"Charon, what kind of rocket is that?"

"A Delta IX." Cort smiled to herself and clapped her hands lightly. They were moving back out of the museum, her crankiness from needing to be lifted down by him earlier departing at his answer. "Are you sure you don't wish to explore the rest of the building? We've made it this far in."

"No, we got what I came for, and been shot up enough for one day." Cort reached behind her and patted the dish where she had tied it to her pack, insisting that carrying it was good for her. "I want to get back and find my Dad. We can always come back later, and we're scraping up some nice stuff on the way back out." Charon had found two prototype Stealth Boys, and Cort had found another while scavving in the main entrance room with some other things, along with stripping the dead Super Mutants bare of ammunition and guns. "We'll go back and spend the night at Carol's, if that's alright with you. I don't feel like trying to install this thing in the dark."

"Whatever you wish." Cort raised an eyebrow, crouching in front of the main doors to consult her Pip-Boy, Dogmeat pressing his nose against the crack between them and sniffing. Charon had been surprisingly conciliatory since they had started back. He wasn't effusive, but the snarking was almost completely absent. Well, for now, she mused. Whatever the cause, Cort wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She motioned to them and they all moved out into the twilight, descending back into the Metro without outside notice and back to Underworld.


Striding through the main atrium towards the concourse, Cort slowed to ogle the dinosaur and mammoth again as she usually did. I wonder if I could climb onto the mammoth's back and play pretend caveman. Probably too fragile. Probably get stuck again, idiot. Putting the silly idea aside for the moment, she turned towards the stairs and nearly ran smack into Greta, who was looking at her as if she was something to be scraped off of a shoe.

"So. Smoothskin."

"Hi, Greta." Cort carefully slung her helmet and pack off and slumped, tired and not willing to deal with the jealous claptrap that she was sure was going to follow the woman's wonderfully cheery greeting. She was even less ready to deal with it after Greta pumped a lungful of cigarette smoke into her face, sending her backing up and hacking. "What the hell was that for?"

"You know what the hell for. Stay away from Carol. She's mine." Bending forward she blew another cloud of smoke directly at Cort again, who retreated further down the stairs, bumping into Charon. Greta looked over Cort's head and narrowed her eyes when he silently reached up to keep her from falling backwards off the last stair.

"I'm pretty sure Carol belongs to herself, Greta, and I'm not going to hurt her feelings to spare petty ones of yours."

"Snotty little smoothskin bitch. It's bad enough trash like you is slaving one of us out, you have to go after-"

"Shut your damn mouth Greta, before I shut it for you." Both women turned to look at Charon, who was staring daggers into the other ghoul. "I'm not a slave, and furthermore, I didn't see any fucking concern over my personal condition out of you while I was rotting away in the 9th Circle. In point of fact, I don't recall you treating me as anything aside from a piece of furniture on your trips in to harass Ahzrukhal."

"But...you-" The ghoul woman was practically a goldfish, she was flapping her mouth so much. Cort balanced on the balls of her feet and flicked her eyes from one to the other, Dogmeat mimicking her from the other side.

Charon tilted his head and looked at her mockingly. "But me what? Oh, I can talk? Fucking shocking, isn't it? Most of you scrubs assumed after a while that just because I wasn't talking meant I was some dumb shit who couldn't." He crossed his arms. "Guess what else I could do, Greta. I could listen. Fifty fucking years of listening. Now what you're going to do now is stop disrespecting my employer, and let her do as she pleases, which is exactly what she allows me to do. Or does everyone need to find out who encouraged Gob into believing it was such a fucking fantastic idea to go adventuring?"

Greta swore and stormed back towards Underworld, pausing to give them both a look that was now more fearful now than hateful. The last thing she wanted to risk was losing Carol, and she'd managed to paint herself into a tight corner. Charon suppressed a grin as Cort hooted, smiling brilliantly at him. It really hadn't taken much provocation on his part to lay into Greta, everything he had said being accurate. He had gotten the satisfaction of venting years of frustration and managed to make Cort happy. She was-

Charon frowned. Since when had he cared about Cort being happy? For that matter, when had she become Cort? He looked down at her after carefully blanking his expression. "Are we going to stand around on the damned stairs all night or go inside." He kept his stare impassive as he watched her face fall into something matching his own.

"Yes, we're going inside. Come on." Cort crouched down to shoulder her pack, planting a kiss on the top of Dogmeat's head while she did it, then practically ran in through the doors to the main concourse. Charon stalked after her. He'd definitely hurt her feelings again if she was cuddling the dog. He shook his head violently and followed her up the stairs into Carol's, reprimanding himself. Stop fucking thinking. Too much thinking. All too much.

"Well all right Greta honey, if you're not feeling well. Goodnight. Cort!" Carol turned away from the back of the room and came out around the counter to hug her.

"Hello Carol." Cort leaned into the woman and squeezed back, inhaling in the dried leather and wet copper smell of the woman. I wonder if this is what a mom is like. "Told you I'd be back before I went out again. Got another letter?"

Carol let go and dug around behind the counter. "Yes I do dear, and thank you so much again for taking them with you to my Gobby. Now were you all staying for the night? You look done in."

"Yes please Carol. How much for two beds?" Cort patted around for her pack.

"Nothing, call it a trade for delivering my letters. And we'll include supper with that, won't we dear?"

"Oh yes, please." Cort put her pack against the wall and slumped into one of the chairs, and rolled her head back. "Charon, sit down." She watched him sink into the seat across from her as Carol came back with three bowls of Mac N' Cheese, putting one down for Dogmeat, and plopping an apple in front of Cort.

"Whenever you're finished just go take the two beds right at the back of the far room, you'll be the only ones aside from us tonight. I'm going to bed now, Greta isn't feeling well." She patted Cort on the head and left.

Cort bolted her food as fast as she could, then whispered to Charon, still staring at the bowl. "The other bed's yours, so don't go sleeping in that chair just because I told you to sit in it." Snatching up her apple and pack she headed for bed, Dogmeat following behind. After stripping her armour off, she crawled under the blankets and pulled the dog in after her.

Charon finished eating and sat, waiting. After an hour or so, Cort started snoring, and he moved over to her bed, pausing at the bottom. One arm was flung over the dog, and the other was shoved under the pillow, face mashed into it and drooling. He froze when she shifted, then relaxed and went back to watching her when she stopped after only poking a foot out from the covers. Some time later he collapsed onto his own bed, slowly shaking his head over and over until he fell asleep.


"Cort?" Charon was looking blearily around the room. The kid's bed was empty except for her combat armour neatly piled at the foot. The damned girl had let him sleep out again. His eyes swiveled to focus on Carol as she came over.

"Oh, she's wandering around downstairs somewhere, dear, she's been in and out all morning fussing over things. Probably either selling things to Tulip or talking to Doctor Barrows, unless Winthrop has dragged her into helping with something." The blonde woman waited as he got up and stretched, popping and cracking his neck and shoulders. "There's a bowl of noodles for you on the table." She waved a hand at him and went back to deal with someone waiting at her counter.

After silently eating, Charon headed out into the concourse to look for his employer. He had twitched the front of her armour open, and the girl appeared to be smart enough to keep his contract on her person. He would have to find a way to brief her on the particulars at some point, but for the moment her seemingly particular care with it was adequate. She had wrapped it in plastic she found before leaving the museum and normally kept it behind one of the ablative plates. At the moment he needed to broach the subject of her leaving him senseless. Serving his employer was impossible if he was dead to the world, and after years of being disrupted from sleep, apparently he was incapable of waking up before he was ready to without being woken up by someone else. It was turning out to be a humiliating deficiency.

Not finding her in Tulip's store, Charon stalked to the far end and entered the Chop Shop. Finally. Here she is. Cort was standing next to the ghoul doctor, both of them leaning over another female smoothskin on the bed, neither of them looking up when he entered. Idiot will get herself killed being that oblivious. He bristled, then noticed the dog under one of the gurneys, relaxing from being tensed to spring. Charon relaxed with him. At least one of them understood.

"I can't believe she's still here. We're going to have to wake her up, you know." Cort had crossed her arms and was balancing on one bare foot, scratching the back of her leg with the other.

"I know, we can't keep feeding her intravenously. What would you think of applying a Stimpak directly to the sternum?"

"You're the doctor, not me. I'm just a jumped up medic. But Dad did it for Stanley once when he was unconscious for too long after hitting his head down in the core. Worked then, and she's in better shape now than he was, except for the stupid coma." Cort noticed Charon and looked over. "Hey, sleepyhead."

Charon considered getting into a another pissing match but refrained after deciding he would rather not perform it in front of the doctor, and settled for leaning against the wall, nodding towards her and Barrows.

"Well, it can't do her any harm, so let's try it. Hold her shoulders while I administer it." Cort moved around to press on Reilly's shoulders, taking a firm grip and looking down at her.

"Okie dokes, Doc."

Barrows slammed the Stimpak into her chest, and things rapidly spun out. Reilly jerked like she had been shot, flailing out both arms and violently whipping her head up, while Cort dodged it and crashed into the wall, yelping. "Oh no, not my nose again, no way."

Barrows narrowly dodged being punched where his nose had been, and grabbed the offending arm. "Reilly! Reilly, knock it off!" Cort made it off the wall in time to hang on to the woman's other arm before it connected with the doctor's neck.

"Yeah this was a freaking fantastic idea, Doc."

"Well, it was efficacious. Reilly, snap the fuck out of it!" Barrows yelled in her face and her expression finally cleared.

"I made it to Underworld?"

Cort spoke from somewhere near her armpit. "Well it's sure as hell not the Ritz. Can I let go now, or are you going to go loopy again?"

"What? Yes, let go! I have to get back to my men!" Reilly shot up and just as rapidly collapsed back down. "Fuck!"

"You're not about to go anywhere. You've been in a coma for close to a week." Barrows grabbed a bottle of water and gave it to her. "Thirsty, yes?"

Reilly grabbed it. "Yes, but you don't understand. I left my men on top of the Statesman Hotel, we were cornered by Super Mutants there. I snuck out using a Stealth Boy to get help, but one of the muties popped me before I could make it all the way out. I'm surprised I'm not dead in that culvert I fell into." She paused to greedily chug down the water.

"I understand you'll end up dead in another hole if you leave right now. You're in no condition to go anywhere. Your men will have to make out on their own for the time being." Barrows glared at her. "I'm not having another nutty smoothskin patient blowing out of here before they are entirely ready."

"Hey! I did just fine, thank you very much! And I haven't come back in here for ages aside from to hang out." Cort crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out at him, then staggered when Reilly grabbed her waistband and yanked.

"You, what are you doing?" She looked up at Cort, eyes burning. Cort slumped.

"I'm about to get sucked in again."