Author's note: The songs for this chapter are Owl City feat Carly Rae Jepsen - Good Time, Champion - No Heaven, and Dev and Enrique Iglesias - Naked.

A tiny bit of lemon in this chapter, just a slice really.

A Trip to the Library

Harkness

I was still seething when it came time to set out for the Arlington Library, and I knew I'd have to get my temper under control if I wanted to concentrate on leading my team. Arlington Library wasn't too far from Rivet City, but there were several super mutant camps and roving bands of raiders in between us and our destination. Madison Li was too valuable to risk to just anyone, so I would be leading the mission personally while Lana Danvers stayed behind to keep the peace on my boat. I fully expected to come back and find utter chaos reigning in my absence, something I anticipated every time I left Rivet City, but at least the current source of my troubles was here with me and not back raising hell on my ship. Elle paced beside me like she belonged there, finely tuned sniper rifle at the ready and god knows what other armaments strewn about her person. I wasn't worried about her ability to keep herself and others safe; I was worried that she would have been the principle cause of any mischief done in the city, without even meaning to be, if I'd left her there.

Madison had decided she just had to drag all of her underlings with her to the library, so I had to pull extra security to protect not just her but Janice Kaplinsky and Anna Holt as well, since none of these eggheads knew how to shoot worth a damn. With me, besides Elle, were four of my most trusted guards from the city and two mercs I had hired to be trailblazers. One of them wore an obviously well cared for set of recon armor and looked like he knew his stuff. The other one, I was a little…dubious about. He wore a bright red shirt that stuck out against the wasteland like a sore thumb and he seemed more than a little wet behind the ears, but I was willing to give him a chance.

I had directed my men into a diamond formation around myself, Elle, and the scientists, with the two mercs taking extreme point. Elle was my backup, in case the shit really hit the fan and someone needed killing from afar, but I was hoping for a nice, easy trip to the library and back. Yeah right, whispered the little voice in my head. That's like hoping that the super mutants will invite you to dinner and not eat you as the main course.

"That's a real nice rifle," I commented to Elle. The rifle in question looked like any other sniper rifle I had seen, but had the word 'Victory' anodized onto the receiver in big, pre-war U.S. flag patterned letters.

"Isn't she though?" Elle caressed the stock in a move that made my 'stock' sit up and take notice. "I've had her for a while, and she's never let me down. She has a bigger clip than most sniper rifles too."

"Where'd you get her?" I asked.

"An abandoned shack above a random gas station, out in the boonies. It was the weirdest thing; whoever was living there was keeping two radroaches as pets in a cage, and he had a teddy bear holding a whiskey bottle on his bed. I found a holotape that suggests his name was Ralphie Keller, but whoever he was, he was long gone. I opened a locker in the shack, and this beauty fell out into my arms, along with a note that said 'Take care of Victory.' So I took her with me and fixed her up, and she shoots like a dream."

I shook my head. "Radroaches for pets? Guy must have been more than a little nuts." I looked over at her to see her gazing at the rifle with a look of adoration on her face that most women reserved for small, fluffy animals. "I've noticed that you get all misty-eyed over your guns, or anyone else's, for that matter. Why is that?"

She laughed depreciatingly. "I guess I've always had a thing for guns. Dad gave me a BB gun for my tenth birthday, and that was the beginning of the end. He and his friend Jonas stole the spring from Butch's switchblade to fix the gun up for me, and Officer Gomez taught me how to be deadly accurate with it. Once I got out of the vault, there were just so many more new guns to play with. No one had guns in the vault but the security guards, and those were just shitty little 10mm pistols."

"Shitty little 10mm pistols?" I mocked her laughingly. "My, we have snobby taste in guns."

"Well," she shrugged, "I just like the bigger calibers, that's all."

We hadn't gotten very far before our trailblazing mercs stopped, giving the hand signal for possible danger. I acknowledged the signal and halted the party, my guards alert for any sign of a threat, and that was when I heard the report of a hunting rifle, just as the guy in the red shirt's head blew up.

"Get to cover, people!" I yelled over the sound of screaming scientists. I clapped my hand over Janice Kaplinsky's mouth to shut her up and motioned everyone to crouch down behind the concrete barriers in the road. "Hoppi, Forehand, stay here with the civvies. Stouffer, Edwards, you're on point. Elle, you're with me.

We had stumbled upon a new super mutant camp, less than a mile from Rivet City, and I knew this would be a problem later. Right now, though, I just wanted to concentrate on getting myself and all my people safely to our destination and back. Elle and I ducked behind a concrete barrier as Stouffer and Edwards moved up the narrow road that was the only way into the camp. I saw that I had trained my men well by the way they moved; one would advance to the next barricade while the other one provided covering fire, then they would switch. Elle popped off the occasional shot with Victory when the opportunity presented itself, and I laid down additional fire with my assault rifle. The two guards were three quarters of the way up the road when a super mutant got off a lucky shot and hit Edwards in the arm just as he was dropping down behind the barrier to do a magazine change.

"I'm hit!" Edwards cried. He tried to hold his gun steady and continue the fight, but it was obvious that the wound, while not life-threatening, was severely impairing his shooting ability.

"Edwards, retreat to the bottom of the hill on my mark!" I yelled. "Stouffer, cover him! Elle, we're going up. You go first while I cover you. Get to that rock and look for a target when I draw their fire. Get ready!"

We leapfrogged to Edwards' position then laid down covering fire while Stouffer patched up his battle buddy. Edwards looked at his rig, shook his head, and unclipped two of his mag pouches. "No way am I carrying all this back down the hill." He handed them to Stouffer, who grinned and clipped them to his own gear. "Give them hell for me, buddy," Edwards said, and slithered down the road as fast as he was able to with bullets whizzing over his head continuously; turning back occasionally to lighten his load with a few spent bullets. Elle and I advanced a little further, making it almost all the way up the road, when we were pinned down behind two adjoining pieces of torn up asphalt. Resting a moment with our backs against the warm stone, I turned to look at Elle, who looked like she was having the time of her life.

It was about this time that we heard a large party of super mutants getting ready to flank us. I decided to let them get stupid, and give them a minute to hunker down so they'd get brave. "Elle," I said in a low voice, "let's stay here a minute so we can really corn-hole these morons when they think they've got the drop on us." She nodded and grinned at my strategy.

"So," I said conversationally, raising my voice to be heard over the gunfire, "Father Clifford says you made a large donation to the church in Rivet City." I paused a moment to peer around our cover and estimate how many super mutants we were up against. Having counted four, including a really nasty looking one with a mini gun, I quickly pulled my head back and continued, "You didn't strike me as the religious type. So what gives?" I fired off a few shots with my rifle to discourage the mutants on the right from coming any farther down the hill.

"I went in there to talk to Diego, and I needed a legitimate reason to be in the church, something other than interrogating the acolyte. Besides," she said, whipping out her own assault rifle and gunning down a super mutant that was getting too close to our shelter, "Father Clifford needed the hundred caps more than I needed that mini nuke that Flak was 'hiding' behind his counter."

I laughed a little at that statement. I knew very well that Flak had not one, but several mini nukes behind his counter. They weren't on public display with the rest of his wares because Bannon and some of the other residents of Rivet City had put up a stink about him keeping such 'unstable' ordinance in the city, and had insisted that he get rid of them. Bannon was worried about radiation leakage or some such nonsense, but I, having done my homework on all things weapon related, knew it was just that. Nonsense. So Flak pretended he didn't have the nukes any more, and I pretended that I believed what he told Bannon and all the other busybodies. Flak must really like Elle if he let her see his reserve stock.

"Good," I said, topping off my mag and shooting another super mutant. "I was afraid you were going all pious on me." She rolled her eyes at me. "Mind you, I have nothing against the church; it's just not for me. The only things I believe in are a warm gun and a cold beer."

"A man after my own heart," Elle laughed. "Praise the lord and pass the ammunition!"

"What the hell is wrong with you two?" The voice of Madison Li floated up from the bottom of the hill. "We're in the middle of a firefight and you're having a tea party up there." Even Stouffer was shaking his head at our byplay. I could hear the mutants behind me getting their shit together for a charge, and it was now or never to take care of the problem.

"Fine, Madison," I called down to her. "You want to see me play the big, bad warrior, watch closely because I am not doing this again. On three," I told Elle in a whisper. She nodded, and at my count, we both popped out of cover and hosed the mutants with bullets, killing all but the one with the mini gun. Nothing we had done so far had fazed him much, and I wondered how we were going to deal with the threat he posed. I braced myself for the possibility of taking a bullet myself when I broke cover to shoot at the mutant, and it was then that I heard the unmistakable sound of the pin being pulled on a grenade. I looked at Stouffer and Elle, but neither one had a grenade in hand.

"What the…?" I muttered, and then the mutant exploded. Literally. I heard laughter that could only be described as 'deranged' at best, and then our first merc melted out of the rocks, recon armor shedding its camouflage as he moved.

"Bastards shot my favorite gun." He shook his head sadly. "That's why I had to use the old Shady Sands Shuffle on this ugly git. Luckily, I have plenty of grenades on hand." He grinned maniacally, and I suspected he had pulled that particular trick more than once in the past.

"Time to go, people!" I yelled down the hill. "Get your shit together! Edwards, are you fit to continue, or should I send you back?"

"I'm good, Chief," he yelled back. "It's just a through and through. I'll give it a seal and a stimpak, and in a few hours, it'll be just another pucker hole for the missus to gripe about."

We rounded the scientists up again and set off once more for the library, carefully skirting what was left of the merc in the red shirt. Janice Kaplinsky looked like she was going to be sick at the sight of the remains, and I wondered how she could be so squeamish and still be an effective scientist. Elle glanced down at the corpse and shook her head.

"He must be the unluckiest son of a bitch to ever walk the waste," she said.

"Why do you say that?" Anna Holt asked.

"That was one hell of a shot that super mutant made, to not only kill him at that distance, but with a head shot no less," Elle replied. "I mean, I've seen a lot of guys get their heads blown off, and it's different every time. Sometimes the bullet leaves a small entrance wound and a slightly larger exit wound; sometimes it takes off half the head. I've never seen a head just…explode…quite like that. Hey, you've got some gray matter on you," she said, reaching out to brush the brains off Anna's shoulder. "Wonder how it got all the way back to you when he was on point?" Anna recoiled and gave Elle a look that was a mixture of incredulity, repugnance, and shock.

"What is the matter with you?" she breathed. "You…you're just…creepy. Get the hell away from me!"

"What?" Elle was genuinely puzzled. "You're the scientist. All this stuff about the mechanics of a head shot shouldn't be news to you." She gave up when Anna turned away from her, shooting the woman a look that was equal parts hurt feelings and spiteful glee at making the unflappable scientist squirm. I got the feeling that Madison wasn't the only one who'd been rude to Elle when she showed up in the lab for the first time.

We managed to make it to the library without further incident, avoiding the raiders who usually camped out near the building. When we got inside, we were confronted by several Brotherhood knights, who directed us to a woman in a red leather robe, who I assumed was Scribe Yearling. She looked a little irritated to have company, but agreed to speak to Madison and her team. Elle and I made to follow them to the scribe's workstation until Madison flapped her hand at us in an unmistakable shooing motion.

"Why don't you two go…kill something, instead of hanging over my shoulder," she said in a condescending tone. "Scribe Yearling says this building is infested with raiders. You can start with them."

"Alright," I said, taking the hint that we were not wanted in this discussion and moving away. "I bust my ass escorting her here," I muttered under my breath, "and now she wants me to go kill raiders. I'll kill every raider in the damned building," I growled, just as Elle muttered, "I'll bet they have better manners than you do, you arrogant bitch." We glanced at each other and laughed. "We might as well go kill the damned raiders," I shrugged. "I've still got some adrenaline to work off, and there's no telling how long she'll be in conference with the scribe."

"Besides," Elle laughed, "who wants to just kick up their feet? We can rest when we're dead. Let's go kick some raider ass!"

"One moment," Scribe Yearling called after us. "If you find any pre-war books in the ruins, I will pay a fair price for them." She held up a small book with a plain green cover. "They look similar to this one."

"Will do," Elle said, throwing the scribe a mock salute, then rubbing her hands together. "More caps are always welcome. And this time, I will buy that mini nuke of Flak's."

We spent several tedious hours clearing the scum out of the library. I almost felt bad about killing the raiders; they hardly put up a worthy fight, but it had to be done. After we'd scoured the children's section and determined that it was free of squatters, Elle picked a relatively undamaged story book from the pile she had assembled for the scribe, and proceeded to read it to me in a saccharine sweet voice, performing the various characters with flawless timing that had me rolling on the floor with laughter. She managed to keep a straight face until the end of the story, then surrendered to hilarity over the main character's descriptions of his improbable adventures. We were still chuckling over the story when we pushed open the doors to the lobby, and were greeted by an irate Madison Li.

"Where have you two been?" she demanded. "We've been done for almost an hour."

"Sorry," I said, completely unrepentantly.

"We were killing raiders and finding books," Elle chimed in ingenuously, "just like you said."

"Whatever," Madison grumped. "Let's go."

"Hold on a sec, boss," piped up our one remaining merc. "Something's up with my armor. I'll need half an hour to fix it before I can take point again."

"Listen, buddy," I muttered, leaning in close so the others wouldn't overhear us, "I can't wait that long to get these know-it-alls off my hands. You've got fifteen minutes. Elle and I will go out and establish a perimeter; you stay here and try to keep the scientists out of trouble while you fix your armor. You have my permission to slap Doctor Li if she gets out of line. Boys," I raised my voice to be heard by the whole party, "keep the eggheads safe while I scout out the area. We'll leave once...what is your name?" I asked the merc.

"Parsifal," he replied, and I did a double take. I started to say something, then shook my head and continued.

"We'll leave once…Parsifal is done fixing his armor. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," my guards chorused.

"Elle, you're with me," I said.

"Sure thing, Harkness," she replied. "Let me just ditch this extra weight."

Elle turned her stack of books over to Scribe Yearling and received a handsome payment for her troubles. She was still exulting over her windfall of caps when we walked out the front door and I motioned for her to check left while I checked right.

"How does your side look?" I asked.

"…Looks…clear," she said, and that was when the missile hit a pile of rubble next to us, blowing it up and knocking us to the ground. I felt razor sharp pieces of metal embed themselves in my back as I fell, and I landed with an agonized groan. From behind me, I heard a whimper of pain from Elle.

"Ouch!" she wailed, then gasped as she sat up, clutching her side. "Oh shit! Piece of shrapnel nearly took out one of my best assets," she moaned, cupping her breasts to check for further damage. "Whew, still there."

I levered myself to my feet, grunting with pain, then reached a hand down to help her up. When I pulled her to her feet, I noticed a metallic gleam just above the top of her armor. A three inch piece of shrapnel was stuck in her collarbone.

"Jesus, Elle!" I breathed, and she looked down to see what I was gaping at.

"A few inches to the left and I'd have been a goner." She swallowed hard, braced herself, and pulled the shard out of her flesh with a hiss of pain.

"I thought you said it was clear?" I rebuked her.

"I said it 'looks' clear," she retorted.

"Well, how does it look now?" I gritted.

She didn't even bother to turn around. "Looks clear."

Over her shoulder, I saw a figure in black combat armor taking a bead on us with a sniper rifle. "Duck!" I yelled, pushing her out of the line of fire.

"That's her!" the figure shrieked. "Kill the man too!" and then we were rushed by four or five men with the distinctive crest of Talon Company mercs emblazoned on their armor.

"How did you manage to piss off Talon Company?" I shouted to Elle as I dove for cover.

"Oh, the usual!" she shouted back, pulling out her hand cannon and ducking around the corner of the building. "They don't like goody-two-shoes, and I am one. Plus, I declined Alistair Tenpenny's offer to blow up Megaton. So he put out a bounty on my head, and these assholes have been trying to collect." She rounded the corner to put a bullet between the eyes of one of the mercs. "I thought the stupid fucks would have gotten bored of this game after I offed Tenpenny and cleaned out his tower, but I guess these guys haven't heard the news."

I took out my submachine gun and sprayed another one of the men with a rain of bullets. He went down in a puddle of blood and didn't get back up. I grazed the next one in the temple, and that dazed him long enough for Elle to double-tap him in the chest. "We'll put that one on your kill count," I joked. We each accounted for one of the remaining two, then the front door to the library opened and Parsifal the merc stepped out.

"Hey boss, I finished fixing my…Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what happened here?!" he gasped, taking the scene of carnage and the blood running freely from our wounds.

"Elle and I had a fundamental difference of opinion with Talon Company," I joked weakly. "They wanted to kill us, and we objected. Strenuously."

Just then, Madison Li breezed out the door like she hadn't a care in the world, followed by her team and my four guards "Harkness, your merc…friend says he's done fiddling with his armor, so I don't see any reason to stay here. Hurry up! I want to be back to my lab before the sun sets and we have to camp somewhere for the night."

Elle's mouth was hanging open, and I know mine was as well, at the fact that Madison didn't even seem to notice the battlefield she'd stepped into. I closed my mouth and shook my head, motioning security to take up their positions around us again. Hoppi silently handed me and Elle rolls of bandages pulled from his pack, and we used it to stop the worst of the bleeding as we set off for home.

Mercifully, we made it back to Rivet City without getting into any more trouble, a fact that I privately rejoiced at, despite my urge to take out my frustrations on a whole pack of raiders. I yearned to shoot Madison somewhere painful for being so insensitive, but I manfully squashed the impulse as counterproductive. The scientists split off for the lab the minute we hit the deck plating outside the main door, without even a word of thanks. I might have to have a word with Madison later on the subject of manners, and how the size of your brain did not entitle you to treat others like lower forms of life. My four guards split off as well, presumably to a well-earned rest after the day we'd had. I paid Parsifal the merc the sum he'd been promised, and he left to do…whatever deranged mercs with disposable income do when they've just gotten paid. Then it was just me…and Elle, standing alone together in the growing dusk.

"Come up to my office," I suggested. "I'll do you if you'll do me."

She blushed so hard that I could feel the heat coming off her face from where I stood. "I don't think either one of us is in any condition to…," she started.

"Your wounds," I said patiently. "I'll dress your wounds if you'll look at mine. I've got some shrapnel in my back that's been driving me nuts this whole time, but I can't reach it by myself."

"Well why didn't you say something hours ago, you silly man?" she said tartly. "Let's go get cleaned up."

She trailed me up to my office, an awkward silence growing between us despite the earlier camaraderie we had shared. I kept a well-stocked first aid kit in my desk; some inner instinct making me reluctant to go to the doctor for anything less than a life-threatening emergency, and this definitely didn't qualify as such. We dragged our aching bodies up several flights of stairs, unfortunately necessary to reach the bridge, and I sighed with relief to see my own modest door. I ushered Elle into my office and shut the door firmly behind us, praying for enough time to relax and lick my wounds before the next crisis arose that absolutely demanded my attention.

"I hate to ask," I said apologetically, clearing off a space on the top of my desk and sitting down on it, "but can you help me get my armor off? I think I might rip out some of the shrapnel in my back if I try to get it off on my own."

"Sure," Elle said. "I was about to suggest that we look at your wounds first. I have a feeling you got the worst of it." She pried my armor off, going slowly and carefully to avoid hurting me. Even so, I hissed in pain several times when she encountered pieces that were stuck on with dried blood or were melted around the metal in my back. She handed me the top piece of my armor when she had removed it, and set about cutting off my shirt with her knife.

"Shit!" I grumbled, examining the gaping holes that the shards of metal had put in my armor. "Punched right through it. There's no repairing this set; good thing I have a spare." She got my shirt off and offered it to me wordlessly. "Trash," I said. "There's no saving that either."

"Who are Mike and the Mechanics?" she asked, referring to the faded logo on what had been my shirt.

"Hell if I know," I shrugged. "I bought it off a trader years ago. He said he found it in a pre-war store somewhere. It's comfortable…was comfortable," I amended, "and it fit, so I wore it."

"Mike and the Mechanics, whoever you were, may you rest in peace," Elle intoned as she ceremoniously dropped the shirt in the trash. She turned back to me and grimaced as she surveyed my back. "Do you have any painkillers?" she said doubtfully. "There's a few big pieces stuck in pretty deep, plus plenty of little bits. It's gonna hurt like a bitch when I go to pull this stuff out."

I opened my first aid kit and pulled out a bottle of the harsh homebrewed vodka that we distilled in the bowels of the ship. "We'll save the good stuff for the people who really need it," I said, uncorking the bottle with my teeth. "A few pulls off of this and I won't feel a thing. Plus, it's a great antiseptic, kills almost any germ it comes into contact with." I took a healthy swig and gasped as the liquid heat burned its way down my throat and into my empty stomach. "Just splash some of this on my back before you start and some more when you're done; it's almost pure alcohol." I took another couple of drinks and looked at the bottle musingly. "Makes an excellent rust remover too. Have to be careful with that, most of the ship is goddamn rust." I put the bottle down with a clunk, already feeling the potent liquor loosening my muscles…and my tongue. "Do it!"

I'll give her credit, Elle was gentle, but there's only so gentle you can be when pulling pieces of metal out of someone's flesh. She tried to be quick about removing the shrapnel, but I still gasped and groaned in agony, my body unconsciously arching away from the flares of pain. When the pain subsided, I took another drink to steady my nerves, not even concerned with trying to appear 'manly' in front of her. "Fuck!" I wheezed, hunched over against the discomfort. "Please tell me that was the last of the big pieces."

"That was the last of the big pieces," she replied. "Let me irrigate the wounds and get the blood and some of the little pieces out, and then I'll pick the rest out with tweezers," she said, splashing my back with a bottle of purified water. "I thought you said you wouldn't feel a thing after drinking that rotgut? That stuff's so strong that I'm getting drunk off the fumes."

"I lied," I said succinctly. "It takes a lot more alcohol to get me to the numb stage."

"I guess I'm glad you never took me up on my challenge to drink me under the table," she said ruefully as she picked tiny pieces of metal out of my flesh with a pair of tweezers.

"A lightweight," I grinned through the pain, and managed a wicked laugh. "We're gonna have some fun with you. How did you get to the ripe old age of nineteen without being able to hold your liquor?"

"The overseer wasn't a big fan of alcohol for anything other than medicinal purposes, and even that was a stretch. He would rather that the resources be put to other purposes, and he enforced a minimum drinking age of twenty one for all vault residents. So, not much alcohol available in the vault, and none for any of us kids." She laughed bitterly. "Butch managed to steal a couple of bottles of scotch from the security chief's private reserve when we were sixteen and dared the rest of us to drink it, to prove we weren't chicken. There were eight of us, including me, and nobody wanted Butch to think we couldn't handle it, so we all took a drink. Even Amata, who went last because she was worried that her dad would find out." She grimaced. "The stuff tasted horrible, but Butch kept drinking it, and none of us were willing to admit that we didn't like it, so we kept drinking too."

"How'd that turn out?" I asked, pretty sure what the answer would be.

"Two bottles of the good stuff, shared out among eight kids who had no tolerance for liquor? How do you think it turned out?" Elle smirked. "All of us wound up with massive hangovers, and of course, the adults knew very well what we'd been doing. Hard to miss when your child comes in past curfew reeking of scotch and spends the next three hours hunched over the toilet. So we all got punished, even Butch, whose mom normally couldn't give a shit what he was up to."

"I can only imagine," I laughed.

"Every single one of us got woken up at six o'clock the next morning. Freddy's dad did his impression of an old time drill sergeant, screaming at the top of his lungs. Wally and Susie got buckets of ice cold water dumped on them. I, having a much more…inventive and sadistic father, got bombarded with subliminal messages that made me have to use the bathroom…urgently. I had to get up or I would have been changing my sheets along with all the other chores I got punished with. The overseer decided that the vault needed a thorough cleaning, top to bottom, and that children who had the temerity to get drunk on stolen liquor were just the workforce needed to do the cleaning. Even Amata got punished, which surprised the hell out of all the other kids. I knew better; the overseer wouldn't hesitate to penalize his own daughter if he thought she deserved it."

"That's inventive," I said. "How long did it take you to clean the vault?"

"All summer," she replied ruefully. "Hand me that bottle please."

"What?" I asked stupidly, having consumed rather more of said bottle than was really wise. "Oh, here," I passed her the bottle. "You're done already?"

"Distracted you with my tales of woe, did I?" she asked. "Yes, I'm done. I pulled out as many of the pieces as I could find, but you may have more of them work to the surface in the next few months. Let me just disinfect these and bandage them up so you don't get an infection."

"Thanks," I murmured. "You're quite the professional when it comes to removing chunks of metal from dumb-shit security chiefs. Where'd you learn how to do that?"

"Well, my dad is a doctor," she grinned. "I picked up a few things from helping him in the clinic. Straighten up and hold your arms out," she said, wrapping a roll of gauze around my torso to keep my wounds covered. "All done."

"You're a lifesaver, Elle," I sighed. "That feels a hundred times better than it did twenty minutes ago. Now, take off your armor so I can have a look at your injuries."

"Yes, Doctor Harkness," she giggled, clearly still a little nervous around me. She peeled off her armor with a groan and tossed it on the ground. "I don't even want to know what kind of damage they did to my armor," she grumped. "I just replaced half of it, and I have a feeling that I'm going to have to replace the other half now, if not just junk the whole set and get another." She stood before me in just her pants and a thin, enticingly fitted camisole, lifting the shirt to show me where the shrapnel had cut deeply into her right side, directly under her breast.

"Elle," I said sternly, "you're going to have to take the shirt all the way off if you want me to dress your wounds. There's not much left of it, anyway," I rebutted when she made to protest.

"All right," she blushed, turning away from me and stripping off her tattered shirt with a reluctance that I found simultaneously cute and annoying.

"What's the holdup?" I griped as she turned back to me, and that's when I discovered that she wasn't wearing anything underneath the shirt. My eyes widened at the sight of her bared breasts, seen twice in less than twenty four hours, and she flushed almost crimson, covering herself with her hands.

"I tried to tell you I wasn't wearing a bra!" she hissed, shivering beneath my regard, "but you wouldn't listen. I had to leave it off to make the armor fit properly."

"Calm down," I commanded, speaking as much to my unruly man parts as to her. "It's not like I haven't seen them before, and you'll have to come over here eventually if you want me to look at them…I mean the damage." My even tone belied the chaos that just the sight of her naked flesh was causing in my nerves, and I mentally ordered myself to treat her like just one of the guys. I had a feeling that I was going to fail miserably at that endeavor, but I had to remain professional, at least for the moment.

Elle came over and sat gingerly on the edge of my desk, her feet swinging several inches above the floor in a rather endearing way. She lowered her arms stiffly to her sides and stared at my collarbone, refusing to look me in the eye.

"Here," I handed her the bottle of raw vodka. "Have a few sips of this for the pain." She swigged manfully on the bottle, coughed as the heat from the liquor hit her untried palate, then took several more, much smaller gulps of the potent stuff.

"Whoa," I said, taking the bottle from her hand when her eyes began to glaze over. "You gotta be careful with this stuff. It's much stronger than you're used to."

"No kidding," she said thickly. "I would have mixed it with Nuka Cola to make it taste better." She giggled as the alcohol hit her system. "This is where you tell me a story to distract me while you pull sharp bits of metal out of my tender flesh," she said, still not looking directly at me.

"Well," I said, "since we seem to be sharing stories about drinking, I've got a doozy for you."

"Do tell?" she smirked.

"Sixteen was a bad year for both of us, I guess, because that was when I decided to try hard liquor for the first time too. I stole a big bottle of the moonshine my dad was always brewing down in the basement, and invited one of the neighbor girls to share in the bounty. She was always giving me the look, and I had every intention of getting laid in addition to getting as drunk as humanly possible, so we set out to my hidey hole in a cave outside town. I'd put down some bedding, a few pillows, made a nice little love nest to increase my chances, and it looked like it was working."

"So…?" she waggled her eyebrows suggestively at me.

"So we got drunk, clothes came off, and everything was going great…until we fell asleep," I sighed.

"And you didn't get laid after all?" Elle asked.

"That isn't even the worst part," I groaned. "When we woke up from our alcoholic stupor, she was still in a frisky mood, and things were getting hot and heavy. Then she giggled and said that I sounded like a yao guai in heat, and that's when I realized that we weren't alone in the cave."

"Let me guess…?" she laughed.

"I had forgotten that it was mating season for the yao guai, and we were now sharing our cave with a pair that were in the middle of, shall we say, amorous activities, so wrapped up in what they were doing that they hadn't even noticed us."

"What did you do?!" Elle gasped.

"The yao guai were rutting on top of our clothes, and I wasn't about to interrupt them to get our things back, so we waited until the two finished and fell asleep. Then we very quietly snuck out the tiny back tunnel of the cave and ran back to town as fast as our legs would carry us. Buck naked. I got one hell of a beating when I got home, both for stealing the moonshine, and for defiling the neighbor girl, despite my protestations that I hadn't actually gotten the chance to defile her."

"And the neighbor girl?" she asked.

"Never spoke to me again," I said, "and shortly thereafter, her family found a better community and moved away. It was a while before I wanted to drink again, and I always remembered to check any cave I entered for yao guai droppings before I made myself comfortable in it."

"Nope," Elle shook her head solemnly, "sixteen wasn't a good year for either one of us. Hey, what are you doing?"

I had almost finished cleaning her wounds, saving the one on her side for last, and I was holding her breast out of the way with one hand while swabbing the laceration with the other. I had been working on autopilot while I was telling my story, and hadn't even realized that I had been virtually fondling her until she protested.

"Sorry," I muttered, snatching my hand away like I'd been burned. "Looks like I did too good of a job of distracting both of us. Let me just put some gauze on this and you're good to go." I covered the wound, carefully not touching anything more than the area being bandaged, then turned to put the roll of gauze back in my first aid kit. When I turned back, Elle gave me a sultry look through half-lidded eyes and grabbed my empty hands, guiding them toward her breasts.

"I only asked you what you were doing," she purred. "I didn't tell you to stop. Besides, everyone knows that self-exams aren't enough to catch that extra bit of metal wedged in there." She ran her fingers down my chest, stopping at the waistband of my pants and grinning at the way I quivered beneath her touch.

"Elle…I," I swallowed hard and tried to ignore the blaze of heat that sprang up in me at her slightest touch. "Are you sure?"

"Stop stalling and kiss me, Harkness," she whispered, and I was lost. I covered her mouth with my own, desperate to see what she tasted like outside of my heated dreams. My hands were still plastered to her breasts, thumbs stroking over her pert nipples, just as I had in my dream, and she moaned and arched into my touch, sending a wave of heat pouring through my body. Her hands stole down to my fly, undoing it with clever fingers, and she almost had my pants off before I caught her wrist. She made an annoyed sound at being stymied, and I tilted her head up so she would look at me.

"Hey," I murmured, fighting for breath, "slow down, sweetheart. We've got all night. No need to rush things." I bent down to taste the pink confections that had so lately haunted my dreams, and Elle almost squirmed out of my grasp when my tongue touched her. I explored her silky skin with my mouth and hands, taking my sweet time with each breast and drawing involuntary noises of pleasure from her. I had intended to draw out the anticipation and savor every brush of flesh against flesh, but Elle grew impatient and fisted her hands in my hair, drawing me back up to her mouth with a growl of frustration. I caressed her mouth with my own, building the flames higher, then gasped soundlessly as she reached inside my pants to rub my aching erection, her eager hands urging me to throw caution to the wind. I groaned and bent her back over my desk, intent on taking her right then and there and damn the consequences.

"Hey, boss, how'd the mission go? Stouffer says you saw some…action." Lana Danvers, who, by god, was going to learn to knock from now on, poked her head through my office door. "Whoa, boss man, sorry. Didn't know you were getting some. I'll just…," she made helpless motions toward the door.

"No…no! That's really okay," Elle stuttered, blushing such a deep red that I thought her head might explode and yanking her hand out of my pants with astonishing speed. "Harkness and I were just...I was just leaving!" she stammered, jerking her camisole top back on and grabbing her gear from the floor. "Thanks for patching me up and…everything. Goodnight." She practically mowed Lana down in her haste to get out of my office.

"Wait…," I called entreatingly, but it was too late. She was gone, and my hard on was throbbing insistently, reminding me of what I was missing.

"Fuck!" I swore savagely as I zipped up my pants and belted half the bottle of vodka to calm my screaming nerves. I leveled a world class glare at Lana and shook my finger in her face. "This does not leave my office, you understand? I hear one word in the marketplace tomorrow about my sex life, any rumors about me and Elle that sound even close to the truth, and I'll bust you back down to mirelurk cleanup duty so fast your head will spin."

"Sorry, Harkness," Lana said, shamefacedly. "I guess I should learn to knock, huh?"

"Everybody on this goddamned boat needs to learn to knock," I growled. "I swear to god, I'm gonna booby trap this door, and the next person that comes in without knocking is going to get a nasty surprise. I glanced down at the bulge in my pants and groaned. "What the fuck am I supposed to do about this?" Lana stifled a laugh and I shot her a disgusted look as I turned away. "Oughta make you take care of it," I muttered under my breath, "except the thought of you anywhere near my dick frankly scares me."

"I… am going to get very drunk now and go to bed," I announced with great dignity. "You can bother me when my shift starts tomorrow morning, and not before."

"I really am sorry I interrupted you, boss man," Lana said. "You should go find Elle and try again, someplace a little more private than your office."

"Somehow I don't think she's anywhere to be found right now," I grumped. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get drunk and paint my office door."

"Huh?" she asked.

"You'll see in the morning," I said, and very firmly shooed her out of my office.

I spent the rest of the night swilling vodka, cursing my bad luck, and painting in big, bold letters on my office door 'KNOCK FIRST, GODDAMNIT!'