It was more than a little after sunset when they finally made it to Smith Casey's Garage, having stayed as stealthy as possible on the way there to avoid any more insanity. Currently tucked behind a rotting old car sometime well after midnight, all three of them were looking towards a group of raiders slumped in front of the building.

"Jesus, these guys really are everywhere out around here. What's that one wearing?" Cort pointed to the one with a large tank on her back.

"That is a fucking flamer. You don't want to go anywhere near it, take it out from a distance. Otherwise you'll be fucking crisped."

"Will it blow up if I shoot it?" Charon blinked at her, looking blank for a moment before grinning darkly.

"Let's find out."

While the flamer tank did nothing more than vent gas after Cort shot it, the wrecked truck next to it blew up with a satisfying 'whoomp' that took out most of the raiders. The resulting chain reaction with other vehicles finished off the rest as she sat behind their shelter on the broken asphalt, tugging on Dogmeat's ears and giggling wearily while waiting for the fires to burn down. "Was that all of them?"

"Think so. At least I don't see anything fucking running around and screaming anymore. We're good to move now, last fire's going out."

Charon moved cautiously out of cover as Cort shoved back against the car and pushed herself up the side of it, yawning deeply before following after the ghoul. After another insanely crazy day she was unbelievably tired, weary, and on the verge of another collapse. If this was indeed the correct location of Vault 112, she would be either finding her father or having her hopes dashed to bits once again, with another unknown location to drag herself towards. Cort wasn't sure what she dreaded more, not finding James yet again, or facing him as the person she had been turning into. I'm a genetic freak, I shot part of my own ear off trying to kill myself, ate part of a dead person, my pet dog slaughters people, and I cut myself open for a brainwashed ghoul mercenary. Oh, and I think I'm just a teeny tiny bit psychotic now! Choking back a handful of laughs into hiccups, she jogged to catch up to where Charon stood by the door to the garage, checking her Pip-Boy and telling him what she saw.

"There's stuff in there. Hostile."

"Fucking wonderful." Cort pulled out her silenced pistol as Charon opened the door and then kicked it wide, thankfully finding nothing more than molerats and radroaches to finish off. Dogmeat trotted across the room to one of the rodent's corpses once they were done and sat down to chew on it as the other two of them wandered around the interior looking through things, Cort happily bee-lining it for the flickering Nuka Cola machine in the corner as Charon went into the mechanical bay. He called out to her after a moment. "Cort."

Wandering blearily through to the adjacent room a second later, helmet in one hand and a partially consumed soda in the other, she walked over to where the ghoul was standing in one of the corners, absently noting the hollow noise her boots were making on the floor. "Hmm?"

"Turn your light on, I think I found something." Complying with his request, Cort flicked a switch and then held her arm up. There was a large power box on the wall with a breaker switch, which he was leaning towards. "Fucking thing's still humming." Brightening hopefully, she clenched her right hand tighter around the Nuka bottle and looked at him.

"Well, flick it then. Maybe it's got something to do with the stupid Vault." A moment later she was crashing into the ground with a yelp, arms held comically high as she prevented the cola from spilling while her head connected with the dirty concrete. "Oowww!" Looking up in time to see the retracting door panels she had been standing on recede entirely into the floor, Cort clutched the back of her head and then gently placed the bottle as far away from herself as she could reach. "Okay so that wasn't quite worth what this feels like."

"No shit, Sherlock." Charon came over and pulled her up, keeping an eye on the gaping hole now running the length of the room. Wobbling over to it, Cort peered down into a metal staircase that glowed softly with security lighting. Whistling to Dogmeat, she retrieved her helmet and started descending once they were all together.

"This looks like one of the Metro utility rooms." Turning to look at the ghoul as he blasted another molerat, she moved deeper into the area, finding a second staircase leading to a lower floor with a flanged security door. Jerking the handle and opening it, Cort walked through into another set of tunnels, her voice starting to break. "If this turns out to be filled with fucking train cars, I'm going to be so pissed off." She hitched to a stop after turning the last corner, staring. "Not fucking train cars."

Towering at the end of the circular corridor was a dully gleaming Vault door, 112 printed on it in near pristine white paint. Breaking into a run, Cort sped towards the far end, skidding to a breathless halt in front of the door control panel as Charon came up behind her.

"Can you open that thing?" Cort ran her fingers over the buttons, snorting.

"If there's one thing I can open, it's Vault-Tec shit. I spent enough time being contained by it just to do it on fucking principle." Amber safety lights starting to flash as the klaxon sounded, she slapped her hands over her ears, muttering under her breath. "I hate this sound. This sound was the end of everything." The massive door pulled back with a rending squeal and she scrunched her eyes shut as well, waiting for the tell-tale clattering to stop and tell her the giant metal plug had come to a halt. Pulling out her pistol when it had finished, Cort moved cautiously into the clean, slightly familiar and entirely vacant entryway, then stopped and frowned worriedly. "This is wrong. If this was 101 there would be at least one security guard here to prevent us from tampering with the door, not that it actually worked. The noise definitely should have drawn someone, and double-time."

Moving to a door on the left after triggering the main Vault one to close, she levered it open and walked slowly down the corridor, opening a similar door before stopping dead. "What? What the hell is the mainframe room doing here? It shouldn't be thi-" her voice cut off abruptly as a Robobrain moved from around the corner and rolled quietly up to her, speaking in a flanged and soothing feminine voice.

"Welcome to Vault 112, resident! According to sensors, you have arrived 202.3 years behind schedule. Please redress in your Vault-Tec issued Vault suit before proceeding. If you have misplaced your suit, I am authorized to distribute a new one. Once dressed, please proceed down the stairs to the main floor so that you may enter your assigned Tranquility Lounger."

"Uh. Yes, I need a new suit, please." The robot pulled one delicately from an internal compartment with its pincers and gave it to Cort, then rolled off to perform another task. Charon spoke up as it receded.

"It fucking thinks you're supposed to be here?"

"It's probably because of my Pip-Boy." Cort fingered the device, looking up at him.

"So were those fucking things in the Vault back home?" Charon lowered his shotgun and carefully continued to watch the machine as it slowly whirred away.

"No, we just had a Mister Handy, no creepy brain ladies. This one seems to be completely non-hostile like Andy was though. We certainly didn't have whatever the hell a Tranquility Lounger is. Charon, I don't like the look of this place. It's all wrong."

"Took the words out of my fucking mouth. What now?" Fingering the smooth new material of the 112 suit she was holding, Cort looked around.

"Keep looking for Dad. There have to be more people in here somewhere, it's a Vault. They were designed to save bunches of people, not robots. Besides, he came here looking for someone, Doctor Braun."

Proceeding into the next area through jarringly familiar doors, they emerged onto a catwalk running the length of a dimly lit, cavernous room. Here Cort found the residents she had been looking for, encased in pods surrounding a giant, cable wrapped pillar with garish red lights glimmering out of it. She stared down into the area, mouth ajar and eyes wide before speaking quietly.

"Okay, this little quest I'm on has officially reached the 'totally fucking creepy' threshold." Breaking away, she ran back out of the catwalk and down the stairs, heading for a new door, Charon and the dog hot on her heels. Bursting into the new room, she rushed up to a pod and pressed her face against it. "Look for him, look for him!"

Starting on the opposite side, the ghoul methodically walked up to each pod in turn and peered in as Dogmeat wandered around the edges of the room, sniffing and looking confused. He found what his employer had been dying to locate, sometimes quite literally, on his third attempt. There was no question it was her father. "Here." Charon pulled his brows together. He could have been staring at a sleeping Cort, if she had been older, taller and a man. The hair was a different colour, and it was hard to see the shape of his jaw through the beard, but his face was the same, handsome where hers was pretty. Her face was pressed against the curved glass a moment later, wailing.

"Daddy! Oh God, get it open!" She started pulling at the side of the lid, fingers scrabbling frantically against the seams. Backing up when it didn't work, she pulled her pistol and fired at the latching mechanism, flinching when the slugs ricocheted off. Charon grabbed it from her a second later.

"Knock it the fuck off, you'll kill one of us if you keep freaking the fuck out. Calm down and use your shitting brain." Both of them turned when another friendly Robobrain wheeled over to them.

"Warning, unauthorized interruption of the occupied Tranquility Lounger will terminate current resident. Please desist and enter your own assigned Tranquility Lounger when you are ready."

Cort grabbed her hair and shrieked. "FUCK!" Looking around wildly, she dove for the computer terminal attached to the pillar in front of her father's pod. "Fuck fuck fuck, you can't open them here, only check the occupant's status." She slammed the keyboard up and moved to the next terminal, repeating the action until she had made the entire circuit and paced back and forth in front of the only empty pod, still pulling on her hair. "Tranquility Lounger my ass. All of these people have elevated stress levels or something else wrong with their readings. I have to get in there." Skidding to a halt, she stripped down to her underwear, then yanked the 112 Vault suit on. Charon placed a hand on her shoulder as she did up the zipper.

"Cort." She rounded on him, screaming.

"WHAT?" He stared back at her implacably.

"You need to calm down. Now what the fuck are these things?"

Distracted by the question, her voice leveled out as she answered. "Uh, they're probably some kind of virtual reality simulation. You get in and what you see, it looks and feels real, like a really vivid dream. It could be anything, really, whatever the programmer makes it out to be."

"So you don't have any fucking idea what's in there."

"My Dad's in there, and that means I have to go in."

"You haven't slept all fucking day and you're going to pieces because of it. Please try to tell me how it's a great fucking idea for you to jump into that fucking thing and go barreling off into the unknown, tired as shit. I bet it'll be a fucking awesome idea, because we both know that always works out so fucking fantastic for you."

She walked over and leaned her face against the glass, looking in at James. "But he's right here, I have to go, Charon." Dogmeat came up to her and whined loudly, and she dropped immediately down to the floor, stroking his head and hugging him as she calmed the animal. "Oh no, it's okay, baby. Don't worry, Momma's fine, really." The dog pressed into her and whuffed quietly. Charon came over to watch Cort's actions closely and the animal's response to them before replying.

"Look Cort, you're a fucking wreck. He's right there, you got him, and he's sure as shit not going anywhere this time, so take a fucking minute or two to rest before you run in and royally screw yourself over. Again." Exceedingly tired and starting to formulate an idea that had just occurred to him, Charon reached down to her, not willing to take no for an answer unless it was a direct order. "Come on, there's those empty rooms off the catwalk we can go bunk down in." Cort stared down at her hands and then back up at Charon, pointedly refusing to look at the pod holding her father again. She reached up to him hesitantly and he pulled her up, holding onto her wrist as he walked away from the area and up the stairs after grabbing her scattered clothing and pack.

Cort started fretting as she trod up the stairs behind him, her voice breaking again. "I want my Dad and my head hurts."

"You've found him and that's what happens when you fucking land on it, jackass." Coming into the first room they reached he let go of her and her belongings, then pushed the lock button on the door, not willing to risk leaving it open if one of the Robobrains decided to preemptively shove her into one of the pods. Slinging his own pack and armour off as well as removing the dog's, he pulled her over again and sat down after spreading out their blankets.

After gathering her into his lap, Charon put his new plan into practice, holding her against him and slowly running one hand over her head and neck. Gratified when she started calming down almost instantly, he continued the motions until she hesitantly spoke up.

"What are you...are you petting me?"

"You do it for the mutt when he pitches a fit." He paused in his movements, frowning. "Am I doing it wrong?"

Cort closed her eyes, thought about how his rough hand dragging through her hair had felt before answering him. "No, you're not."

Immediately Charon started raking his fingers over the back of her head again, rubbing down behind her ears and the sides of her neck as he pressed his other hand against her stomach. This was proving to be a fantastic tactical approach on his part to these particular situations, and he didn't know why he hadn't attempted it previously, having successfully taken cues from the mutt before. It also seemed to be working much, much faster. Congratulating himself for coming up with an improved and much more effective strategy, he tightened his arm around her as she pushed back against him.

After Cort's breathing had lengthened into deep, even movements which he took as a sign she was falling asleep, he smoothly transferred her to a lying position, keeping one massive hand on her waist as he settled behind her on the floor. As distressing as her fits had been to him previously on multiple levels, both conscious and unconscious, he decided he liked taking care of them, and her. He liked what he had just done to her immensely, in point of fact, and carefully thought about it in detail as he drifted off. He would have to try more of it, to see if had preventative uses, and because he wanted to. She said I could do whatever the hell I wanted after she hired me. I want to do more of that. Charon fell asleep in a calmer frame of mind than he could ever remember being in, slipping under as a small, slender hand wrapped itself around his own.


Cort was staring at the far wall, her mind a riot of confusion and her body in a total uproar. She felt like she was burning from the inside out, with a raging desire to stretch out every muscle as far as she could to try and reach the ache that had settled inside of her. Closing her eyes and snapping them open again just as quickly, she held onto Charon's hand where it rested on her side and thought rapidly. What the hell just happened. What the hell did he just DO to me? Fuck, you know exactly what he did, you lived under a rock, you weren't born under it. What he did was wind your hormones up higher than a fucking kite. The real Goddamned question is does he know what he's done, and what you're going to do about it. Cort decided that answer to the former question, after a short period of deliberation, was an emphatic no. While incredibly fussy over her well-being, he had never shown any indication of wanting to fuss with that. She wasn't even quite sure what to do if he had, not being exposed to anything in the Vault that had managed to get her proverbial motor running, and nothing outside of it staying around long enough to either. Not like this. What was she going to do about this?

Patting her hand to get Dogmeat to move closer from where he had laid down earlier, she dug her other hand into the accustomed place on his ruff and closed her eyes, frustrated and finding the day entirely too long and complicated. I don't have time for this. Not right now. Too much damned thinking, that's what I've been doing. Too much.