"And with your admission that you feel the same, I'll have reached the goal I'm dreaming of, believe me..."

Waking up, Charon looked around blearily and cracked his neck.

"Yegh. Do you know how Godawful it sounds when you do that?" He turned his head to where Cort was sprawled on the floor, reading magazines. She was dressed in her Vault suit again with the sleeves and legs rolled up, and looked distinctly cleaner. Her other clothes were draped out to dry. Chin balanced on her left hand, music quietly emanated from the Pip-Boy below it. Charon raised one eyebrow and experimentally popped a shoulder joint, smiling to himself when she made a gagging motion.

"I don't want to set the world on fire, I just want to start a flame in your heart..."

Reaching over in between page flips, she turned the radio off. "He's due to go back to talking any time now. I've been listening all morning. Caught up on local news, Outcasts, stuff about trees, blah blah blah." She nodded to the corner where a pail stood. "I brought you back some water to clean up with. I didn't think you'd want to wander around the Brotherhood, even if these ones don't seem to be as snotty." Cort wasn't quite sure if this was because of her killing the Behemoth, Three Dog's Ghoul-friendly policy, or something else entirely, but didn't feel like finding out vicariously through Charon just how genuine their tolerance was.

Watching him get up and head for the water, she shuffled herself and her magazines around, reading about new cardiac procedures. Pft. Not exactly new. I think research might be on a permanent hiatus. Flipping the magazine closed, Cort sat up and started scrubbing at her Pip-Boy with a tooth brush she had found, flicking out grime and dirt. She had a delightfully warm suspicious feeling that it belonged to Three Dog. Possibly because she had nicked it out of his room while he was occupied at the board.

"Can't you take that thing off?" Charon rasped out from behind her as she rubbed the bristles under the glove on her left hand, twitching her shoulders happily and humming.

"Yeees, I could probably do that if I wanted to. It's not recommended though, and there's no way in hell I'm ever going to try. It adjusts enough to keep everything clean, I just haven't kept it clean lately. They're literally bomb-proof, but they'll go temporarily dingy if you don't look after them regularly." Finishing up with her violation of the DJ's grooming product, Cort started fiddling with various buttons and dials. Charon came around to the front of her wearing a spare shirt and cargos, the others thrashed enough he had merely balled them up to dispose of later. Sitting down, he watched her run different diagnostic tests as she muttered to herself.

"Are we going to eat?" Cort blinked and looked up at him.

"Huh? Yeah sure, Dogmeat and I already did, sleepyhead. Just dig around in the packs and take out what you want, there's still tons."

Both of them sat in silence for long moments, attending to their separate needs, Charon leaning against the wall when he was finished. Cort completed her last check and looked up at him.

"Soo we're going to talk about you contract, yes?"

"Yes." Charon drew his legs up, resting his arms on his knees.

"So go for it, then. Preferably from the beginning."

"My contract entitles you to my unflinching and loyal service, for whatever you as my employer may require, although combat is the primary function. Physical violence on your part invalidates the agreement. You are responsible for keeping the contract itself intact and on your person, until you should choose to transfer it to another or it is taken, whichever releases me from your employ." Cort sat for a few minutes, waiting for him to continue, blinking a few times when she realized he wasn't going to.

"That's it?"

"Yes, that's it. You needed more?"

"Well, knowing why I can't just give you the thing would be nice, I mean I want you around, but I don't want to make you do it."

Charon looked at her, exasperated. "Have you read my contract?" Cort nodded at him. "Then it should be plain enough. The wording is clear, even for an idiot."

"Hey!"

"I am loyal to the holder of my contract. It doesn't matter that you paid for it, only that you physically have it."

"But that still doesn't explain why I can't gi-" Charon cut her off, rolling his eyes.

"Look Cort, I'm physically unable to take the thing for myself. It'd be pretty pointless to brainwash someone and not slam all the fucking doors on freeing themselves from it. Besides, people before you have tried. I'll just stand here like a moron until someone takes it back off me or I starve to death. I don't like it and I don't want to repeat it, so let it alone."

Jeez, fine. So what do you want me to do?"

"I don't fucking care, as long as you keep it safe for as long as you have it." Charon rubbed a hand over his face and looked at the ceiling. "You've got me now, just make the best of it." He stared upwards as Cort put her head down and thought for a moment before speaking again.

"You don't sound brainwashed."

"Like I said before, I was brainwashed, not lobotomized. If I walked around like a fucking automaton, you might as well stick a damn spotlight on me with a sign saying 'kill this one'. I'm big as it is, being a big dumb robot would just scream out for unwanted attention. So like I said, unless I'm told to shut up, I can say whatever the fuck I want. Helps me to blend in, particularly for anything involving cover or assassinations." Charon stared at his palms. "At least it used to."

Cort tactfully refrained from asking about his last statement. A brief moment of unpleasantness in Underworld had taught her that Carol's willingness to tell stories about being ghoulified was an extremely large exception to the rule. She decided to focus on something entirely different she wanted to know.

"Do you want me to have your contract?"

"It doesn't matter."

Cort narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes it does. To me."

Charon ran a hand over the back of his head and growled. "I would prefer...not to be transferred." He glared at her, waiting for her to push the issue further and relaxed when she didn't.

"Okay." She crossed her legs, chin in her hands and frowning. Dogmeat flopped against her. "I don't like the idea of carrying it around in my armour, plastic or no. For one thing I could lose it, for another, all manner of crap could get into it. I mean it looked like hell already when I got a hold of it. Same thing with any pockets. Anyone trying to steal my shit probably isn't going to be nice either, and God knows what you could be put up to doing in the wrong hands." God only knows what you have been put up to. Cort spent another twenty minutes looking at him, twisting her hand around and around in Dogmeat's fur. Charon stared back until she finally stood up, grinning wildly.

"Got it. That's it. Get dressed and repack, we're taking a quick run back to the Hospital. Everything should still be pretty clear right now." Cort dumped her pack out against the wall in a jumble and started pulling things for a short trip back out of it.

"What?"


Cort had spent four full days scouring every corner of Our Lady of Hope. She wasn't looking for medical supplies, having emptied the place out after going through the first time. Honestly, Charon wasn't sure what she was searching for, although she picked various tools up occasionally. All she had told him was that he needed it, but wouldn't recognize it if he saw it, whatever the hell that meant. Half the things she said gave him a headache if he thought about it too hard. She spent her time sifting through every room, going under beds, into heating vents, and removing rubble piece by piece into new piles. The dog was doing it too, piling up small bits of metal and surgical detritus, which Cort would go through -with the dog, and Charon positively boggled at this- before they moved onto a new section.

"Oh you are Momma's best boy, you found a piece! Now, see this one? It's made of this, so sniff for this one." Cort held up a scrap of silvery dark metal which the dog pressed his nose against and inhaled, before trotting off into the next part of the building. He started barking wildly a short time later, and they found him in one of the unsearched surgical bays, digging at a collapsed wall.

"Sweet! Charon, help me move this stuff out of the way." After shifting the larger sections, Cort and Dogmeat moved around on all fours in the remaining mess, her squinting and the dog snuffling. "Ha, beat you! Here it is." Ruffling the dog's fur and grinning, she sat up and showed Charon a small, flat, dirty metal oval.

"And that is?"

"That, my friend, is job security."


Having laid out everything she needed on a table dragged over to a sunny window in the atrium, Cort sighed happily. After cleaning the pacemaker off, she had popped it open to dig out the innards, resealed it, then sunk it into a bowl of purified water.

"Okay, let's have supper while I test that thing out." She held up two radroaches brought back from a trip to the basement and dangled them.

"You still haven't explained what you're doing." Charon was uneasy. She was almost maniacally cheerful, and maniacal anything usually didn't bode well for her physical integrity. Or his nerves.

"You said, and I quote you directly, you 'don't fucking care'." Cort responded facetiously, then sobered. "You'll find out in an hour or so, and it'll be better if you don't have to dwell on the parts I need you to help with, and if I don't have to voice it out loud. You'll just think I'm insane and I might chicken out."

"Oh, that's much more reassuring, fucking thanks for that."

"Just eat your bug meat."


"Okay. This thing's still air tight, so we're golden. Now, let's see." She took out Charon's contract and folded the thin paper as small as it would go, then nudged it inside the container, sealing it shut. "That paper's so worn there's room to spare in there. It's creased but fine. Now hold that mirror up. No, so it shines some light back on me. Perfect." Cort pulled her armour and shirt off, then sat on the table.

"What the fuck. Are you doing." Charon scowled at her over the mirror.

"Not a striptease, so don't get excited."

"As if."

"Hey!" Cort stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at him while splashing vodka over her chest. "What I'm doing, Mr. Personality, is what you told me to do; keeping you safe." She jammed two Med-X into her right shoulder and picked up a scalpel, looking at it, then into the mirror. "Well this is going to suck." Making a rapid movement, Cort sliced herself open under the right collarbone.

"What the fuck are you DOING?" Breathless, Charon glared at her.

"Being way too obtuse for you, apparently. Hold that damn mirror still." She hissed loudly, wiggling a speculum inside the incision to pull the fat layer away from muscle, then slid the container holding his contract deeply inside. Taking out the tool, she held the cut skin together, blood welling over her fingers. "Whee! Okay, now get over here and stab that Stimpak in right where I put the Med-X. I can't let go of this." Charon complied, not taking his eyes off her face.

"You're absolutely batshit."

"And totally brilliant. Now I can't lose your contract, you'll know where it is at all times, and no one can steal it because nobody else knows where it is. Once I find some paper and a pen, I can even make a forgery to throw people off, in case anyone who knows how it works tries to go after it. I'm squishy enough up top that you won't even be able to tell once the swelling goes down. And this thing's made out of titanium, so it'll be fresh as daisies whenever it comes back out of me." Cort grinned crazily. "Now go check the rooms down the hall for some sheets or something, please. I bled a lot more than I thought I would." She plucked at the scarlet patches on her bra and grimaced.

"Well no fucking shit, Sherlock." Eyes still wide, Charon turned and went as directed.

Cort waited for him to disappear down the hall, then pulled a bottle of brightly glowing water out of her pocket and sighed. "Let's speed this up a bit, shall we?"