"Come on, kid. Breathe in for the short shots, breath out for the long ones. Easy shit."

I peered down the rusting ironsights of my Mosin-Nagant, lining up on the unaware raider's chest, wondering if taking a life from far away was less haunting than taking one up close.

It wasn't.

Gray and brown.

I opened my eyes, and right then I knew what it felt like to come straight out of a morgue. My blood seemed thick, refusing to travel all the way through my limbs, leaving me feeling numb and raw at the same time. I couldn't feel my right leg at all. That's weird, I thought.

Sickly brown light filtered through the shutters, painting white hot bars on the dirty carpet. I turned my head, neck twisting painfully, and stared at them a while. I squinted up at the smoke-stained ceiling, trying to work out the time and where I was and, for the most part, what the fuck was going on. But weariness made me close my eyes again, slip away into unconsciousness...

Until I noticed someone else in the room, anyway.

My eyes snapped open and I stopped breathing. With her back to me, perhaps she hadn't noticed me wake. Squatting over a pile of field stripped guns, she ran her fingers over each piece of metal, turning them and over again in her hands for any possible flaw. Next to her was a stack of pouches, belts and bandoleers. Hey, wait, wait-

Her! What the fuck? Why was-

She stiffened, and straightening, she turned to me. Those gray eyes. Those damn gray eyes.

"Hello... there," I whispered hoarsely, cracking a smile. Her eyes narrowed. In a few short steps, she had crossed the room, snatched up my combat knife from the bedside table (which pretty much gave me a heart attack) and went directly back to her gun maintenance, using my knife to pry some pieces apart or something. Okay. Okay. I could make sense of this. Sooner or later, I would...

I propped myself up onto my elbows, feeling my back protest with the effort, and slowly swung my legs over the side of the mattress. Or, swung my left leg, dragged my right leg. But in a sitting position, I was hit with a wave of nausea and soreness, hunched my shoulders to try and ignore it, gritted my teeth when I felt at the cut in my left shoulder. It was deeper than I remembered. Damn it.

I felt at the cut, expecting to find a bleeding gash, but instead felt my splintered fingernails scrabble at stitches. What the hell? How...

So tired. I pressed a hand against my right leg, punched my right knee a few times to test for reflexes- no good. That was weird, too. There was a strip of cloth wrapped tightly around where those two bullets had bitten into my leg. A small, but sensitive red dot lay right next to it. I suddenly noticed the empty (though not too clean) syringe on the bedside table. Was that... morphine? I also noticed that I was in my boxers and they were bloodier than I remembered.

This wasn't happening. There was just... no way.

So I didn't say anything for a long time. I just sat there, rubbing feeling into my leg, picking at my shoulder, watching her work. Remembering, I touched at my throat, where I found a thin, painful line crusted with blood. I remembered Dad saying something about only fearing fear itself, but to be straightforward I was fucking terrified. Or, half dead tired, half fucking terrified. I had almost reached the point where death didn't seem so bad. But Jericho... like hell I'd let him die in vain.

Oh, God. Jericho. That was enough to wear out my patience. "Okay, look-"

"Shut the fuck up." There was no emotion in her voice. Just a statement.

I paused for a full second, mouth open in mid-word. Seriously? "That's... uh, great. Really, it is. But if you're going to kill me-"

Next thing I knew I was staring down the barrel of a Nagant M1895. My balls jumped at that.

"Look," she said coldly. I would have, but my eyes were locked on the revolver in my face. "There are a fuckload of raiders coming this way. Either you help or this is your breakfast."

I blinked, and managed to rip my eyes from the barrel for just a moment. "Help with... what?"

"Killing them off, you ass."

"Sorry, what?" I slurred. "Yesterday two starved guys walked into your town and killed your entire band." Her knuckles whitened on the grip. "So now-" I coughed-"now, a starved guy and pissy girl are going to take on a raider army? Okay."

That was the morphine talking. Really, it was. My balls jumped another foot when that barrel was pressed against my forehead. "You're starting to look pretty hungry."

Shit, shit, shit. "Okay, okay," I said hastily. "Look, I'll... I'll help." I waited for her to pull the gun away. Once she did, "But look. We can't fight. I mean, I'm half dead, and you're one gun."

"So you want to run?"

"Well... let's make it a jog," I grinned sheepishly, rubbing my leg. She wasn't smiling.

She crossed the room and tossed me my duster, boots, fatigues. All of which were stripped of ammo. Great. I struggled with my pants for a good two minutes before she spat, "Can you even walk?"

"With two holes in my leg, yeah, no problem," I grunted as I got my right leg through.

"I didn't blow that morphine on you so you could bitch about it." But she laid my Mosin-Nagant against the side of the bed. Just what I was thinking: a crutch. But then she came over with something else. "Lay back."

A... stimpack? She held it like it could turn to dust in her hands any second. I had only used one once before after getting a kidney popped with a 9mm, and I wasn't looking forward to using one again. Sure, it was better than death, I guess, but put you in such a doped-out state you could hardly see straight. She held my leg down and stabbed the needle (didn't look clean) straight into one of the bullet holes, making me throw my head back and grit my teeth at the sudden shock of agony. Tears blurred my vision, but I could see clearly enough she only used a third of the whole stim. Even so, my leg felt like it had been plunged in needly ice water and started twitching. At least I wasn't doped out.

It took us maybe another five minutes of gearing up. I hobbled over to the pile of weaponry, strapping on my bandoleers and pouches. She nearly bit my head off when I reached for my C-96 Mauser.

"This one's mine, remember?" I reminded her, careful to keep my tone neutral. Eyes always narrowed, she nodded. Like I needed her permission. Bitch.

But she eventually got used to the idea that we'd be gunbuddies, so I got to handle the TOZ-194 I had 'borrowed' from the day before. Jericho's AKS-74U caught my eye, and I grabbed it before she could say anything. I couldn't find his AK-74 bayonet. But I got more 7.62x54mmR rounds for my Mosin-Nagant, thanks to the Dragunov guy, and a leather bandoleer of thirteen or so shotgun shells. When those scavengers in Megaton had gone on about how these guys were loaded, they probably hadn't considered they were putting it all to constant use. Three 5.45x39mm mags for the AKS-74U was great, don't get me wrong, but I had expected a bit more. At least I got a RGD-5 grenade out of it. While she got three. Bitch.

Speaking of which, she armed herself with the SVD Dragunov and the AKM, having three mags for the former and four for the latter. And the Nagant M1895. And three RGD-5s. Why do I always get the crap?

We had to leave behind the SKS. Jericho's Makarov was destroyed in the explosion. She had wanted to take along more guns, but I pointed out that four for me and three for her, plus ammo, was more than enough for an escape from raiders. She claimed with complete seriousness that it wasn't. Okay, by her view either they were packing PK machine guns or were bulletproof.

I walked out of the house and into the street (yes, walked. Stimpacks might not heal you completely, but they give you the illusion) and approached the mass of blood and bone and flesh that used to be her band. That used to be Jericho. She had taken all the guns from the scene, but hadn't touched the bodies. I didn't blame her.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember what Jericho looked like. Kind of like Dad. Maybe that's why I always trusted him.

"You ready?"

"Yeah," I said without turning around. She headed west, walking through the land mines like they weren't even there. I followed more carefully.

Hell, I didn't even know her name. Survival is survival.