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Chapter 6 – Stuck in the Middle with You

"So my dad just left without telling me for whatever reason and the Vault Overseer went crazy and decided the best course of action to take was to unleash hell upon me and turn the entire Vault security against me. I barely got out alive, but thanks to Amata, she's also the Overseer's daughter I forgot to mention that part, I was able to get out alive. And now I'm just trying to find my dad and get answers as to why all of this happened." Chrys said, finally finishing her five to ten minute rant. Charon let out a sigh 'I thought that would never end.' Charon set down the beer he was drinking and watched from across the small table in the dining commons of Carol's little hotel place as the Vault girl downed the rest of her Nuka Cola. She drank those things often he realized. Nevertheless she kept herself busy, as everyone in the wasteland mostly did, so she was by no means fat. By his own perception and review of her, she definitely had more weight than most wasteland females, but she had a healthy weight while most other women in the wasteland had unhealthy weights.

Her head was covered in the faded red baseball cap that she claimed Quinn gave her for fixing his radio and her glasses sat pleasantly on her head. He had suggested tying string to the ends and looping them around the back of her head so they wouldn't fall off, but she claimed to have tried that before while working with Winthrop and it irritated her. She thanked him for the suggestion though which was odd since most of his employers usually talked down to him when he suggested something they did not agree with. She also decided to treat him to a celebratory meal. He didn't feel much joy in the event though. Yes Ahzrukhal was dead and the wasteland was better off with him gone, but Charon's own problem (his chronic lack of freedom) still stood and he felt merited no celebration. But nonetheless he needed to make sure this girl ate so he went along with it and got a Salisbury steak to make her happy.

This new employer was definitely going to be different. Already she had given him food, welcoming gestures, and had yet to give him any standing orders. The last of which left him rather disturbed as he had no clue what bounds she would want him to act within. She had promised that she wouldn't prohibit his speech, but what did she think of all the other aspects? While they had walked to Tulip's shop and from there to Carol's place he had kept his distance from her as he had no clue how close to walk to a female employer. Males generally wanted bodyguards close but what did women want? If he was going to protect her, it would be best if he was close, but what if she wanted him yards away from her? She was a smoothskin after all and most smoothskins didn't want to be affiliated with ghouls. However she did talk about Gob and how she considered him a friend. Did she expect him to be a friend as well? He was never expected to develop personal relationships with his employers. Most of the time he ended up hating his employers anyway. He looked down at the supplies she had bought for him though: a sack, a bedroll, ammo, and even some water, not even dirty water but purified water.

He turned his attention back to the girl as she finished her food. She looked over at him and swallowed her food. "Enjoy your steak?"

He looked down at his empty plate; he had been hungry beforehand so it was properly filling. "Yes."

She smiled, a usual response of hers. "That's good. I hope Ahzrukhal didn't starve you. And if you're ever hungry feel free to eat or just say so and we'll stop traveling or whatever. Oh! I should probably move some of the food rations to your pack!"

He held up a hand, "I will attend to that matter later. Although you have brought up a topic of concern."

She cocked her head to the side, "What's that?"

"My orders."

She made an "o" with her mouth and then closed it to puff out her cheeks. She tapped her bottom lip as she looked at him. She had the strangest mannerisms. After a moment she just shrugged.

"Well I don't really have any orders for you and I don't really want to give you any. Equals remember?" She made the motion to cross her heart like she had done before, but he shook his head.

"It does not work that way mistress." He stated. A confused look crossed her face.

"What do you mean?"

He sighed and pointed at her, "You are a smoothskin." He pointed to himself, "And I am a ghoul." The statement made no change in her confusion. 'Doesn't this girl understand anything?'

"Wasteland society, what there is left of it, frowns upon ghouls if you have not quite picked up on that yet. You may say you and I are 'equals' but you and I will never be equal. Ghouls are the lesser species compared to you humans. Also by the terms of my contract, my life is expendable and forfeit if it means protecting you so in all cases you and I will never be equal." He explained, slowly he saw the confusion go away.

She scanned him for a while and then sighed. "Well I can try can't I?"

"Try to make me equal to you? It will not happen mistress."

Her mouth formed a line as she thought of some sort of comeback to his statement. He simply waited knowing no matter what she said it would not change social parameters or contract terms.

"I guess I can't change your mind can I?" She said in resignation, which deep down pained him to hear. "But umm… order wise I don't really want to give you any."

He could feel his mouth twitch involuntarily. It made him uncomfortable not having orders. "I would like to know what my bounds of operation are under your employment mistress. It would make things more… comfortable, for both of us."

She sighed and rested her head in her hands, "I bought your contract to give you any bit of freedom I possibly could Charon. Let me think of something."

He watched her silently. After a couple minutes she lifted her head and looked at him with a confident smile on her face. "Okay big guy, how about this? You are free to speak your mind and use your own judgment. You don't have to be all formal with me cause believe me I don't deserve it. You have every right to take charge during situations that I am obviously not well experienced for. Again another part of your judgment stuff. All I really want you to do otherwise is help me and train me. But that being said that doesn't mean this has to be a very one-sided relationship. You can benefit and I can benefit. You have all liberties I can grant you."

He looked at her and felt bewildered, but due to his conditioning, didn't show it. He drummed his fingers on the table unsure of what to do.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well what?" he responded.

"Anything you want to tell me or talk about?" she asked as she rested her chin on her hands. She waited attentively for an answer.

"I'm not much of a talker. While I'm grateful for the freedom to speak my mind… I don't think I'll be utilizing it much outside of your training." He said. Automatically her smile dropped again.

"I'm just not getting much of anywhere with you am I big guy?"

"Sadly not."

"Well we're going to be spending a lot of time together so I guess we'll figure out things as we go." She stretched and then stood. She left some caps for Greta and picked up her bag. Charon followed suit, picking up his own bag and slinging it over his shoulder. It wouldn't be anything hard to get used to. His military training was still embedded in his mind and he had much more extensive training with much heavier equipment. This bag might as well have been a pillow.

He followed her out of Underworld, a strange feeling of relief washed over him as they left the museum. The sun was out and he looked up at it and breathed out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Willow was making her rounds. She had been there to help him recover Chrys from the Super Mutants. Charon had done most of the work, but Willow was still helpful. Chrys gave the ghoulette a carton of cigarettes and then the two were off again.

"That light bulb in the sky is so big. I wonder who changes it."

"That's the sun."

She looked at him as if he magically turned into a Super Mutant. "That's the sun!?"

'Why the fuck does this shit happen to me?' he thought to himself, "Yes. That is the sun."

"Wow! I learned about it in the Vault, but I always read that stars were just dots on the night sky. The sun is a star so I thought it followed the same schema, but I guess I was wrong." She walked around in circles staring up at the glowing orb in the sky.

Charon sighed, "Mistress, if you don't mind, I thought we had some dish to go retrieve?"

"Oh right!" She stopped abruptly pivoted and activated her Pip-Boy. She swirled her finger around as she read the map of the ruins. "Ah ha! That way!" She pointed diagonally across the mutant trenches toward the Museum of Technology.

"Are you sure you don't just want me to go by myself? It will be much easier for me to just go in and retrieve the dish." Charon suggested. The mutants wouldn't bother attacking him. If she went, there was no stopping a repeat of what brought her to Underworld in the first place.

"Umm well I'd like to go in too." She said as she rubbed the back of her head.

He looked at her assault rifle on her back. It was barely in decent condition. She had a backup 10mm pistol and SMG in her pack. If she could actually shoot, he wouldn't worry too much, but he was sure he could safely assume she couldn't shoot for shit. He couldn't stop her even if he wanted to, so he gestured for her to lead the way. 'Hopefully she doesn't trigger a mine or grenade trap along the way.'

They made their way to the museum only running into two groups of mutants. They had cut across where the Brotherhood of Steel knights had stood and kept most mutants at bay. Chrys nearly lost her lunch when they found bags filled with severed and mutilated body parts at one of the places where they took out some mutants. Charon had to admit he was right that she couldn't shoot for shit, much to his chagrin. It looked like she had the decency to be taught however. He could work on that when they had practice targets. For now as they neared the museum he took the lead and they entered the building with relative ease.

After clearing the main atrium they reached the Vault exhibit. He entered but after a couple steps he realized Chrys wasn't following. He turned and squinted his eyes at her. "Coming?"

"Yeah just… it's weird seeing one like this." She said blankly as she took a step in. The narrator didn't help in Charon's concentration but luckily no more mutants showed up until they were outside of the Vault exhibit. They entered the west wing where the Virgo lander was supposed to be. More mutants were there as expected but he was able to take them out with ease given the hallways and their stealthy approach. When the coast was clear and they were sure all of the mutants had been dealt with, Charon began scavenging what he could from the mutants. Chrys checked the museum terminals while he made sure to collect a good amount of hunting rifles and assault rifles from the dead mutants. He could bring Chrys' assault rifle up to better condition and give her another weapon with the hunting rifles.

"Charon, check this out!" he heard her call from the bottom of the room he was in which housed a very large rocket. He made his way down and found her reading a computer screen intently.

"What is it mistress?"

"This guy, Prime, left clues for some other guy named Jiggy to find some loot he stashed for him. Luckily I found out the clue, it's just the prime number in each sequence that activates the code. So I activated them all while you were looting those mutants and now we can get into that safe up in the security room!" She turned to him with a smile at her accomplishment. He had to give it to her, he probably wouldn't have figured that out on his own. The side of his mouth twitched up a bit in acknowledgement and then leaned in to take a look at the screen himself.

"Jury Street. I know where that is." He said as he read the other part of the message left by Prime.

"Can we go there?" Chrys asked.

"I'm guessing Jiggy has been disposed of and Prime might not be in much better shape. Jury Street is outside of the ruins though." He explained. She held up her Pip-Boy, gesturing for him to show her where the location was on the map. When he pointed it out her face lit up.

"That's not too far from Megaton! We can finish this errand for Three Dog, get the info on my dad, find him, head back to Megaton, and then go there. Piece of snack cake… uh, hopefully." She smiled nervously. "A lot of the stuff involving my dad has never been quite straight forward so I don't know what to expect when Three Dog tells us what he knows."

Charon watched her tinker with her Pip-Boy for a moment before they went off to raid the Security Office. There was a good amount of caps in the safe and ammo and guns in the safe. There were also some chems that he advised for her to take with them anyway as trade goods later. Finally they made their way to the lander and removed the dish. Using some of the belts off of the Super Mutants, he tied to dish to his back, keeping his shotgun and pack in his hands. She took the lead on the way out.

When they reached the Washington memorial it took some banter in order for Chrys to convince them to let her and a 7 foot tall ghoul up there to replace a satellite dish. After a while the metal bastards let them through. On the elevator ride up, she was nothing less than ecstatic as she peered out across the Mall and the wasteland as the elevator took them higher and higher. He just smirked and rolled his eyes at her intrigue in something so… desolate.

"It's so amazing up here. I wish Amata and my dad could see this view." She paused for a moment just looking at the expanse from the top floor. "Well time to replace a satellite dish." She rubbed her hands together looking around for the old one.

"Ahem." Charon coughed and pointed to the hole-filled dish hanging by a wire from the scaffolding outside of the building. Any color in her face left as she looked down and gulped.

"You got to be kidding me." She said. He guessed she was inwardly cursing Three Dog and his "Good Fight". "I guess you got to give me a boost. It doesn't look too hard… from here."

"I can replace it."

"No I don't think you should go out there. There's no telling how old that scaffolding is and how much weight it supports. No offense big guy, but I weigh less than you." She laughed dryly a bit and looked at him. When he gave no response other than squinted eyes she turned away and scratched the back of her head. They changed the dish without much trouble and quickly made their way back down.

"So I guess we get to go talk to Three Dog now." Chrys said. She turned the radio on and tuned it to the GNR signal. Sure enough it played like a bell. "This'll be nice to listen to while we travel don't you think?"

"If you want to alert every mutant, raider, and mercenary in the wasteland then yes."

She puffed her cheeks out again. "Didn't quite think of that." She flicked it off and sighed. He didn't like seeing her look sad or remorseful. The look didn't suit her. He preferred seeing her happy and he was pretty sure that it wasn't contract influenced.

That thought scared the shit out of him.

Nevertheless he followed after her and it didn't take long for him to realize she had no clue where she was going. "Do you even know where you're going?"

"Well kind of. I know we need to travel through the metros so I'm trying to remember which one I came through." She scratched her head as she looked around the Mall, obviously confused by the vast amount of metros littering the area. Charon shook his head and looked down in the direction of the Lincoln memorial.

"More than likely the way you came, provided you came immediately from GNR, is a one way route and won't do you much good now. The metro to Georgetown is your best option." He explained as he pointed in the general direction of the desired metro. She nodded and started out in that direction. Luckily the only problem they faced to the metro was vicious dogs. She felt bad killing them, as he expected she would.

Once they entered the metro she got even more tense and nervous. She moved very slow and she took raspy and deep breaths. She was a mess. After a while he pulled ahead once he heard the low breathing of feral ghouls over the sound of her own breathing. "Shhh. You need to stop breathing so loudly. Control it. Otherwise you'll give our position away."

"Sorry... it just reminds me of the Vault and not in a good way." She said quietly and sucked in a breath before taking a moment to calm herself. When he determined that she was stable and quiet enough he motion for her to follow him and keep low. There was only one feral ghoul in the high rise and another down on the ground floor. To be on the safe side, he figured another would be in the hallway further down. While the ferals were ignorant of their presence he figured they could be used for target practice.

"Take your rifle out. I want to see you shoot that ghoul." He instructed her as he lowered his shotgun.

"Are you crazy? I'll miss and alert more of them." She refuted but still pulled her rifle out. 'At least she's not completely ignorant.' He thought. Nevertheless she aimed her gun and got ready to fire. There were so many things wrong so he quickly reached out and adjusted her stance. It was hard to do while crouched and trying to remain somewhat quiet. When he was satisfied he let her find her mark on her own.

BAM!

The ghoul crumpled to the floor as the bullets pierced its neck. Wasn't a headshot but it was good enough. Sure enough the feral from the ground floor moved to check on what had occurred upstairs. He readied his shotgun and took out the ghoul as it climbed its way up the escalator. Chrys snuck ahead, unnoticed by Charon, and sure enough alerted a third ghoul in the hallway. At the sound of her struggle he rushed over to her when it was clear her shots weren't being as effective as they should be. He blew the ghoul's head off while shoving her out of the way. She landed with a thud and dropped her gun. She looked up at him. "Sorry I-"

"You have to keep your eyes and ears open smoothskin! If you don't you might as well just lie down and say 'Eat me'." He scolded her which gave him a strange feeling given that he hadn't talked down to someone in over 50 years. She took it well surprisingly and just nodded in understanding. He offered his hand to help her back up and she took it with a small smile. She didn't even shiver or shudder at the thought of it. He sighed and continued on.

Once they made their way back to Chevy Chase Charon could tell she was exhausted and in dire need of sleep. He couldn't really do anything to help her without probably stepping out of bounds but he kept close to her and eventually offered to take her bags. She looked at him with a bit of a conflicted look on her face, but shook her head. "I've got it. I'm not that tired. And GNR is just on the other side of this school building."

He felt like he should probably exercise his right to speak out now and insist he take her bag, but a part of him told him that what she said was an order to leave her be. When they reached the GNR building they were let in with relative ease. Even though he couldn't see their faces, he was sure that the Brotherhood knights were surprised and terrified to see such a huge ass ghoul walking behind the small Vault girl. It took a while for them to lower their weapons while he walked by. He followed Chrys up the stairs to the actual studio where Three Dog took refuge. She opened the door after knocking and proceeded up the steps. "Three Dog! I'm back! The dish is installed... if you haven't noticed."

There was a clattering of objects and then a man with dark skin appeared, a bandana wrapped around his head and too big sunglasses perched on his face. Charon found it hard to believe this was Three Dog, but then again he never really had any image of what the DJ looked like. He looked annoying just like his damn voice and "Good Fight" that he projected over the radio.

"And the heroine returns! With... a new addition to the crew I'm assuming?" Three Dog projected in a loud voice as he walked over to meet them.

"Oh yeah, this is Charon. He's my companion now. I found him in Underworld and he helped me install the satellite dish." Chrys gestured to Charon in a presenting manner.

"He's a big motherfucker that's what he is." Three Dog said as he looked the massive ghoul over. Charon's fist tightened in response but he kept himself calm.

"Umm okay. Well he's traveling with me now. Anyway can you tell me about my dad now? Please I really need to find him." Chrys pleaded.

Three Dog put up his hands and made a gesture for her to calm down. "Relax kiddo. James came by here and I chatted him up. Seems like a good fellow. Anyway he made it sound like he was heading toward Rivet City to meet a Doctor Li."

Chrys smiled, "Thank you Three Dog."

"Kiddo?"

"Yeah?"

"You are in dire need of some shut eye. Luckily I have a spare room. Go ahead and crash there for tonight." Three Dog said as he pointed to a door cracked open slightly to show a room with a bed. Chrys nodded in thanks. Charon took their things and stored them in the room. He heard Chrys and Three Dog talking back in the central room but he couldn't discern what they specifically were talking about. When he returned Three Dog ushered the tired girl to the bed. Charon made sure Three Dog kept his distance from her.

Once Chrys was situated and asleep, Charon set to work repairing her weapons with the rifles he lifted from the Super Mutants. Three Dog had a table he could use to work on them and allowed for him to make sure Three Dog didn't get any unwise ideas. Her assault rifle was any easy fix but he couldn't salvage any parts necessary to fix her pistol or SMG. The numerous hunting rifles he had procured allowed for him to repair one to full condition, but he found another dilemma as he searched through her pack: an old antique rifle. He had seen the rifle before when Ahzrukhal would send him to the abandoned wings of the museum of history to pick up chem stores there. It was part of the Abraham Lincoln exhibit back when the museum was active. 'Well Lincoln definitely had good taste.'

Why she hadn't used this rifle rather than her assault rifle he wasn't sure. It did use much rarer ammo though so that was probably her reasoning. By wasteland standards it was a good gun by the looks of it. Very powerful given its ammo type and it wasn't heavy and cumbersome like a sniper rifle. However, being as unique as it was that meant there wasn't really anything he knew of that he could salvage parts to repair it with. She had probably deduced the same thing and chosen not to use it until she knew she could find a way to repair it.

Hours passed by more quickly than he realized by the time he was all done. Three Dog and Chrys were both sound asleep and he had nothing to do except roll out his newly acquired bedroll and sleep as well. He stood and walked over to where his employer was fast asleep and peered inside the room. She was curled up and fast asleep, but he instantly noticed the uncomfortable look on her resting face. He knelt down by her bed and studied her again to make sure there wasn't anything odd about her breathing or anything, but she sounded fine. He could see the spontaneous eye movement signaled by her twitching eyelids that indicated she was deep in REM sleep. For all he knew she was dreaming something right now that was unpleasant. At that moment she twitched a bit and called out for her father, but it was barely a whisper. Charon sighed and watched her sleeping form a little while longer until she calmed down. He didn't understand this girl and that frightened him, but he knew her intentions were good and that her heart was in the right place, as much good that would actually do her.

He patted her on the shoulder, which seemed to calm her down even more then rolled out his bedroll to sleep.

"Sleep tight smoothskin." He whispered. 'And thanks.'