2. The Bodyguard

OC (sort of… but not really, he exists I just gave him a name) x Charon x Sole Survivor

No bad language (which is a first for me) no sex, not even any Violence (what?). Just a short, fluffy-ish kind of piece, as fluffy as I get anyway…

Oliver Somerville was ten years old then.

In the grand scheme of things, in the Commonwealth, he was a no one. A settler.

He lived with his dad and his sister in the remains of a ruined house in the southwest, not too far from where the Commonwealth mutated into the Glowing Sea. The house was the focal point for one of the Minutemens settlements, though Oliver, his dad and his sister were there first, so even though shacks had sprung up around them and people circulated amongst them and the newly planted fields and stood atop the newly erected guard towers… the place was still called 'Somerville Place' and it was above all else, Olivers home.

He clearly remembered the day that the General had arrived at their home, back when it was just the three of them. His dad had sent out a call for aid. They had been plagued by a greenskin hive and the senior Somerville was getting scared that maybe his children may be no long for this world. He had not really expected any help and yet, was not really impressed when a lone woman had showed up to answer the call.

She had listen to his case all the while clicking the safety on and off on a fancy looking pistol at her hip. She had nodded solemnly got up without a word and left. The Somervilles had exchanged looks and shrugs and had carried on.

Days later the woman had returned. She looked exhausted, her shoulders slumped as she trudged up the old dirt road leading to their door. Worse, she was splattered with all kinds of gore. Olivers sister Maisy, had shrunk back from the woman and hid behind her father as the lady told him that the greenskins would no longer be a problem.

She had sunk down and sat on the edge of the dilapidated car that adorned the front yard and dug around in her pockets for a cigarette. Oliver thought she was badass.

That was the day that they officially joined the Minutemen, he had been ten.

Oliver was still young but he had wanted to help, inspired by the General. His dad had been hesitant but had finally relented and let him go out with the salvage parties. He was to keep out of any encounters and was really only there to carry stuff like a little pack Brahmin, but he did get to carry his own gun. It was only a pipe pistol, cobbled together with junk… but it was his and when he was sitting around at night, he would absently flick the safety on and off, just like the general had done.

Sometimes, Oliver was allowed to go with one of the Sanctuary based provisioners who travelled all over the Commonwealth carrying supplies and communications through out all of the settlements. They were a vital part of the Minuteman infrastructure, the lifeline and they were heavily defended as such… the only reason he was allowed to travel with them. He had travelled to Sanctuary a few times and he loved it every time, though it was tiring to walk so far for so long.

The General was there and he got to see her… she even talked to him, she even knew his name. She had a pet dog and was friends with a greenskin and a ghoul. She had a robot who wore a hat and her boyfriend was a synth… a really big synth who wore Power Armour. She was Olivers hero.

The sound of mooing Brahmin was almost wistful. It followed the provisioner willingly with no bridle or rope, like the guy was a carrot dangling on the end of a stick. The caravan guards fanned out from the road, their weapons in hand and eyes constantly moving. Every quiver of leaves in a bush was a potential threat. Oliver walked next to the Brahmin he had named Gump, he didn't know why, but it just seemed to fit the creature and it sounded funny.

They were heading to Sanctuary again, a ton of Mirelurk meat from Murkwater was the load this time. The place attracted Mirelurks like no ones business and this time the settlers there had taken down one of the enormous queens. The group were walking north, stopping at every settlement in between to drop off the plentiful meat.

Every settlement greeted them warmly, exchanging pleasantries and accepting the supplies and stacks of letters, crowding around as correspondence was dolled out, excited to hear news of friends and family at other settlements. This was Olivers job, he held onto the satchel of precious paper. He sorted the letters every evening into locations and stowed them neatly away. The General herself had given him the job, saying that such an important job should go to someone she trusted. Oliver had felt his chest swell with pride at her words. He had the Generals trust.

The job was not without danger. The caravans were attacked by raiders and such but Oliver never felt overly threatened. He was scared when it happened but he always stood his ground, like the way the General would. He had even killed a guy once. A human guy, not a mongrel or a feral, but a real live man. Oliver didn't like to think about it.

Greygarden had been no exception when it came to warm greetings. The provisioner team had approached the gates to welcoming calls and the gates had been flung open. A few settlers even coming out to greet them on the road, some zeroing in on Oliver right off the bat. He had grinned and accepted the claps on the shoulder and the offered tin of water, stopping and letting the others pass as he dug into his satchel for the letters that everyone craved. It was great to feel so appreciated, not like back at Somerville Place where he would have been set to work tending the tatos and corn.

They stayed the night at Greygarden. Oliver sorted the new pile of letters laid across his cot, packed them up and slept like a baby. They were off early the next morning, heading towards their next stop at Sunshine Tidings Co-op.

The day was hot. It was always hot, there were no seasons as such but you could tell what part of the year you were experiencing by the type of heat. It was summer. The heat was dry, sucking the moisture out of everything with even a trace water in it, saving it up for winter when it would be hot and damp.

Oliver adjusted his baseball cap, trying to protect his already burnt nose against even more blisters. He trudged next to Gump, trying to keep in the beasts shadow as he walked. The day went like any other until, not far from their destination, the guard out in front raised his hand to halt the group and peered to his left. There was something happening on the road, near the bypass that headed west towards Nukaworld. Oliver tilted his head to the side and listened hard, catching very vague sounds of weapons fire in the distance.

The guards talked in hushed tones and Oliver had to strain to hear what was going on as the scout that was sent ahead, came back.

A caravan was under attack down the road… so close to a settlement?… looked like one of Daisys, coming from the Capital… never seen raiders like that before… do we engage?... can't leave them like that… We're Minutemen, have to help.

Oliver was told to stay where he was, to protect Gump and everyone else disappeared up the road ahead. Oliver drew is pistol and clicked off the safety. He crouched down by Gumps front legs and waited, keeping his eyes on the road, but casting longing looks off the road to the north. Sunshine was over the hill, oblivious to what was happening here but chock full of fully armed settlers and a garrison of tricked out, Brotherhood soldiers. He was torn between obeying his orders to stay, to go and help the caravan guards fight and run for Sunshine for back up.

He came to a decision. He scribbled a quick note and duct taped it to the outside of his satchel. He hung it over one of Gumps heads and slapped her smartly on the rump, sending her up the hill and on the familiar path to Sunshine just to the north. She could waddle faster and for longer by herself and she knew where the water and feed were from here.

Oliver hurried along the road towards the sound of fighting, the sound getting louder as he ran. He crested a rise in the road and beheld a genuine battlefield… and he was too late to join in, the area was now dead quiet.

Bodies strew the ground, in the leather armour of caravan guards and mercs and the unusual, improvised armour of the raiders that they faced. The air was thick with the coppery smell and taste of blood, each breath Oliver took was drenched in it and it made him gag as he dragged his feet down the recess and into the midst of the devastation. There were piles of twisted metal that had been robots, charred and smoking, filling the air with the stink of burnt plastic and hot metal. There were the bodies of the pack Brahmin crumpled on their sides and heads hanging in the dust as if only sleeping. One had survived and had wandered off to graze, unconcerned with the slaughter only a few yards away and mooing softly.

Oliver hunkered down and checked the body closest to him, one of his own caravan guards, the mans eyes were blank and staring at the sky. He checked the next body and the next. He came to the body of one of the raiders. His obviously dead face covered with a makeshift steel grill that looked like the front of an eyebot. All of the raiders armour was made from mutilated robots, fixed in a slapdash way to the outside of their leathers.

Oliver came to the body of the caravaneer that had been under attack. The womans face was half burned off, the air stunk of sizzling meat and hair. Oliver retched when he realised he didn't find the smell unpleasant. It was a chilling thought. He back away from her shakily and resumed his search for survivors.

There was groan from the ground behind him, one of the raiders he had not thought to check yet, thinking them all dead. He levelled his pistol at the man raising himself slowly from the dust, blood pumped from a wound in his leg as he tried to put pressure on it. The raider turned sharply, when Oliver pulled back the hammer on his pistol and chambered a round, and fixed the boy with a baleful glare. He bared his uneven and yellowed teeth and began to stumble towards him. Oliver pointed the gun and closed his eyes tight, squeezing on the trigger of his little .38.

BOOM.

A shot that no pistol could make, ruptured the silence. The raider flew backwards and hit the ground flat on his back, sliding a little and kicking up a cloud of choking dust. He was definitely dead now.

Oliver looked around for the source of the ear splitting blast and his eyes fell on a merc sitting up on the road, a smoking sawed off shot gun in his hand. A ghoul merc.

The shotgun slipped from his fingers and thudded to the ground and the hand that had been holding it grasped at a gapping wound in his side. He hissed and shuddered forwards, folding in on himself in pain. Oliver hurried to his side and knelt down next to him.

"You OK, mister?" Oliver asked, putting his hand on the mercs shoulder.

The ghoul however, was looking around him at the bodies flung about on the ground.

"My employer?" He rasped, fixing his gaze on the bodies one at a time trying to identify them.

"The caravaneer? The lady with red hair?" Oliver guessed, a weight forming in his stomach. He had never had to deliver bad news before.

The ghoul nodded and fixed the boy with a look that seemed almost desperate.

Oliver swallowed deeply and his eyes flicked towards the burned ladies body. The ghoul read the expression on the boys face and his eyes went stony, an invisible shield coming down around him.

"I failed." He spat.

He sat for a moment staring straight ahead before levering his free arm behind him, trying to push himself to his feet. Oliver scrambled up to help the ghoul, not wanting him to hurt himself more than he already was. The ghoul managed to stand, though he was doubled over, clutching at the seeping damage in his side while Oliver hovered over him, not sure what he should do.

"Take me." The ghoul ordered, that raspy voice tinged with agony as he tried to take step towards the corpse of the lady on the ground and faltered.

Oliver quickly holstered his pistol and wedged himself carefully under the ghouls arm, taking his weight across his young shoulders. They hobbled slowly across the road, littered with detritus of combat and came to a stop over the body of the woman.

The ghoul groaned and dropped to his knees beside her.

"Oh no." he whispered hoarsely and he reached out to touch her face. "Moira…"

He sat over her mournfully, not even hearing the engines of the vertibird approaching. Oliver looked to the sky and saw the airship speeding towards their position from Sunshine. Gump had made it safe and sound and their back up was coming. Olivers eyes roamed over the scene and he sighed.

He left the ghoul to his grief and walked to the edge of the battlezone watching the vertibrid descend into the field. As it landed, a small group alighted and walked towards him. Their shoulders down, they knew they were too late.

Oliver waited for them to make it to him, his back straightening as he saw the General was one of the would be rescuers.

"Oliver." She greeted sombrely, taking in the tableau behind him. "Tell me what happened."

"There's an injured guy, he needs a medic." He pointed to the ghoul kneeling in the dust.

The General nodded towards the Brotherhood scribe at her shoulder and the scribe hurried over to the ghoul not questioning her orders to help a ghoul, the field scribes knew better than that now. Oliver watched as she touched his shoulder hesitantly, not wanting to startle him and the ghoul looking up at her.

Oliver turned back to the General and reported what had happened. She listened to him attentively and asked a few questions, nodding at each of his answers. When they were done she patted him on the shoulder and sent him to sit on the Vertibird. He did as he was bid and watched the group from Sunshine collect their dead and the dead of the Caravan, examine the raiders and wrangle one reluctant Brahmin. The General radioed back to the settlement for a salvage crew to come out and go through everything and then went to hunker down by the lone survivor of the fight.

Oliver leaned against the warm steel shell of the Vertibird and let his head fall back with a clunk. His eyes filled with tears as the adrenalin drained from him and everything that had just happened came rushing to him in a flood.

Everyone. The whole provisioner caravan was dead. He shuddered as the wounded raider charged at him again. He jumped as the shotgun boomed in his ear. He sniffled loudly and ran his forearm over his eyes, collecting the tears before they fell with his sleeve. He heaved a great deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly and shakily. The General didn't cry like a little baby.

He looked back over at the woman his eyes still misting and his bottom lip still quivering though he was determined to stay strong. She was rifling through the clothes of the dead caravaneer. It looked like she found what she was looking for as she knelt back down next to the ghoul and unfolded a piece of worn paper and read it, talking intermittently in a low tone with the ghoul as she did so. Their backs were to him so he didn't really know what they were doing or saying and the scribe flittered around them tending the merc.

The General suddenly looked his way and seemed to ask a question of the Ghoul with her eyes fixed on Oliver. The merc nodded his head and the General stood slowly.

She looked down at the merc one last time and then started walking towards Oliver, her look indiscernible.

"Oliver." She said softly as she came to a stop before him. She looked down at him, her lips pursed and her brow arched. "You okay, kid?"

"Yes ma'am." He said, trying not to sniffle.

The corner of her mouth quirked as she detected the forced confidence and heard the decided quiver in his voice. She didn't mention it much to Olivers relief, instead she held out the scrap of paper that she had lifted from the body.

"I am to give you this." She said.

Oliver reached out his hand hesitantly and took the paper from her hand, holding it with a look of confusion on his face.

"The mercs name is Charon." She said seriously, "and apparently, he works for you now."

Oliver stared at her dumbly. She almost chuckled at the look of incomprehension on his face, but she was almost as shocked as he was by what she had just heard.

"Oliver… you'd better take a breath, buddy, before you pass out." She said.

He did as she said and started breathing again, shaking his head.

"I don't understand." He admitted, staring at the merc who was being helped to his feet by the scribe and one of the minutemen.

"The piece of paper in your hand is Charons contract." She explained as gently as she could, not quite understanding the ghoul and his brief explanation herself. "Whoever holds his contract gets his unfaltering service and loyalty, or so he says."

Oliver blinked a few times, watching the merc being helped to walk in his direction. "You mean… you mean like a slave?"

"Apparently not." She shook her head. "There are terms of employment in the contract that you need to abide by. It's more like a self imposed indentureship, I guess. You're his employer."

"I can't afford to have… staff… I'm twelve." Oliver sputtered.

"I don't think you have to pay him, or set up a dental plan." She almost grinned. "You found him, you saved him. I think that's enough."

"A person who works for someone else and doesn't get paid? I'm pretty sure that's a slave." Olivers voice was becoming a little hysterical as the merc limped closer.

"You can sell his contract. Or give it away." She suggested, watching the mercs slow progress.

"Sell? Like a slave?" Oliver cringed.

"I'm pretty sure he's going to insist on staying with you. He wouldn't take the contract himself. I already tried that."

Olivers eyes opened wider than saucers as the merc came to stop in front of him. The ghoul was ginormous. Oliver did not register the ghouls size when he had been laid out on the ground or hunched over against his shoulder or kneeling in the dust next to his former employer. He towered over everyone.

He had patchy aurburn hair and blue eyes covered with a milky kind of film. He was different from the ghouls that Oliver had met in the Commonwealth, none of the Commonwealth ghouls had hair and all of their eyes were black, like Mayor Hancock or Wiseman. Charons skin was rough and scared, some of it still looked raw, not like Mayor Hancock whose skin looked like a long healed burn. He was kinda scary looking.

"Sir," Charons gruff voice was abrupt but quiet. "You are my employer and I will do as you command." His milky eyes bored into the boy. "My gun is yours, but be aware that physical violence done by yourself against my person will invalidate our contract and I will retaliate. I suggest you read and understand the terms."

Oliver looked up at the massive ghoul with his mouth hanging open and his eyes almost popping out of his head.

"I have a request." Charon carried on talking, ignoring his new employers startled silence. "I wish to advise my pervious employers mate of her demise and let him know my contract has changed hands. He is a good man and deserves to be advised as soon as possible."

"Uhhh… Of course… yeah." Oliver stammered. "You … you could go back to him if you want?"

"If that is your wish, sir, I will advise him that you would like to open negotiations for the sale of my contract." Charon said dispassionately. "though, I will not leave your side until negotiations are complete and my contract changes hands."

The General snorted from her place at Olivers side. It wasn't funny. She cleared her throat.

"I will contact Elder Maxson to get a message to the Capital, get a message to your… 'former employers mate'. Is he on good terms with the Brotherhood of Steel?" She asked Charon.

"Yes. He can regularly be found in or near the Citadel." Charon advised her, "Her name is Moira Brown." He inclined his head in the direction of the dead caravaneer, his jaw tightening. "His name is Jason Forbes, He is the Sentinel."

"The Lone Wanderer?… You belonged to the Lone Wanderer?" Oliver squeaked in surprise.

Charons eyes snapped back to the boy and narrowed "I did not belong to anyone. I suggest you read my contract."

The Generals lips almost quirked into a grin again… this was not funny, but it was going to be interesting to watch.

"I will make sure it's done before the end of the day." She assured him. "Now please, I want to get you back to Sunshine Tidings for proper medical attention and Oliver needs rest as well, it's been a… a traumatic day for everyone."

The General stood back from the towering merc and indicated that he should get on board the Vertibird. He instead turned from her and shuffled back amongst carnage, searching the ground, his hand held tightly to his side. He carefully stooped and scooped up the sawed off shotgun that he had dropped, holstering it over his shoulder. He didn't look at the still form of Moira Brown as he limped back and, shaking off the helping hand of the General, lifted his young and surprised new employer on board before climbing up himself.

He sat rigidly next to Oliver, his eyes forward. The General waited for the attending scribe to climb up and then pounded on the side of the bird, telling the Lancer to take off. She backed away and waited to the bird to take off and start the short trip back to Sunshine.

She wondered how exactly this was going to play out. How long would the giant ghoul be in service to a twelve year old and how would he cope with it? How would Oliver, the mail carrier, cope with having an unwanted but undoubtedly deadly and surly ghoul bodyguard? And what would happen when the Lone Wanderer heard about all of this?

She sighed and turned. She would retrieve the body of Moira Brown. Her first ever trip out of the Capital had not gone well.

AN: I have heaps of scenarios for Charon... he's my fave character from Fallout 3 - I have a thing for the brooding badasses.