Finished my course and passed it! I am soooo tired. On with the show we go!


Stockholm was humming along quietly with his new radio. After memorizing all the songs he had started making up his own creative variations on the lyrics. Within three days he had been instructed by Simms to keep it to a dull roar after the residents had regularly started pelting the guard tower with anything they could find. That had been prompted partly by his inclination to feature members of the town in the colourfully rewritten songs, and the fact that Stockholm was as tone deaf as a dead Brahmin.

He was considering the best way to lyricise the instrumental features when the Vault kid came trudging up the hill. Her appearance this time created an almost unheard of phenomenon; Stockholm went briefly speechless. Cort was striding up the hill like a obscenely armed tortoise, gore-covered and grinning. Behind her was a massive ghoul equally laden, and definitely not grinning. The only reason he had even been positive it was the girl was because of the dog and his funny clothes. She tilted her head back as she walked under him, waving.

"Hi Stockholm!"

"Hi kid!" He watched the trio pass by and go through the inner gate, shrugged, then turned to the Wasteland and went back to his songs. "Huh. Kid gets weirder every time she comes back. 'Each morning Confessor Cromwell speaks nutty divine, he tells the mutant population that radiation is fine...' "


"Wadsworth, I'm home!" Cort shoved the door open with a shoulder after unlocking it, then slumped her pack onto the floor.

Good day Madam! I say, you do appear to be quite a mess. You should seek medical attention." The robot putted down the stairs, examining her closely with an eyestalk.

"I've been a busy little bee, and I will, don't worry. Wadsworth, this is Charon. He lives here now too. Can I have three bottles of water, please?"

Rotating around, Wadsworth looked momentarily at the ghoul before turning back to Cort. "Good day, Sir. Of course, Madam." Cort grabbed the bottles as they dispensed and handed one to Charon before heading into the kitchen to fill Dogmeat's water bowl. Turning, Cort started to strip her armour off.

"I'm sorry I was gone for so long again. Do you ever need me to bring you anything?"

"I am perfectly self-sufficient, Madam, and thank you for your thoughtful consideration. What will be your requirements for today?"

"Cleaning armour and clothes, and putting the stuff in the packs away, like last time, if you please." Letting the last pieces slip to the floor, Cort removed Dogmeat's from him as he drank, then pulled a sheet and lengths of wire out of one of the lockers. Walking next to the kitchen area, she made a makeshift drape to cut it off from the larger room. "There. Now we can at least clean up here if we don't want to tromp to the bathrooms."

She had decided to set up a private area inside the house on the way back to the town. Megaton's washrooms were not large on privacy outside of the stalls, and while Cort had grown up with communal showers as a norm, she did not think Charon would prefer washing where nearly one hundred percent of the populace were smoothskins(not that she thought any of them would be stupid enough to confront the massive ghoul about anything). Particularly since not all of them were tolerant, if her encounters with Gob were accurate.

Charon rasped out from beside the door, sipping his water. "What do you want me to do?"

"Unno, whatever you want? Take your armour and pack off and set them where I put mine, Wadsworth will clean them. They definitely need it." Cort wrinkled her nose. "So do I, so dibs on the sink first. You too, my best boy." Cort smiled as Dogmeat whuffed, then slipped behind the blanket. "After that, clean up, crash, eat, whichever. It's safe here."

After washing and healing up, Cort dressed in her Vault suit again, and directed Charon to take his turn at the sink. Taking Dogmeat outside with a brush she had found conveniently next to where the toothbrush for her Pip-Boy had been, she sat at the little table behind her house and got to work on removing the dirt and gore buried in his fur.

"Whatcha doing?" Cort looked up from a particularly nasty mat of dead hair and into the face of a little brown-haired girl in a white and pink jacket.

Turning back to Dogmeat, she started working her fingers under the clot. "I'm getting all the yucky stuff out of his fur."

"How'd he get so dirty?"

"Oh. Uh, working with me, doing things." She picked out a dried chunk of something that looked suspiciously like lung tissue.

"Can I help?" Cort looked down at her hands, which were currently covered in red flakes. Oh Hell no. Nonono.

"You can help me brush him out again after I get all the ...dirt out. I don't think whoever you belong to would like you to come home with messy hands like I'm getting."

"Okay! Can I go get Harden to help? I'm Maggie." The kid was practically bouncing up and down, clapping her hands. Cort softened.

"Sure."

Charon came out some time later(leaving the robot mumbling about now having three times the mess), dressed in another spare shirt and cargos. One nice thing about the Talon Company was the seemingly unlimited supply of almost new clothing. Cort slid out of the chair to the decking and waved him over to it, where he sat and silently watched the surrounding area. He was already aware of at least three people observing from what they thought were discreet locations. The Sheriff passed by to and from the gate and also stared, but with an open, neutral 'I'm here, I noticed you, don't start fucking around' look that Charon understood and appreciated. He supposed the man would eventually come over, but seemed to be purposefully leaving Cort alone for the time being. After talking more on the way to Megaton, he had gathered that Simms was her very first grudge on the outside. Fucking sucks to be you, fella. Charon snorted and turned his attention back to Cort and the dog.

"How long are we staying here?" Cort tilted her head up to him, scratching her nose on the back of one arm.

"Tonight and tomorrow, leave the next morning. I don't know about you, but I need a rest. I was ready to go right back out again, but we're been running around for ages, and I haven't had any real down time since I got hurt at the MoT first time around." She brushed the last of the grime out of Dogmeat, then swept the pile of loose fur and dessicated gore off the back of the walkway, knocking the brush out and placing it on the table. "I'll be right back, I need to wash all this crap off my hands." Charon watched her head back into the house, then resumed scanning the area. He was up to five people now watching him, one of the original three having been replaced by someone new. Hearing feet pounding towards his location, he stiffened and whipped his head to the left.

"See Harden I told you she was back with the- oh, hi! Where did the lady go?" Charon looked down and blinked. Two children, a boy and a girl, were looking at him questioningly. He blinked again, processing. These were the first kids he had seen in well over half a century, and the last encounter had not involved questioning looks. What it had involved was wide-eyed staring and a certain amount of screaming. Shaking himself mentally and putting that new experience aside for the moment, he replied.

"Inside. Washing her hands."

"Can we start brushing the dog?" Now they were looking hopefully at him, asking for what he thought was permission to groom the mutt. Charon frowned and thought for a minute before coming to a conclusion.

"Not without her." Deciding that the children weren't a threat(for the moment, anyway) he went back to scanning the town. There were still five watching, but the other four had also rotated out to new people, all dressed in various types of white clothing. While not necessarily unsettling, it was definitely approaching odd. Charon was contemplating what action to take when Cort came out of the house, swinging two Nuka Colas. Flopping next to the chair, she handed one to the ghoul.

"Hey, Maggie! Is this your friend Harden?" She looked over to the boy.

"Yup!"

Cort nodded in his direction. "Hi Harden."

"Hi, Miss Cort."

"Miss Cort? I bet I know who your dad is then. Simms?"

"Yes, Miss Cort."

"Lovely manners. Lost art out here, let me tell you. Okay, you two can brush out Dogmeat, just be gentle." Cort snaked an arm up to grab the brush, then handed it to Maggie. "And make sure you share." Cort grinned and sat back. Observing the kids would be fascinating. There hadn't been any opportunity to study them outside of when her own age group in the Vault had been younger and she certainly hadn't been in an arbitrary position then to have unbiased opinions and-

"Cort." Her name pulling her out of her musings, she looked up to Charon. He was scowling, chalky eyes flicking in multiple directions.

"Mhm? What. What is it." She started looking around for anything threatening. It would have to be something from the inside; there was no way Talon Company would have made it past the gates.

"Who the hell are the jackoffs in the white clothes staring at me." He pointed to what was now six different locations, clustering closer to them every few minutes.

"Oh, balls. Those are the bomb-worshippers."

"The what?"

"They worship the bomb in the middle of town as a god, and consider nuclear explosions as a happy good thing, instead of you know, total suck like regular people. Right now, they're probably working up the nerve to come worship you."

"...WHAT? You're fucking kidding me."

Cort flicked her hands absently towards where the kids were clustered around Dogmeat, who was positively wiggling at the attention. "Language, please. Seriously, they probably see you as like, I don't know. Blessed or an angel or something equally idiotic." She sighed. "We've got two choices. You can go back inside and avoid the buggers, or sit out here and wait for them to finally come over and start bothering us." Frowning as another figure joined one of the groups, Cort stood up and dusted her rear off. "You know what, no. Three choices. I'll be right back."

Charon watched her storm off towards the group to the right, hair bouncing up crazily, as the boy piped up from where he was taking his turn brushing the dog. "So are you like, Miss Cort's Argyle?"

Charon gripped his forehead, not having a nose to pinch any longer, while holding back a stream of expletives. "Yes. Yes I am."


"You loonies can knock it off right now. You're weirding out my friend and annoying me." Cort had made a bee-line for the cluster of people containing Confessor Cromwell.

"My child, we are but coming to bask in the presence of one who has been blessed by the Gift of Atom!"

Putting her hands on her hips, she looked Cromwell up and down as he stared at her beatifically. Oh no. nonono, we're nipping this fruitcakery in the bud right here. Something must keep them away from Gob. "Right. So what happens when you try to go and bask in Moriarty's?"

"Colin Moriarty has been...unwilling to allow us access to the Blessed of Atom. A travesty of great proport-"

Cort cut him off. "Right. And whatever happens to you when you try to go bask at the bartender is going to end up ten times worse if you try to bask with him. He will either shoot you, or I will do something much, much more slow and inventive." Cort grinned wickedly and capped off the physical threat with something psychological. "If you want to even have him set foot back in this town again, you'll turn around and trot back to whatever the hell it was you were doing and not even so much as look at him, otherwise you will drive this 'Blessed of Atom' right out of Megaton. He won't come back. Your fault."

Cromwell stared at Cort, his face going gradually paler, from which threat she wasn't sure. "We will not endanger the chance to increase the holiness of our town. We shall be a shining example to the Wasteland, my brothers and sisters! A beacon of peace to the Blessed of Atom everywhere!" Turning for one last look at her, he led his party back to the crater bowl after motioning away those on the other side. Cort lolled her head back and groaned to herself.

"Oh thank God and green apples that worked. I really would have hated to go to Simms for help." Cort walked back to the little group at the table, where Charon had his face buried in one hand. Hmm, maybe too much kid exposure. I'll have to observe them later, then. Thank you so much, resident cultists. "All right you two, time to scat. Any more brushing and he won't have fur left! Besides, Miss Cort has errands to run."


The trio had headed back indoors, Cort leaning beside the door as Charon and Dogmeat came in.

"Okay, they probably shouldn't bother you after that. I think. At least they're not trying to kill you?" Cort crossed her arms and shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh and that's much fucking better. If they were doing that I could just blow them the fuck away and have done with it."

"The glass is always half empty with you isn't it."

"The glass went dry and smashed a while ago." Cort frowned at his back. Pessimist.

"Well pick up the pieces, put them in my glass and come on. There's errands to run and I'll need help to carry the stuff to sell. Besides, after we tromp through the middle of town carrying that many weapons, everyone should leave all of us alone."

Cort and Charon blew into Moira's carrying no less than twenty rifles and assorted pistols between them, along with various bits of junk and tech. "Hi Moira!"

"Oh hey honey, long time no see! Wow, aren't you just armed to the teeth! I'd hug ya but I'd probably get stabbed by something, haha! And you've got a new friend!" Moira beamed at Charon as he stared impassively back at her. "Such a nice big fella too!"

"I got that stuff done in the Super Duper Mart for you." Cort dug out the food and supplies she had scavenged from the decrepit store.

"Oh super! Tell me all about it, I can't wait to hear what you found!"

Charon listened as the crazy woman went through a more detailed explanation of the insane tasks for Cort to do after she had briefed her on the supermarket encounter, Moira giving Cort a food sanitizer to take with her as payment for the completed job. Along with this came a dirty stick and a small sensor required for something involving Mirelurks and molerats. If this is where she was getting her marching orders from it's a wonder she didn't end up fucking flayed out on a rock somewhere. He was more than ready to crawl out what was left of his skin by the time Cort finished up and swung a much smaller sack of caps over her shoulder.

"So the extra bed, laboratory equipment, infirmary and workbench will be delivered later today?"

"Youbetcha! I'll run them down for you around suppertime!"

"Peachy! I'll stop in and visit before I leave again, there's some ...stuff I need to talk to you about later." She waved to Moira and went back out the door, turning to Charon. "Okay, I just need to go visit Gob and give him Carol's letters."

"Joy."

Cort slapped him gently on the back. "Oh, buck up. Come on, I'll buy you a drink."