wasting my time on a miserable, ungrateful old ghoul and the ghosts of his past, who were more than likely just as miserable and ungrateful as he was. But I suppose that's the point of being selfless - if it had benefited me in any way, it would sort of defeated the point.

Besides, I didn't think Dad was in any trouble - from what I had heard, it was obvious he could handle himself out here in the Wastes, even if I was still trying to figure it out. It was just that - well, I missed him. If I was honest, I missed the Vault, the friendly faces, the safety. Freedom was magnificent, but a part of me longed for the security of my childhood. But I was safer now with Charon at my back, and this was the least I could do for him in return. I was certain our voyage into his childhood would help Charon face up to his demons.

Once we got out into the Wastes, the going was alright. We came across fewer and fewer Super Mutants - which was absolutely fine by me - and I always kind of thought that the view out in the Wasteland was awe-inspiring. Maybe it comes from living in a goddamned vault all my life, seeing nothing but muted greys and metallic blues, but the landscape out here never fails to take my breath away. Every now and then I would stop just to look at the scenery around me. Charon would stop as well, but rather than the view, his cloudy, enigmatic eyes would fall on me and he would give me the strangest of looks. I think he found it somewhat more difficult to see the magnificence of our surroundings.

We didn't talk much, really - instead, we would listen to Galaxy News Radio on my Pip-Boy, which I could now pick up as far out as I liked. Once or twice, Three Dog gave me a shout out - specifically, thanking me for fixing the relay dish and asking why I hadn't yet come back to claim my reward, namely the location of Dad. It would make me smile, and when Charon caught sight of me, he would tell me that the fame had gone to my head and that grinning made me look like a smug, goofy asshole. This would just make me grin even wider.

When we set up camp that first night, and despite Charon's protestations, I made him rest first while I sat up to keep watch over the Capital Wasteland. It didn't take him long to drift off I don't think, but it was difficult to tell - his breathing hardly changed at all, and he was so silent and still that had I not known any different, I would have taken him for a corpse.

While he slept, I could study Charon more closely than I had yet been able to (I didn't think it would have been particularly polite to gawp at him while he was wide awake and knew exactly why I was gawping). In slumber, his ruined features were almost peaceful. Almost. His melted face had a funny way of always making him look angry, even while in the tranquillity of sleep. Or maybe it was just that his sleep wasn't tranquil at all, but a nightmarish place in which he relived his life of servitude and pain.

I studied him for as long as I could, but found that I eventually had to look away. His face was a constant reminder of the tragedy that had engulfed the world, and I found that although I was becoming less frightened of his monster-like appearance, he now just made me feel sad. It made me resolute to befriend Charon, despite how much he tried to resist, and despite the fact he was determined to paint himself as a heartless, selfish brute. I knew there was good in him somewhere - he'd just had a hard time of things. Perhaps it was just pity, but I was growing attached to my ghoulish bodyguard. He was, after all, the closest thing I had to a friend since I had left Megaton - even if I'd had to pay out of my ass for his companionship.

The hours passed uneventfully; we switched positions, and when I woke, it was morning. Breakfast was Mutfruit and a handful of Sugar Bombs, and while I ate and Charon checked and re-checked his shotgun and ammo, I quizzed the ghoul about what lay ahead of us through a mouthful of half devoured food. Out here in the Wastes, I found increasingly that my manners were beginning to wane.

"So, anyway, what is Paradise Falls?"

He took a moment to look up from his weapon to give me an incredulous reprimand. I shrugged my shoulders and continued to chew - there was only one way I was going to learn about my new environment, and that was by asking.

"Are you kidding? You don't know what Paradise Falls is?"

"Nope. I wanted to ask you when you brought it up before, but I was trying to pull off the whole dramatic exit thing, and curious questioning isn't conducive to drama."

He put his shotgun back down on the floor with surprising tenderness. He was always doting on that gun - cleaning it, checking the barrels, making sure it was never too far out of reach. I didn't understand, then, the bond that was formed between a Wastelander and his primary form of defence.

"Shit, sometimes, kid, you're too much. It really is like you've been living in a box all your life. Huh, I suppose you have. Anyway, Paradise Falls is slaver central around these parts."

Charon

Oh, shit. There it was. That look. That "It's time to save the world and sense be damned!" look. I suppose I should have known better, because the second the word "slaver" left my lips, I knew exactly what was going to happen.

"A whole slaver camp? And they're just allowed to get away with that? No one's tried to stop them yet? It's a total disgrace. Someone should do something."

I could tell she was once again getting ideas of interfering with things she shouldn't be interfering with, but this time it was a lot more serious. It was all very noble that she wanted to do the right thing, but thinking like that got you killed out here. The bad guys ran the Wastes, and one little girl with big dreams wasn't about to change it.

"It doesn't work like that. You don't mess with business that's not yours; this isn't a small-time vault. You leave the slavers alone, and they'll do likewise."

"But you can't buy and sell people, Charon. You of all people should appreciate that."

"I appreciate the reality of the situation."

She got up from where she was sitting and sat on her knees in front of me, palms up-turned as if she were pleading, although I don't think that was intentional. Just from the expression on her tilted face, it was obvious she couldn't understand the problem with what she was saying. I in turn couldn't understand her - she was smart enough, and she could do the numbers. There two of us and a whole bunch of them. Even if we had it in our minds to cause a ruckus, what could we seriously do?

I frowned at her and shook my head, looking back down at the shotgun in my lap. Her wide-eyed, expectant face was just too much. It's true what they say - people from the vaults really do look different. I can't really describe what it is, and I couldn't put my finger on it then either, but she somehow just looked, shit, I don't know. Untainted. She didn't fit in in the Wastes. She was like a square peg trying to squeeze into a round hole, and I didn't know if I had the energy - or the ability - to soften her edges.

"Someone needs to do something! Frankly, I find the way everyone seems to brush this under the carpet absolutely disgusting."

She got up, angry, and began to pace back and forth. I didn't know what it was going to take for her to realise she had to stop acting like a child every time she didn't get her way and grow the hell up. If she wasn't careful, she was going to get herself hurt, or worse. I could protect her from getting shot or getting captured or getting taken advantage of, but I couldn't protect her from herself. Fucking Vault Dwellers should just stay put; they don't understand how the real world works.

"Kid, stop seeing the world through rose coloured glasses. It's ugly, it's cruel and it's out to get you. That's the truth.I think, just this once, you should listen to me. We can go around that place without having to ever interact with any of those scumbags. Let's just leave them to their business, and keep to ours. We're not going to Paradise Falls."

The Lone Wanderer

When we reached the entrance to Paradise Falls, a grizzled, unfriendly looking man welcomed us at the front gate - well, I say "welcomed", but I use the term in the loosest possible sense. If anything, I got the distinct impression that he was trying to ward us away, but I wasn't going to let a spineless slaver sentry stop me from getting in. I just didn't know exactly how I was going to do it.

"Hold it right there. Nobody gets into Paradise Falls unless they're on slaver business, and I say what qualifies as slaver business."

I've always thought very highly of my intelligence, and of my ability to speak charismatically to the people I meet - but if I'm honest, I didn't have a clue as to how to handle his sort. The slaver code of conduct was a total mystery to me. Luckily, Charon was somewhat more streetwise, and on hand to help me out. He sidled up beside me, shotgun in hand, and waved it menacingly in the face of the guard.

"Do you want me to teach him to show you proper respect, mistress?"

I wasn't expecting that response at all, and was understandably taken aback. I felt very uncomfortable about Charon acting the part of a slave, mostly because he essentially was one to that contract of his. I justified it with the argument that I didn't treat him like a bound man, and that if I didn't have his contract, someone far less savoury would. But still, the line was incredibly fine.

Thankfully, though, I caught on to the game before I ruined what Charon had so cunningly set up and rolled my head to the side in an attempt to look casual, like I did this sort of thing all the time.

"No, we'll let him live another measly day - although that's probably all he'll manage to get with a smart mouth like that on him. Now are you going to let me through, friend? Or shall I take my caps elsewhere?"

The man's face wavered; I could tell he wasn't sure if we were bullshitting him or not. In the end I guess he figured letting us in would be the best option - if we tried to start any trouble, we wouldn't last very long in there anyway, and turning away caps was one of the most stupid things you could do, apart from smart-talk a ghoul with a bad temper and a big gun. I think this was the first time my pale skin and Vault Dweller manner worked in my favour; I was obviously no Wastelander, and in wanting to get into Paradise Falls, I had to have either been a slave-owner, or a total idiot.

"Fine. Whatever. Talk to Eulogy Jones; he'll set you up with what you need."

I don't know what I expected to find just beyond those gates that lead into Paradise Falls. Part of me imagined hundreds of half-starved, skeletal creatures chained to the walls and begging for scraps - but really, it wasn't that much different from any of the other settlements I had been to. I was still finding it difficult to adjust to the fact that outside my vault, slavery and the like was just accepted as another part of life. I suppose I had never believed Dad when he told me what it was like beyond the walls of my underground home - I had assumed, like all children, that he was simply scaring me in an overprotective attempt to keep me safe.

Inside the slaver compound, Charon stayed close to me - the closest he had dared to come since we had started travelling together. His eyes constantly darted around as if he expected something bad to happen - and I didn't doubt that it might. He had experience with slavers, after all, and it would have been silly for me not to heed his warnings. Well, to an extent, anyway. If I'd listened completely, we wouldn't even have been there. As we walked into an open space surrounded by buildings, several insalubrious residents looked at us as though we were so much useless trash; I bowed my head for a moment, and whispered to Charon,

"I'm going to try to talk some sense into this Eulogy Jones - he's obviously the boss around here."

"Eulogy won't want any of your sort of sense, kid. By Wastelander standards, he's a fucking billionaire. Appealing to his good side isn't going to work - he doesn't have one."

"Don't be so defeatist. I'm going to try anyway. Let's go see if we can find him."

We decided to split up (or rather, I decided, because Charon was most reluctant to do so). I headed towards what looked like an open air bar to see if I could find out the whereabouts of Eulogy, and Charon went in the other direction entirely. I crept up to the bar as quietly and non-conspicuously as I could, but I still stuck out like a sore thumb. I could feel the eyes of everyone around me burning into my skin, but I held up my head nonetheless.

These scumbags lived off of fear, it was how they ran their business. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of scaring me. Not too far beyond where I stood, I could see several giant cages - no prizes for guessing what they kept in there. The sight bolstered my resolve, and when I sat down at the bar I was, not surprisingly, immediately approached by a bystander. I looked up; he was a tall, bearded man whose face was greasy and whose eyes were mean. He grinned at me with black teeth and I had to fight to hide my disgust.

"What business would someone like you want round here?"

"My business is with Eulogy Jones. Do you know where I can find him?"

The man blinked at me, apparently unused to being asked a polite and civilised question. He of course took it the wrong way, and assumed I was trying to sass him in some way. A nasty little laugh escaped him as he prodded my shoulder with a stubby finger.

"What, you think you're too good to talk to the rest of us? You think your shit stinks better than mine? I'm just gonna have to teach you to be a little more friendly to strangers."

I remember Charon had told me that the only language these sorts of people understood was violence. If you gave them even a hint of apprehension or fear, they would be all over you. The trick was to talk tough, even if you didn't feel it.

"You don't scare me, asshole. If you didn't have all your goddamned slaver buddies around you, you'd be clucking like a fucking chicken."

My approach hadn't worked - being insulted by a scrawny little nerd like me had apparently just incensed him further, and he pulled me to my feet by the scruff of my neck. I turned to face him; I'd dealt with bullies before - they were all basically cowards who would back down if confronted. Or at least, that was the theory. He likewise squared up to me. My heart started to race the way it did when any conflict seemed inevitable - I never was nor ever will be a natural fighter - and adrenaline pumped through my veins. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do - I still had my assault rifle strapped to my back, but I wouldn't have been able to grab it in time if my new friend decided he wanted a firefight. I clenched both of my fists and hoped that I would somehow prove to be a natural at bare-fist brawling.

All of a sudden, though, just when I thought he was about to launch himself at me, he grunted in disgust, spat at my feet, and turned to leave. I thought for a moment I had called his bluff, but a quick turn of my head confirmed what I thought to be the more likely case; Charon stood not a foot behind me, arms folded across his chest and face as dangerous as I had ever seen it. I was disappointed that I hadn't been able to scare the man off on my own, but not exactly surprised. Somehow, he had a sort of sixth sense for when I was in trouble; I was grateful that, no matter where we were or what was happening, he always had my back. I turned to Charon.

"Uh, thanks. Did you find Eulogy?"

Charon was still eyeing the retreating back of the slaver with menace, but he eventually tore his gaze away to look back down at me.

"He was otherwise engaged, kid."

"Huh?"

"You know? Makin' bacon. Doing the mattress mambo."

"Um…"

"He was fucking his bit of ass, kid. At it like a yao guai in heat. You know what I'm talking about."

"Oh, uh, right! Yeah, of course. Obviously."

"…You do know what I'm talking about, right kid?

I remained silent, but I fear it incriminated me further. The left corner of Charon's mouth tugged into a lopsided grin, and he bent his head down to bring his face a little closer to my own. I didn't look away - I had nothing to be ashamed of - but equally, I couldn't think of anything intelligent to say.

"Kid?"

"Okay, alright! If you really must know, I've never personally had first hand experience with those sorts of activities."

It was one of the few times I've ever heard Charon laugh so freely - a low, guttural noise that sounded almost obscene. But in my defence, my confession wasn't technically true. Freddie Gomez and I had shared an adolescent fumble back in the Vault one sweaty night in my sixteenth year. Neither of us knew what we were doing and both of us left the room feeling confused and slightly violated. After that, I guess I just hadn't had the compulsion. Plus, every time Freddie and I tried to speak to each other - when those other stupid Tunnel Snakes weren't around, anyway - we would just get embarrassed and quickly go our separate ways. It wasn't really our fault; sex education had never been a vital part of the curriculum growing up.

Personally, I couldn't see what the fuss was all about, anyway. Running around trying to hop into bed with each other and wasting all that energy in the process. There were far more worthwhile things to devote the pursuit of to - science, for example, and as Three Dog liked to put it, fighting the Good Fight. People had their priorities all wrong, in my opinion. And besides, this sort of mockery was rich, coming from a walking corpse whose sexual organs had most likely dropped off by now. I would have said as much, but I thought perhaps it might have been just a little too hurtful. For all I knew, it could've been true.

"Shut up. We've got more important things on our plate at the moment. Have a seat."

I decided that I would wait for Eulogy to… uh, finish up, and so I sat down with Charon at the bar for a drink. I didn't have anything myself, but Charon knocked back a couple of shots of what I assume was whiskey. His ghoulish constitution must have been a lot stronger than the average human's, because they didn't seem to effect him at all - he was still grinning his strange lopsided grin after the third glass. Eventually, a blonde woman emerged from the large building opposite to us; I looked to Charon and he nodded. It was go time.

Charon

We stood up from where we sat - the kid full of determination and me still trying to stop myself from laughing. I swear, I'd think I'd have her all sussed out and then she'd pull something like that out of her closet. Don't really know why I was surprised - she was obviously as pure as the shitting driven snow - so maybe it was her honesty that threw me. She was goddamn entertaining, though, I'd give her that; the kid was alright.

The contemptuous stares of the Paradise Falls residents as we made our way to Eulogy's pad sobered me up plenty, though. Fucking shitpoke slavers. I remembered from what little time I spent with them - before I was snapped up by one of the eager enough bidders - that they had no fucking sense of right or wrong, and that was really saying something, coming from me. Kid had already faced off with one of them, and I doubted that was going to be the only incident we'd have here.

She'd done pretty good standing up to him, and it wasn't her fault, for once - they were all just itching for shit to go down, so they could claim themselves another human prize. Well, I wasn't going to let it happen this time, now that I had some control over things; any one of them came nearer than they had to be to the kid and I was going to blow their fucking head away. Hell, maybe some of her goody-two-shoes, sweet-as-pie horseshit was rubbing off on me.

We made our way into Eulogy's pad, her in front and me bringing up the rear. I didn't like being in this place - tactically speaking, we were sitting ducks. I had to look everywhere all at once and it was goddamned exhausting. Eulogy was sitting at his desk, his shirt half open and his grin full on. He looked sharper than the grunts outside; this guy was like an eel, and I didn't trust him one bit, despite his friendly façade.

"You must be our prospective customer. I do hope Paradise Falls can accommodate your needs. We make no judgements, no assumptions. We understand that it's a harsh world out there, and you do what you must to make it. Now, was there something specific you were interested in?"

"Well yes, actually, there was. I wanted to speak to you about letting the slaves go."

"Is this a joke?"

Eulogy seemed to address this question to me, having decided the kid was totally off her fucking nut. I tended to agree with him, but out of loyalty, I kept my face expressionless. He should at least have had the decency to hear her out, even if what she had to say was completely unrealistic. But then, these assholes weren't decent, or they wouldn't be in the business of selling human beings. I kept myself alert - I couldn't tell how Eulogy was going to react, but I was going to be ready for him whatever happened. To the kid's credit, she didn't waver for a second. Despite Eulogy's obvious disregard for her request, she kept pushing it.

"It's not a joke. You've made yourself quite a name and, obviously, quite a fortune out of this line of work. Why not take an early retirement? It won't make a whole lot of difference to you, but it will make a huge one to them."

He laughed, short and mirthless. She had obviously not been the first crusader to come through town trying to heal the wounds of a dying world. He stood from his seat, removed a fedora from a hat stand, and placed it on his head. His smile had not left his features, but his eyes were dark and too fucking cruel. He came up close to the kid, and I got ready in case I had to start busting some ass. His voice was as smooth and as full as threat as you'd ever care to hear.

"If you're not here to buy, then get the fuck out of my town. I'll be nice, cuz you're just a youngster, and give you five minutes. If you haven't left by then, you'll be joining the folk you're here to save. Your choice."

I wasn't sure how the kid was going to react, but she had the sense to admit defeat. Without a word, we turned and left the building and then the entire compound. I could feel her disappointment - it was palpable in the air around us. The kid couldn't disguise it; she wore her heart on her sleeve, and the slump in her shoulders and silence of her departure told me how crestfallen she was. It was fucking dumb, if you asked me - what the hell had she expected to happen? Eulogy to turn over and let her spank him for being a bad boy before handing over the keys to the slave cages?

Out in on the hill beyond Paradise Falls again, the kid slumped on the floor and lowered her face. I stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do with myself. I knew what the outcome of this was going to be the second we had stepped in there - in fact, this was better than I had expected, because there hadn't been any bloodshed. But she had obviously raised her hopes for a miracle, even though I'd told her a million times that miracles were unheard of out here.

"Hey, look, kid. You can't win all the time. Some battles you've just got to back down and bow out of."

"I'm not done yet. I'm freeing those slaves, because it's the right thing to do. We'll attack at night, under the cover of darkness, and teach those bastards a lesson. What goes around comes around, Charon. No one escapes their karma."

The kid was fucking batshit crazy, but you had to admire the fact that despite the huge odds stacked against her, she just didn't ever give the fuck up.