A/N: HEY EVERYONE! I was kinda excited for this chapter, so instead of waiting a few more days to post it, I post it NAO. At one o'clock in the friggin' morning DX MEH. (I honestly think that the only reason why I am excited is because of what I plan on happening next... LOL I'm a retard :D)

This chapter is mostly about Janny's thoughts on what's been happening, and she doesn't know what to do- stick around and risk the lives of the only two people she has left in this world just to solve the mystery of who killed Seagrave (WHEN SHE ALREADY KNOWS WHO IT IS, BUT SHE DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO NAIL HIS ASS TO A WALL LIKE A THUMBTACK) and help Harkness with Zimmer, or leave, and hopfully lead the Enclave away from Bryan and Harkness.

So, enjoy a bit of a more depressing side of Janny, because it felt weird as hell writing her as such! :D and I hope it isn't too craptastic, because I ALSO wrote this while I was sickie.

Happy reading, happy writing!

~Konfessionist out!~

Chapter Nineteen: So I Thought

Day Four

There was a long, loud wail of anguish somewhere around Bryan. He sat up in bed, trying to adjust his eyes so that they would take in his surroundings, but it was too dark. He swung his legs over the side and rubbed his eyes, yawning obnoxiously. He heard a faint chitter, coming from outside his room. He slowly rose to his feet and walked cautiously to the open doorway of his room without thinking about it. His hand pressed into the door, and it opened with a slow and agonizing creak that could wake the dead. Another loud and long wail of anguish carried up to him from the stairs. Reluctantly, he made his way down to the very bottom.

"Dad?" He called out hoarsely. "Dad?"

A hand suddenly grabbed his ankle, and he jumped back to stare down at the bloodied, half-eaten face of his father. His wide eyes stared back up at him, the tendons under the flesh of his jaw exposed to the open with the skin picked off and it made him look like he was half smiling. Tattered flesh and muscle dangled from his chin in decorative streamers.

"Run, Bryan. Run!" His father bellowed, before he was dragged back into darkness where more screams and chitters of otherworldly creatures played back to him, and in the dim light, he could see that his father was being torn apart limb by limb by giant monsters.

Bryan wasted no time in listening to his father's demands. He ran for the door, threw it open, and darted out into the night. His bare feet slapped against the cold pavement as he ran for somewhere—as he ran for anywhere to hide. He pounded on Dr. Lesko's shack door.

"Dr. Lesko! Dr. Lesko! Somethin's happenin'! I dunno what to do!" He pounded on the door with his fists again. "Dr. Lesko! Please help us! Help me!"

The chittering followed him outside, and when he turned around, there were the giant monsters trailing out of his house while dragging his father's body behind them. He turned and ran—where he ran to, he didn't know. He just ran. He was suddenly out of town, running down the cracked road and when he looked back, there was nothing following him. He suddenly slammed into somebody.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

Landing flat on his rump, Bryan looked up to see Janny in front of him, slowly kneeling down with a hand outstretched to help him up. Her golden curls caressed her face, flailing eerily as if kept afloat by some unseen force and her eyes were illuminated brighter than any full moon he had ever seen. Her smile warmed the darkness in his soul, and instead of reaching for her hand, he lunged up and embraced her, all the while crying into her chest.

"Now, now—there's no need to cry…" She soothed him, all the while stroking his hair.

"Can—Can you protect me?" He hiccupped and she nodded, continuing to stroke his hair.

"Of course I can protect you… But it comes for a price…"

"Pr- Price?" He wheezed, looking up into her smiling face with bleary eyes. "But I—I don't have any money…"

"Oh no, money isn't necessary…" Something glinted in the corner of his vision, and when he snapped his eyes to it, it was her right arm raised in the air and her other hand was scratching at her skin—peeling away the layers of her flesh to reveal glinting metal tendons and bones underneath.

"All I need… Is your skin…"

Janny cackled as she tackled him to the ground and clawed at his face with her sharp metallic fingers, ripping up any of his skin that she could reach, and as he screamed for her to stop, his tiny body flailing underneath her, he was suddenly being shaken—

"Bryan! Bryan! Please, wake up!"

Bryan snapped his eyes wide open and a scream hitched in his throat when Janny was leaning over him, her face twisted up into an expression of extreme worry. She smiled softly and exhaled a deep breath of relief.

"Are you alright, Bryan?" She asked gently, sitting back in a chair that she had pulled up to the edge of his bed. Or, rather, her bed. He was still in her hotel room. "You were really scaring me…"

He forced himself to breathe, to blink and look around the room to make sure he wasn't in Grayditch anymore. He held up his hands to examine them to make sure he wasn't eight years old anymore. He touched his face with trembling fingers to make sure that all his skin was there and wasn't hanging off his face like his father's.

I was just… Dreaming. He finally realized. It was just another nightmare about papa… and Janny…

Bryan turned his eyes to her as she picked up a wash cloth from her bedside table and pressed it against his forehead. It was wet and cool against his searing hot flesh.

"Bryan, are you alright?" Janny asked him again, the smile disappearing from her face and he quickly nodded.

"Ye- Yeah… I'm fine." He croaked, forcing himself to sit up and hold the wash cloth to his forehead.

"You were thrashing in your sleep… Did you have a nightmare?" She asked worriedly.

"…Kinda." He answered her as he used the wet cloth to wipe away the sweat that was rolling from his face.

"…Was it about me?"

Bryan looked up to see the guilt in her eyes as she stared down into her lap, picking at a stray thread poking out from her jean shorts.

"…Sorta…" He replied quietly, leaving the cloth on the back of his neck. "My dad was there, too… I was back in Grayditch, trynna run away from the fire ants when I—when I found you."

"Oh."

"Yeah…"

There was a long pause of silence before Janny pushed her chair out and got up to grab her shoes by the front door, and she hastily put them on.

"Janny?" He began to throw his sheets off from his legs. "Where are you going?"

"To get Harkness," She explained as she pushed her heel into the sole of her shoe. "He said to retrieve him from work whenever you woke up."

"What do you mean?" Bryan inquired, blinking in confusion. "Did I—fall asleep?"

"You passed out when I—..." Her voice trailed off, and she looked back at him, waving her right arm lazily. "My arm."

Janny pulling her arm off from her body leapt back into Bryan's mind like a movie reel, and he felt his stomach lurch up in his gut. He swallowed back the tightening of his throat.

"O- Oh…"

"Yeah." She turned back to the door and sighed. "Harkness told me that getting you involved was a terrible idea… And I knew it was. I always knew it would be if it ever came to the point that I told you everything."

Bryan clenched the bed sheets in his fist as Janny turned around and came back over to sit next to him on her bed. He licked his lips and waited for her to continue.

"I never planned on telling you any of this… But you were so persistent, and it broke my heart to keep secrets from you…" She sighed and shook her head. "I'm not blaming you by any means Bryan, so don't think that I am for even a moment. I just knew that if I ever had to lay my cards out for you, I would have to bare all of myself to you—flaws and all."

"Your… Flaws?" He questioned quietly.

"Yes," She nodded. "Like my past with the slavers, and how I—… How I lost my arm…" She lifted up her right arm and curled her fingers into a fist. "But I didn't expect you to pass out like that when I showed you the part of me that wasn't really me… I guess it was too sudden."

"It'll just—take some time. For me to get used to." He swallowed. "I'll be fine."

"Are you positive?"

He nodded surely. "As I'll ever be."

Janny reached her hand out to pat him on the hand reassuringly, but halfway through she stopped herself and quickly stood up to go to the door.

"I'll be right back with Harkness," She spoke as she opened the door and closed it behind her.

"O- Okay… I'll be here… Waiting…" Bryan answered sadly, even long after Janny was gone.

Always waiting for you…

Janny weaved herself through the swarms of settlers going back and forth through the hallways of Rivet City as she tried making her way to Harkness in the marketplace. He said he was to be stationed there for the rest of the day, orders from Rogue, so he could do damage control on the frenzied population of Rivet City. Not too long after Bryan had passed out and Harkness helped her move him to her bed so he wasn't on the floor any longer, they had got to talking about her arm.

"So where'd you get it?"

"…I went to the Commonwealth."

"You—You what?"

"I know I should have told you Harkness, but I wanted to find the right time and none of it seemed right!"

"But I—I don't understand… When I last saw you, before you went to war with the Enclave to take back Project Purity, you still had your real arm, didn't you?"

"No. When I saw you last, my arm was already gone."

"So you had already gone to the Commonwealth before the battle?"

"No, actually… The Brotherhood of Steel fashioned me a make shift prosthetic out of some scrap parts they had lying around as a sort of "apology." I can't tell you how many initiates I beat with it before I actually put it on."

"I think I would have known if it was a prosthetic, Jan."

"I know you have excellent memory, Harkness—don't you remember? My arm was all bandaged up, and when you asked me what happened, I—… Uhm…"

"Told me to take a long walk off a short pier. Yeah, I remember now… So when did you go to the Commonwealth?"

"After Purity was finally activated, and I had helped the Brotherhood of Steel clean up most of the Enclave's operations, Dr. Li told me that she was leaving for the Commonwealth to put her knowledge to better use because she didn't want to work with the Brotherhood of Steel, now that they were in charge of Purity. I remembered that you were from there, and I thought—... I thought that if they could make a robot look human, why can't they make a prosthetic limb that looked human, too?"

"And you went with her to get the work done…"

"Exactly. I worked as a body guard for her on the way to the Commonwealth, and in return of keeping her safe, she paid for the arm for me."

"So you didn't think that any time was the right time to tell me that you had traveled all the way to the Commonwealth, the place where I was created and use to hunt other androids, to get a new arm?"

"I know I should have told you sooner, but damnit Harkness, I—I just… I couldn't. I didn't know how."

"…Jan, there is never a right time or a right place for anyone to tell anybody something as big as this, and expect them to be okay with it. The time doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter if that person is or isn't ready to hear something like this—all that matters is if you are ready to talk."

"So—you're not mad?"

"I'm not, no. I have no reason to be. Besides, you're kinda like a—like a half-sister to me now, or something, I dunno. I guess I'm not mad because now I got somebody who understands what it's sorta like to not be entirely human."

To not be entirely human…

Janny rolled the sentence over and over in her mind, as if it were something new and foreign to her. When she first received her new arm, it was hard getting used to it but she somehow managed. The issue that was bigger than managing was that no matter how natural it felt to pick up a coffee cup or hold a pencil or even pull the trigger on her plasma rifle, it still felt that she wasn't the one doing it. It still felt like it was another part of her; a fake part of her doing it all, and it was something she deserved. Because every time she would pick up a coffee cup, or hold a pencil, or pull the trigger on her plasma rifle, it was a small price that went towards a large debt that she owed for all the terrible things she had done. She was a plagued soul, she knew it, and all the misery of her past showed itself in a limb that nobody else but she could see. It was the same as the blood that bathed her hands—it was something that nobody else but she could see, and it wasn't something that she had to live with, it was something that she had to survive with as the regret and the ache of guilt ate away at her from the inside.

The look of horror on Bryan's face when she finally confessed her place amongst the Raiders and Slavers years ago practically tore her heart apart all on its own. She could barely stand looking back into his eyes, and seeing the look of betrayal and confusion begin to blossom as if he didn't know who she was. For a moment, she didn't know who she was, either.

I have to leave soon. The thought struck her mind like lightning to a tree. She knew that even though she had promised Bryan two whole weeks of catching up, she would have to cut it short—she would have to leave in the next couple of days, maybe even tomorrow because she would leave right now but it was already late into the afternoon, and night wasn't exactly the ideal time to travel out into the Capital Wasteland on her own. She would collect her things tonight, and then set out tomorrow morning before dawn.

Are you going to leave him without another goodbye, like last time? Janny thought bitterly, and inwardly, she winced at herself. How long are you going to be gone this time, if you ever come back at all? Will it be twenty years this time, instead of ten? Will you come back when he finds a nice girl, and has kids of his own, or when he's as old as your own father? Will you?

It was so easy for her to leave last time because she had fooled herself into thinking that because he was only eight years old everything would be wonderful, and you could learn to forget about the bad things. When she was eight, Butch constantly picked on her and pulled God-awful pranks, but she didn't remember every single one of them because it was in the past and they were kids, and Butch was an idiot. She had herself thinking that he would soon forget about her, and the world would keep on turning. But now that she had come back to actually give Bryan a proper goodbye, the words of farewell caught in her throat when she felt that the universe had blindsided her yet again and presented to her not a small child that she thought would have a short-term memory span, but instead a handsome and kind young man that wanted nothing but to please her. How was she to say goodbye to him now, when she knew that it could be the final thing she ever said to him?

She smiled a little. He has certainly grown… I don't think I've ever met someone as kind as him—or maybe I have, but it was a very long time ago. This thought made her smile even bigger. And he certainly has become quite the catch.

Janny made her way into the marketplace and craned her head around for Harkness. She finally found him sitting in front of Seagrave's stall with a crowd of settlers surrounding him, all frantically asking questions at once. She jogged over and stood at the back, standing up on her tiptoes to only see the tops of heads of random settlers, and none of Harkness. The poor thing was getting swarmed.

"Rogue says this isn't Talon Company, or Raiders, or any other mercenaries or soldiers. So who is it?" One settler asked.

"For the last time, no one activated Megaton's bomb! I have explained to all of you many times that the bomb was bound to go off eventually, and it just so happened to a few days ago. When Megaton built its walls, the settlers knew the danger they faced when they decided to build a community around an active bomb!" Harkness exclaimed.

"But Three Dog said—"

"What makes you think that what Three Dog said is true?" He snapped. "The guy spews bullshit about fighting the good fight, but do you think he's ever left his radio station? Do you think the guy has ever even set foot out of his recording studio? He was probably given false information, because some sick fuck out there knows he's going to rile up somebody and he thinks it's damn hilarious!"

Janny began waving her hand in the background, and only some people looked back to see her. That was when Harkness suddenly stood up, seeing her in the back of the crowd and sighed.

"If you excuse me, I apparently now have important business to attend to." He spoke sternly as he pushed his way through the crowd to her.

"How can this business be more important than keeping us safe?" C.J.'s mother cried.

"You are all safe here, in Rivet City!" He yelled. "There is no one coming here to kill us all! What happened in Megaton was an accident, end of story. Nothing like that is going to happen to us, got it? Now if you have any complaints that have absolutely nothing to do with what happened to Megaton, direct them to Commander Danvers until I return and am fully capable of helping you."

Harkness turned on his heel and continued pushing through the crowd to Janny. When he got to her, he hurriedly grabbed her arm and dragged her after him towards the stairwell where he slammed the door behind them and leaned into it, breathing heavily.

"Tough crowd?" She asked with a small smile, and he smiled back at her.

"Wanna take a crack at it?"

"No thanks," She flicked her wrist at him, and walked to the stairs. "Bryan's awake."

"I figured as much if you came to get me." He followed her, taking the stairs two by two to the next floor. "Did you tell him anything?"

"No, I wanted to wait until I got you."

"What are you going to tell him?" He asked curiously.

"There is nothing else that I can tell him."

"Liar—there's a lot more there for you to tell him!"

"Harkness," Janny sighed, and she stopped to turn around and look back at him. "He wasn't supposed to know about any of that—he wasn't supposed to know about who I was, or why I am here, he wasn't supposed to know about the Enclave— none of that! But I couldn't stand keeping secrets from him anymore so I cracked and spewed my heart out."

"You make it sound like some cheesy romance…" Harkness snorted, but she wasn't impressed.

"We still haven't gotten to the main attraction in all of this, yet." She snapped, turning back to continue up the stairs.

"You mean Seagrave's murder?" He asked gravely.

"But of course."

"You're back!" Bryan exclaimed, with mild surprise, as the door came open and the two walked in. He got up from Janny's bed.

"I think the last time I saw someone this excited was when my wife walked out on me," Harkness shot Janny a knowing grin, and she smacked his arm playfully. Bryan watched in confusion.

"That doesn't sound like a good thing…" He muttered as he sat back down.

"It's kind of… An inside joke between Harkness and I," Janny shrugged her shoulders and closed the door behind her. Harkness took place at her desk chair, where Bryan had been sitting previously.

"Are we going to finish talking about—about you?" He asked as he awkwardly placed his hands in his lap.

She and Harkness shot each other another glance of knowing looks.

"Janny, I said I wanna know everything!" He cried. "Just 'cause I… Passed out… Doesn't mean that you hafta stop!"

"It should mean that I have to stop, Bryan." She shot back.

"No, it doesn't! It just caught me by surprise, is all!" He stood up. "Please, tell me everything!"

Janny's golden brows furrowed together. "Why are you so insistent on knowing?"

"Because I wanna know who you are!" He cried as he threw his hands up into the air. "I wanna know everything because then I'll know that you actually trust me now!"

Her eyes widened. "Bryan… It's not that I don't trust you—"

"It's the fact that you don't trust everyone else," He replied bitterly. "It's not like I haven't heard that one before…" He looked away, mildly rolling his eyes.

"Don't you dare use that tone with me!" She barked, and he snapped his eyes back in awe.

"I— I'm sorry…" He said quickly. "I didn't mean to upset you… I'm just tired of you treating me like I'm still a kid. I'm not a kid anymore, Janny."

Her eyes softened slowly as Bryan continued.

"I'm enrolling in the security program, and I know I'll get in this time! Whenever I get into trouble, or I do something wrong and I know it's my fault, I do take responsibility for it. I don't run away like a kid would! I'm a man now, Janny," He blushed bright red at saying this. "And it feels like you're the only person who still treats me like I'm still eight years old."

"…I'm sorry you feel that way. I'll tell you everything."

His eyes brightened and he smiled. "You will?"

Janny nodded, and motioned for him to sit on the bed "Of course. Take a seat, and I'll finish my story."

Bryan quickly turned around, sat down, and waited for her to continue.

"Alright, where was I?... Oh, that's right. After getting my father's Pip-Boy, I had the chance to speak with the leader of the Enclave—president John Henry Eden. Or, to be more precise, a super computer."

"Wait—a super computer was leading an army force bigger than what the Wasteland had ever seen since the Great War?" Harkness asked dubiously.

"That's correct," Janny nodded. "He asked me to help him purge the Wasteland of any and all mutations and imperfections in the human race… I refused to help him. I wasn't going to help the man who killed my father. After some small talk, I convinced him to destroy the Enclave base by self-destructing and I escaped. That was when I traveled all the way back to the Citadel to tell them about the death of Cross, and what had happened to me thanks to the Enclave. That's when they gave me a prosthetic arm to work with until they could get me a better one, but I found a pretty good one myself." She waved her right arm around. "I had to go out of state for it, but it was worth it."

"What happened next?" Bryan asked.

"We went to war against the Enclave for Purity. We beat them back and entered the Jefferson Memorial where Project Purity was built, fighting our way against Enclave soldiers to the main control room where I was told that if I didn't activate the purifier, it would self-destruct because it had taken too much damage during the fight. The problem was, whoever entered to activate it wasn't making it out alive. A woman who I fought with against the Enclave—her name was Sarah Lyons—asked me for the code and said that she would do it herself. I shoved her out of the way and went into the control room and locked the door behind me."

"That's suicide, Jan!" Harkness exclaimed.

"Why would you do that?" Bryan asked sadly.

"…Because I was tired of living," She answered impassively, and she leaned into the wall for support before she slid down to land on top of her closed trunk. "Because I was tired of being too afraid to sleep, and when I did manage to sleep all I saw was my father dying in front of me over and over again. When I slept, I dreamt of all the people I killed, and enslaved, and robbed. When I slept, I dreamt of that Enclave scientist sawing my arm off from my body… When I slept, I sometimes heard my mother's voice saying she loved me, and I don't know how I know it's hers, because I never knew my mom and I only heard her voice once on a holotape and I never listened to it ever again. I was tired of taking every day in stride, and just trying to survive but not trying to live because the life I led, I wasn't allowed to live and take everything slowly."

Janny closed her eyes, and laid her head back against the wall.

"And because I didn't want anyone else but me ending the dream that my parents began. I didn't want anyone else but me becoming the beginning of the reality my parents only dreamt of. I didn't think anyone deserved it any more but me. So I stepped into the control room because I knew I was the end of a dream and the beginning of a reality, and I was okay with dying if I could leave one small thing behind for everyone to enjoy… I could die knowing that, maybe, that was my chance for redemption… Or so I thought."

"What do you mean, Jan?" Harkness asked.

She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.

"Because I'm still here— continuing to survive just to keep on regreting all the things that I had done."